Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa za Banga ( ; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997), often shortened to Mobutu Sese Seko or Mobutu and also known by his initials MSS, was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the first and only president of Zaire from 1971 to 1997. Previously, Mobutu served as the second president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from 1965 to 1971.
Mobutu served as the fifth chairperson of the Organisation of African Unity from 1967 to 1968. During the Congo Crisis in 1960, Mobutu, then serving as Chief of Staff of the Congolese Army, deposed the nation's democratically elected government of Patrice Lumumba with the support of the U.S. and Belgium. Mobutu installed a government that arranged for Lumumba's execution in 1961, and continued to lead the country's armed forces until he took power directly in a second coup in 1965.
To consolidate his power, Mobutu established the Popular Movement of the Revolution as the sole legal political party in 1967, changed the Congo's name to Zaire in 1971, and his own name to Mobutu Sese Seko in 1972. Mobutu protected his rule through an intensely totalitarian regime and corrupt patronage network to regime supporters. He presided over widespread human rights violations. He attempted to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence through his program of "national authenticity".Vieira, Daviel Lazure: Precolonial Imaginaries and Colonial Legacies in Mobutu's "Authentic" Zaire in: Exploitation and Misrule in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa, (edited by) Kalu, Kenneth and Falola, Toyin, pp. 165–191, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019David F. Schmitz, The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1965–1989, pp. 9–36, 2006, Cambridge University Press Mobutu was the object of a pervasive cult of personality.
Mobutu claimed that his political ideology was "neither left nor right, nor even centre", but was primarily recognized for his opposition to communism within the region and received strong support (military, diplomatic and economic) from the United States, France, and Belgium as a result. He built close ties with the governments of apartheid South Africa and Israel. As a result of the Sino-Soviet split, Mobutu established close relations with China.
Mobutu was notorious for corruption and nepotism: estimates of his personal wealth range from $50 million to $5 billion,Washington Post, "Mobutu: A Rich man In Poor Standing". 2 October 1991. amassed through economic exploitation and corruption as president. His rule has been called a kleptocracy for allowing this personal fortune even as the economy of Zaire suffered from uncontrolled inflation, a large debt, and massive currency devaluations. Mobutu was further known for extravagances such as shopping trips to Paris via the supersonic Concorde aircraft.
By 1990, economic deterioration and unrest forced Mobutu Sese Seko into a coalition with political opponents and to allow a multiparty system. While he deployed troops to resist change, these efforts were short-lived. In May 1997, rebel forces led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila overran the country and forced him into exile. Already suffering from advanced prostate cancer, he died three months later in Morocco.
Early life and education Mobutu, a member of the Ngbandi ethnic group, was born in 1930 in Lisala, Belgian Congo. Mobutu's mother, Marie Madeleine Yemo, was a hotel maid who fled to Lisala to escape the harem of a local village chief. There she met and married Albéric Gbemani, a cook for a Belgian judge. Shortly afterward she gave birth to Mobutu. The name "Mobutu" was selected by an uncle.
Gbemani died when Mobutu was eight.Wrong, Michela (2009) In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo. HarperCollins. . pp. 70–72 Thereafter, he was raised by an uncle and a grandfather.
The Belgian judge's wife took a liking to Mobutu and taught him to speak, read, and write fluently in French, the official language of the colony. His widowed mother Yemo relied on the help of relatives to support her four children, and the family moved often. Mobutu's earliest education took place in the capital Léopoldville (now Kinshasa). His mother eventually sent him to an uncle in Coquilhatville (present-day Mbandaka), where he attended the Christian Brothers School, a Catholic-mission boarding school. He excelled in academic subjects and ran the class newspaper. He was known for his pranks and impish sense of humour. A voracious reader of history books, he read about and admired historical figures such as Napoleon and French president Charles de Gaulle. His favourite book was The Prince by Italian Renaissance philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli.
A classmate recalled that when the Belgian priests, whose first language was Dutch, made an error in French, Mobutu would leap to his feet in class and point out the mistake. In 1949 Mobutu stowed away aboard a boat, travelling downriver to Léopoldville, where he met a girl. The priests found him several weeks later. At the end of the school year, in lieu of being sent to prison, he was ordered to serve seven years in the colonial army, the Force Publique (FP). This was a usual punishment for rebellious students.Wrong, pp. 72–74
Army service Mobutu found discipline in army life, as well as a father figure in Sergeant Louis Bobozo. Mobutu kept up his studies by borrowing European newspapers from the Belgian officers and books from wherever he could find them, reading them on sentry duty and whenever he had a spare moment. His favourites were the writings of Charles de Gaulle, British prime minister Winston Churchill, and Niccolò Machiavelli. After passing a course in accounting, Mobutu began to dabble professionally in journalism. Still angry after his clashes with the school priests, he did not marry in a church. His contribution to the wedding festivities was a crate of beer, all his army salary could afford.Wrong, pp. 74–75
Early political involvement As a soldier, Mobutu wrote under a pseudonym on contemporary politics for the magazine Actualités Africaines (African News). In 1956, he quit the army and became a full-time journalist,Wrong, p. 75 writing for the Léopoldville daily L'Avenir. Susan Williams states that during his time at L'Avenir, Mobutu had been recruited as an informer for the Belgian colonial government in Léopoldville.
