Mobuto Sese Seko
When one thinks ‘Darkest Africa’, it is the Congo that seems to spring most readily to mind. Perhaps this is because of Joseph Conrad’s classic novella, which describes a gloomy journey up the Congo River into The Heart of Darkness. Perhaps, but the Congo has always had that reputation, and often for very good reason.
Joseph Mobutu, or Mobuto Sese Seko, was the original African kleptocrat and lunatic dictator, and with an iron fist, he ruled the nation, then known as Zaire, from 1960 to 1997.
Congolese independence from Belgium, granted in 1960, was a perfect example of how not to go about it. The Belgians were particularly bad at stifling black advancement in their one African colony, and so when power was devolved into indigenous hands, it was done far too quickly, with the result that power ended up in the hands of all the wrong people.
Mobuto Sese Seko was known less for violence, mass murder or genocide than simply theft on a monumental scale. In fact, the word ‘kleptocrat’ was first coined in a press description of him. His style of rule almost defined political patronage and his brazen looting of state resources was a template of institutionalized larceny. He once asked striking troops why they needed pay when he gave them guns.
Mabuto did make a very shallow attempt to create an ideology that he called ‘Mabutoism’. His official title, or at least one of them, when translated read: ‘All-conquering Warrior Who goes from Triumph to Triumph’. Beyond the development of a cult of personality, therefore, Mabutoism seemed to comprise nothing more than the Africanization of names, the requirement that citizens use only African names and the banning of various items of Western clothing. It was all very eccentric, and in itself harmless, but in the end, it was nothing more than a front for a vast and naked industry of embezzlement.
Opposition was dealt with swiftly and decisively, and while murder was not his core business, he certainly did not shy away from it. In Zaire, Mobutu was the law, and his looting of public funds was both direct and extremely unsophisticated. He simply took what he wanted, and any shortfall was made up by United States financial and military support, provided in exchange for his staunchly pro-West position.
Things started to go wrong, however, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The United States did not need Mabuto quite so much anymore, and the money soon dried up. Before long Zaire was in open rebellion, and in declining health, Mobuto was driven into exile by rebel forces advancing on the capital. In 1997, he took refuge in Togo, and suffering from advanced prostate cancer, he was dead within a couple of months.
At the time of his death, Mabuto Sese Seko was presumed to be worth upwards of $15 billion, roughly equivalent to his nation’s national debt. Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, remains the most war-torn and impoverished of all African hotspots, and Mobutu’s heirs remain in possession of their wealth.