Mobutu Sese Seko

President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1965-1970) and president of Zaire (1971-1997)

• Born: October 14, 1930
• Birthplace: Lisala, Belgian Congo (now Zaire)
• Died: September 7, 1997
• Place of death: Rabat, Morocco

Mobutu was one of the first major African leaders to come to power since the early 1960’s. His Pan-Africanism gained for him much power in the developing world, and his anticommunism pleased major Western powers. His long authoritarian presidency, however, ended in a coup.

Early Life

Mobutu Sese Seko (moh-BEW-toh SAY-say SAY-koh), christened Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, was born into the Bangala People in Équateur Province in the northern Belgian Congo. He came from middle-income parents who sent him to good primary (Léopoldville Mission School) and secondary (Coquilhatville Mission School) schools in the provincial capital. After finishing secondary school in Coquilhatville, he went to Brussels to attend the Institut d’Études Sociales de l’État in 1948. He was selected by the Belgian authorities to attend the institute because of his good grades and superior intellect. When he returned to the Congo in 1949, he enlisted in the Belgian-controlled colonial army, the Force Publique. During his enlistment, he was sent to Luluabourg to receive training in clerical, accounting, and secretarial work at the École des Cadres. Seven years later, in 1956, Mobutu was honorably discharged from the Force Publique. At that time he held the rank of sergeant major, the highest rank a Congolese could hold in the colonial military.

Earlier, while Mobutu was in the army, he was a freelance writer. After he was discharged, he obtained employment with a left-wing newspaper in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa). The Belgian socialists supported this paper, called L’Avenir. His writings were rather moderate, despite the politics of the paper. He later moved to another paper, Actualités africaines, where he became an assistant editor. He was promoted to chief news editor and then editor in chief in 1958. Mobutu’s journalism career reached its apex when he attended the World’s Fair in Brussels in 1958 as a representative of Belgian colonial newspapers. When he returned to the Congo, he briefly worked for Inforcongo, the official government information agency.

Over the course of several years, Mobutu became increasingly interested in politics and affairs of the state. He rose quickly in a new national party, the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC), founded in 1958. He was a supporter of Patrice Lumumba, the leader of the militant faction of the MNC. When the party split in 1959, Lumumba appointed Mobutu as head of the party office in Brussels. This position allowed him to be a delegate to the Round Table Constitutional Conference held in the Belgian capital in January, 1960. Later he was a delegate to the Round Table Economic Conference in Brussels in April and May, 1960. Soon thereafter, these appointments would help him in his rise to the presidency of the country he renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo and later renamed Zaire (1971-1997).

Life’s Work

Mobutu rose to prominence in the newly decolonized Congo as a military leader. He was appointed secretary of state for national defense in Lumumba’s cabinet in 1959. He was quickly demoted, however, to the rank of colonel as a result of the Congolese army revolting against its Belgian officers, only eight days after independence had been declared on June 30, 1960. The nation became the Republic of Congo, or Congo-Léopoldville (to distinguish it from the People’s Republic of Congo, or Congo-Brazzaville, the former French colony of Middle Congo). Lumumba trusted Mobutu and wanted him as a colonel so he could try to preserve the new government from the field. He served under General Victor Lundula and was relatively successful in commanding some authority over the rebellious Congolese forces. He did this by obtaining for them food and pay and enlisting their allegiance to their homeland.

Though Mobutu was successful in this new endeavor, the country was still in chaos. A new civil war had erupted because several groups wanted their own forms of independence, separate from Lumumba. The situation further deteriorated when Belgium sent troops to the Congo to protect Belgian nationals from the army mutineers. Lumumba then, in turn, asked the United Nations to intervene, because he feared that the Belgians would reassert their authority over the government as a result of the civil war. Lumumba then admitted several groups of Soviet and Czechoslovakian technicians. Moreover, there was much disagreement between Premier Lumumba and President Joseph Kasavubu, the postindependence leaders.