Two years later, he went to Belgium to cover the 1958 World Exposition and stayed to receive training in journalism. By this time, Mobutu had met many of the young Congolese intellectuals who were challenging colonial rule. He became friendly with Patrice Lumumba and joined Lumumba's Congolese National Movement (MNC). Mobutu eventually became Lumumba's personal aide. Several contemporaries indicate that Belgian intelligence had recruited Mobutu to be an informer to the government.Wrong, pp. 76 Further, Susan Williams explains that: "Mobutu caught the eye of an American working at the US embassy in Brussels: Lawrence Raymond Devlin (...). (...) But his position at the embassy was a cover, in fact he was working for the CIA. Devlin retained Mobutu's services as an informer. Mobutu was now working for both the Belgians and the Americans".
During the 1960 talks in Brussels on Congolese independence, the US embassy held a reception for the Congolese delegation. Embassy staff were each assigned a list of delegation members to meet, and discussed their impressions afterward. The ambassador noted, "One name kept coming up. But it wasn't on anyone's list because he wasn't an official delegation member, he was Lumumba's secretary. But everyone agreed that this was an extremely intelligent man, very young, perhaps immature, but a man with great potential."Wrong, p. 67
Following the general election, Lumumba was tasked with creating a government. He gave Mobutu the office of Secretary of State to the Presidency. Mobutu held much influence in the final determination of the rest of the government. He lost private access to Lumumba following independence, as the new prime minister grew busy and surrounded by aides and colleagues, leading the two to drift apart.
Congo Crisis
On 5 July 1960, soldiers of the Force Publique stationed at Camp Léopold II in Léopoldville, dissatisfied with their all-white leadership and working conditions, mutinied. The revolt spread across the region in the following days. Mobutu assisted other officials in negotiating with the mutineers to secure the release of the officers and their families. On 8 July the full Council of Ministers convened in an extraordinary session under the chairmanship of President Joseph Kasa-Vubu at Camp Léopold II to address the task of Africanising the garrison.
The ministers debated over who would make a suitable army chief of staff. The two main candidates for the post were Minister of Youth and Sports Maurice Mpolo and Mobutu. The former had shown some influence over the mutinying troops, but Kasa-Vubu and the Bakongo ministers feared that he would enact a coup d'état if he were given power. The latter was perceived as calmer and more thoughtful. Lumumba saw Mpolo as courageous, but favoured Mobutu's prudence. As the discussions continued, the cabinet began to divide according to who they preferred to serve as chief of staff. Lumumba wanted to keep both men in his government and wished to avoid upsetting one of their camps of supporters. In the end Mobutu was given the role and awarded the rank of colonel. The following day government delegations left the capital to oversee the Africanisation of the army; Mobutu was sent to Équateur. While he was there Mpolo acted as ANC Chief of Staff. Mobutu was affronted by this development, and upon his return to the capital he confronted Lumumba in a cabinet meeting, saying, "Either I was unworthy, and you have to dismiss me, or I faithfully accomplished my mission and so I keep my rank and functions."
The British diplomat Brian Urquhart serving with the United Nations wrote: "When I first met Mobutu in July 1960, he was Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba's chief military assistant and had just promoted himself from sergeant to lieutenant-colonel. By comparison with his boss, Mobutu was a pillar of pragmatism and common sense. It was to him that we appealed when our people were arrested by Lumumba's hashish-stimulated guards. It was he who would bring up, in a disarmingly casual way, Lumumba's most outrageous requests – that the UN should, for example, meet the pay roll of the potentially mutinous Congolese army. In those early days, Mobutu seemed a comparatively sensible young man, one who might even, at least now and then, have the best interests of his newly independent country at heart."
Encouraged by a Belgian government intent on maintaining its access to rich Congolese mines, secessionist violence erupted in the south. Concerned that the United Nations force sent to help restore order was not helping to crush the secessionists, Lumumba turned to the Soviet Union for assistance. He received massive military aid and about a thousand Soviet technical advisers within six weeks. As this was during the Cold War, the US government feared that the Soviet activity was a maneuver to spread communist influence in Central Africa. Kasa-Vubu was encouraged by the US and Belgium to dismiss Lumumba, which he did on 5 September. An outraged Lumumba declared Kasa-Vubu deposed. Parliament refused to recognise the dismissals and urged reconciliation, but no agreement was reached.