Mobutu Sese Seko

Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga (Lisala, Belgian Congo, October 14, 1930-Rabat, Morocco, September 7, 1997) was a soldier and dictator of the Republic of Zaire. He has been described as the epitome of the African dictator, known for the kleptocracy he came to establish in that nation, with foreign support.

He was the first and only president of the Republic of Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, between November 1965 and March 1997, and Commander-in-Chief of the Congolese Army from 1965 until his overthrow in May 1997.

Biography

Early Years

Born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu in Lisala, Belgian Congo, into a family of Ngbandi ethnicity, one of the smallest ethnic groups in the country and from a remote area considered rustic by a Congolese urban. Mobutu's mother, Marie Madeleine Yemo, worked as a hotel maid and had fled to Lisala from the harem of a local village chief. There she had met Albéric Gbemani, who worked as a cook for a Belgian judge. Yemo married Gbemani two months before Mobutu's birth. The name Mobutu, (which means warrior), was chosen by his uncle. Gbemani died when Mobutu was eight years old, and the lack of subsequent information about him would be used by his critics to portray Mobutu as the bastard offspring of a woman only one step away from being a prostitute.

The wife of the Belgian judge fell in love with the boy and taught him to speak, read and write French fluently. Yemo relied on the help of relatives to support his four children, and the family moved often. Mobutu's earliest studios were at Léopoldville; his mother eventually sent him with his uncle to Coquilhatville, where he attended school, a Catholic mission boarding school.

With a physically imposing figure, he dominated sports in school, but he also excelled academically, even as an athlete, running to school daily to attend classes. He was also known for his banter and mischievous sense of humor; a classmate recalled that when Belgian priests, whose mother tongue was Flemish, made a mistake in speaking, Mobutu would quickly step in to point out the mistake. In 1949, Mobutu set out on board a ship for Léopoldville, a city considered a den of vice by priests, and met a girl. The priests found him several weeks later, and at the end of the school year he was sent to the Force Publique (FP), the Belgian-Congolese army, a punishment for extremely rebellious students and where he spent seven years.

Mobutu would recall his time in the army, rising to the rank of sergeant, as the happiest in his life. He found discipline in military life and a foster father in Sergeant Joseph Bobozo. Mobutu kept pace with his studies by borrowing European newspapers from Belgian officers, and reading whatever books he could find, reading them on his watch duty or at his spare time. His favorite books were those written by French President Charles de Gaulle, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Italian philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli. After taking an accounting course, he began to practice journalism professionally. He married Marie Antoinette when she was 14, a normal age for marriage in traditional Congolese society. Still angry after his clashes with the school's priests, he didn't get married in the church. His contribution to the wedding festivities was a crate of beer, the only thing he was able to provide out of his army salary.

As a soldier, Mobutu wrote, under a pseudonym, about contemporary politics for a magazine founded by Belgian settlers, "Actualités Africaines". In 1956, he left the army and became a full-time journalist, writing daily for the newspaper L'Avenir, in the city of Léopoldville. Two years later, he went to Belgium to cover the 1958 World's Fair where he stayed to receive training in journalism. On this occasion, Mobutu met many young Congolese intellectuals who were challenging the laws of the colonial country. He became friends with prominent ones, the most important of which would be the later first president Patrice Lumumba, and joined the Congolese National Movement. Mobutu eventually became Lumumba's personal aide, although several contemporaries indicate that Mobutu had been recruited by Belgian intelligence services as an informant.

During the speeches in Brussels about Congolese independence in 1960, the US embassy hosted a reception to get a better view of the Congolese delegation. Each member of the American embassy was assigned lists with the names of the Congolese delegates with whom they should meet and share impressions. The ambassador observed: 'An unknown name emerges. But he was not on any list, since he was not an official member of the delegation, but Lumumba's secretary & # 34;. But everyone agreed that he was a "very intelligent, very young, somewhat immature, but a man with great potential" man.