During this time, Lundula had been ousted from command of the army, and Mobutu took full control. It is then that he led a coup d’état on September 14, 1960, in which he ousted both Kasavubu and Lumumba from their positions. He announced that the army would rule while trying to “achieve a political agreement between the factions.” He also promised that his army would try to guarantee the security of the people and their property. As a result of Mobutu’s strong action, he was immediately condemned by the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. He then deported all Eastern bloc technicians. His actions, however, were praised by the Western press and Western governments, because he presented a welcome alternate to Lumumba’s socialist tendencies. As a result of this coup, Mobutu emerged as a leader. The world recognition that he received remains, and his position of prominence is almost unmatched by any other modern-day African leader.

Meanwhile Mobutu backed Kasavubu over Lumumba, because he feared Lumumba’s socialist leanings would destroy his homeland. Mobutu seemed to hold a joint power seat with Kasavubu, because Mobutu made it well known that he would not tolerate any challenges to his authority by either Lumumba’s followers or the U.N. forces still present in the Congo. Mobutu and Kasavubu further consolidated their power by issuing a warrant for Lumumba’s arrest, charging him with having misused his powers while he was premier. The United Nations objected, but Mobutu had Lumumba kidnapped and taken to an outlying province and killed, many say with the complicity of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In 1961, Kasavubu promoted Mobutu to major general and appointed him commander in chief of all Congolese forces. Thus, Mobutu wielded considerable power and let Kasavubu work with the politicians while he ran the nation’s army.

Several years later, in June, 1964, the U.N. troops were withdrawn from the Congo. Nevertheless, another power struggle erupted in the Congo, this time between Kasavubu and Moïse Tshombe, the new premier. Again, Mobutu staged a coup on November 25, 1965, and took over the government as new president for not more than five years. He declared that the “race for the top is finished . . . our political leaders had engaged in a sterile struggle to grab power without consideration for the welfare of the citizens.” There was no opposition to the takeover, and there were no arrests. Mobutu, at age thirty-five, was president of a major African nation. After 1965, the year of his ascension to power, Mobutu consolidated his power and made the lives of his potential adversaries very difficult. One such man, a former politician, Nguza Karl-I-Bond, described Mobutu as a man of state who kept secrets. He also described him as a tyrant and a dictator who ran a reign of terror. In addition, he accused Mobutu and his family of raiding the country’s coffers to build their own personal fortunes. Some earlier men who resisted Mobutu’s rule tried to assassinate him in 1966 and were later hanged. It was apparent that once Mobutu had tasted power, he would take all steps to get rid of any threat to his power. He was once overheard to say concerning the severe death sentences he imposed on enemies, “I have no lessons to receive from humanity.”

Even though it was known that Mobutu did not like political parties or anyone deviating from his idea of the “best Zaire” (the name by which the Democratic Republic of the Congo was known from October, 1971, to the end of Mobutu’s presidency in 1997), he still had to try to legitimize his power in the highly politicized bastions of the Zairian cabinet and government. He at first proceeded with caution until he had built up his loyal forces; then, he rewarded them for their loyalty by letting it be known that opposition would be dealt with very severely. This was further enforced by his desire for a single-party system that would help routinize and institutionalize his consolidated power. It was a presidential system, but many labeled Mobutu’s government as nothing short of a monarchy.

In economic terms, Mobutu brought Zaire, with its rich deposits of minerals and copper, to the forefront of African nations. Mobutu was criticized for exploiting his country to some Western economic interests and in response nationalized copper production in the country a radical step that angered many world leaders. It showed, however, that Zaire, Africa, and the developing world in general were tired of being manipulated by multinational corporations of the Western world and that Zaire could stand up to the rest of the world. This, along with his “authenticity campaign” in 1972, gained for him wide respect in both Africa and the developing world.

By the late 1970’s, however, failed economic policies and corruption had severely damaged the country’s infrastructure and resulted in widespread hunger and poverty. Mobutu weathered attacks on his administration from the Roman Catholic Church and the United States and suppressed opposition led by popular candidate for prime minister Etienne Tshisekedi. In the 1990’s cancer weakened Mobutu physically, and when a rebel army led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila advanced through what was then Zaire, no support from his former Western allies was forthcoming. He fled to Morocco, where he died in 1997.

Significance

Mobutu Sese Seko was a powerful, egotistical, domineering, ruthless man who loved his country, but more so, his great power. He was one of the most powerful men in Africa, with great wealth. He was once called “the [Ferdinand] Marcos of Africa.” Mobutu was one of the first modern-day African leaders to advance the idea of rejecting European names and culture. In 1972, he called for all Zairians who had European names to adopt African names. Similarly, the Democratic Republic of the Congo was renamed Zaire in what he called a “national authenticity” campaign to Africanize Africa. He came onto the political scene at the right time at the end of colonial rule and was in the diplomatic limelight almost until his death. Mobutu had a Pan-African style of rule in that he tried to do what was best for Africa on the whole; he believed that whatever was good for Zaire was good for Africa. He controlled through economic aid in an attempt to limit the sphere of influence that industrialized nations seek to have over Africa.

Mobutu chose to be more in the Western sphere than the Soviet and aligned himself with the United States. Mobutu was vehemently anticommunist; thus he was seen by the West as a “safe” African leader and was given both military and economic support. His appetites, however, were huge, and eventually he was driven almost undefended from his own capital. Authoritarianism and corruption had so eroded Mobutu’s reputation that he fled with little support from any quarter.

Bibliography

Bohannan, Paul, and Philip Curtin. Africa and Africans. New York: Waveland Press, 1988. The book focuses on African history, colonialism, and independence. The section on Africa since independence covers the circumstances under which Joseph Mobutu changed his name to Mobutu Sese Seko, and the country’s name from the Congo to Zaire. It also discusses his insistence that his people change their names to “authentic” African forms.

Callaghy, Thomas M. The State Society Struggle: Zaire in Comparative Perspective. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. This book is very theoretical and analytical. It examines the concept of the nation of Zaire and the politics of its leaders. The author explores the development of Mobutu’s absolutism and its effective utilization.

Gran, Guy, ed. Zaire: The Political Economy of Underdevelopment. New York: Praeger, 1979. An excellent book on Zaire in the realm of political economy and the role that Zaire plays in the game of international politics and its relation to the Western world and the African continent. It also deals with factionalism and internal political struggles.

Haskin, Jeanne M. The Tragic State of the Congo: From Decolonization to Dictatorship. New York: Algora, 2005. A history of the Congo focusing on the problems the country has encountered since it gained independence from Belgium.

Ikambana, Peta. Mobuto’s Totalitarian Politic System: An Afrocentric Analysis. New York: Routledge, 2007. Argues that Mobuto’s misdeeds were caused by his lack of an Afrocentric vision and his failure to place the best interests of Africans, specifically the Congolese people, at the forefront of his concerns.

Taylor, Sidney. “Lt.-General Joseph Mobutu.” In The New Africans: A Guide to the Contemporary History of Emergent Africa and Its Leaders. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1967. The book includes biographies of important men in the Congo Democratic Republic. Examples of other leaders listed are Jean-Marie Kikangala and Felicien Kimvoy. Each biography contains the major contributions and other information about the leaders.

Wrong, Michela. In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Distaster in Mobuto’s Congo. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. A history of the Congo, focusing on Mobotu’s leadership. Wrong, a journalist who covered Africa for many years, describes how Mobuto used a combination of terror and charisma to run his nation; she chastises both the Congolese government and the Western nations for their failure to accept responsibility for the Congo’s tragic fate.

Young, Crawford, and Thomas Turner. The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. Young and Turner shed new light on Mobutu’s political policies at the time of Zaire’s revolt from Belgian control. In addition, they examine the economic decline as well as the purported corruption of the Mobutu family.