Independence of the Congo and coming to power

In the years following Congo's independence, on June 30, 1960, a coalition government was formed, led by Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba under President Joseph Kasavubu. The new nation was quickly caught up in the Congo Crisis. As the army mutinied against the remaining Belgian officers, Lumumba appointed Mobutu as Commander-in-Chief of the army; once appointed, he traveled the country convincing soldiers to return to their barracks. Encouraged by the initiative of the Belgian government to continue access to the rich mines of the Congo, violent secessionist movements arose in the south. Upset that the United Nations forces sent to restore order were not helping to defeat the secessionists, Lumumba appealed to the Soviet Union for help, receiving massive military aid and over a thousand advisers within 6 weeks. technicians. The US government saw this as a blatant Cold War maneuver to spread communism in central Africa. Kasavubu, irritated by the Soviet arrival, fires Lumumba. Lumumba in turn, outraged, declares Kasavubu deposed. Both Lumumba and Kasavubu order Mobutu to stop the other. In his role as head of the army, Mobutu came under great pressure from various sources. The embassies of Western nations (which helped pay soldiers' salaries), as well as Kasavubu's and Mobutu's subordinates, benefited from the disappearance of the Soviet presence.

On September 14, 1960, Mobutu seized control in a CIA-orchestrated coup, placing Lumumba under house arrest for a second time and keeping Kasavubu as President. In 1965, the then Lieutenant General Mobutu seized power from President Kasavubu after another dispute between him and Prime Minister Moise Tshombe, naming himself president for five years. He quickly centralized power and put down a coup attempt in 1967. In 1970 he was officially elected president and began his pro-African, anti-European campaign.

The Republic of Zaire: 1971-1996

On October 27, 1971, Mobutu changed the name of the country to Zaire. In 1972, the name was changed to Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Wa Za Banga ("The almighty warrior who, due to his endurance and inflexible will, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake"), and Mobutu Sese Seko as a short version. His name has been variously translated and interpreted, and there is no consensus as to which form is most appropriate.

Mobutu met with Prince Bernard in 1973.

He is one of the few African leaders to support the apartheid regime in South West Africa.

Kleptocracy

Mobutu with Richard Nixon in 1973.

Carried out in 1974, the "Zairenization", one of the most important events by the Mobutu regime, the gradual nationalization of commercial properties and plots owned by foreign citizens or financial groups. In reality, this measure was officially part of an effort for the reappropriation of the national economy, as well as redistribution of the wealth acquired during the colonial period, but it was mostly a failure.

In the early days, he nationalized foreign firms and drove European investors out of the country. This led to an economic crisis of such magnitude that in 1977 he tried to bring back foreign investors. In that same year, he needed the help of Belgium to defeat the Katanga rebels who were attacking from Angola. He stayed in power through the support of Western powers, mainly the United States and France. In general, he cared little for the duties of his position, although he did take the trouble to add to his personal fortune, which in 1984 amounted to US$4 billion, most of which was in banks. Swiss. This sum was almost equal to the country's external debt at that time. In 1989 the government was forced to declare the suspension of interest payments and maturities of international loans. All this earned Mobutu the reputation of being the leader of a government, a perfect example of kleptocracy.

According to the corruption watchdog Transparency International, Mobutu Sese Seko, the president of Zaire between 1965 and 1997, stole at least US$5 billion from the country.

Coalition government

In May 1990, due to economic and social problems, Mobutu agreed to lift the ban on political parties, and formed a transitional government pending elections, despite which he retained significant powers. However, uprisings by soldiers whose wages were owed forced him to include opponents in his government. In 1993, the government split into two factions, one for and one against Mobutu. The anti-Mobutu government was led by Laurent Monsengwo and Étienne Tshisekedi. The economic situation was still chaotic, and in 1994 the governments came together. Mobutu appointed Kengo Wa Dongo, a supporter of austerity and a liberal market, as prime minister. Mobutu's health was deteriorating and on one of his trips for medical treatment in Europe, the Tutsis, one of the main native peoples, captured much of eastern Zaire.

Fall from power

The Tutsis had opposed Mobutu for his open support of the Hutus in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. When it was decreed in 1996 that the Tutsis had to leave the country under threat of death, the rebellion broke out. From eastern Zaire, and with the support of President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, a major push to oust Mobutu began, also joined by many local residents who disagreed with the government. On May 16, 1997, after unsuccessful attempts at pacification, the Tutsi rebels and other groups opposed to Mobutu grouped into the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (Alliance of Democratic Forces to the liberation of Congo-Zaire) occupied the capital, Kinshasa. Zaire was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mobutu escaped, and Laurent-Désiré Kabila became the new president. At the time of her flight from the country and shortly before his death, his personal fortune was estimated to be between 5 and 6 billion dollars. At the same time, he had left the Congolese state a public debt of 13 billion dollars.

Death

While in exile in Rabat (Morocco) when France refused to accept him, Mobutu died on September 7, 1997 of prostate cancer that had developed since 1962. He is buried in the city's cemetery.