Cold War Politics in Zaire

33.2.4: Cold War Politics in Zaire

For the most part, Zaire enjoyed warm relations with the United States because of its anti-communist stance, receiving substantial financial aid throughout the Cold War.

Learning Objective

Evaluate the role the United States played in propogating Mobutu’s regime

Key Points

  • During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union started placing immense pressure on post-colonial developing nations to align with one of the superpower factions.
  • The Congo Crisis was a proxy conflict in the Cold War in which the Soviet Union and United States supported opposing factions.
  • The CIA backed military chief of staff Mobutu to oust Prime Minister Lumumba, eventually leading to Mobutu forming an authoritarian regime in the Congo, which he renamed Zaire in 1971.
  • The United States was the third largest donor of aid to Zaire (after Belgium and France), and Mobutu befriended several US presidents, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush.
  • Because of Mobutu’s poor human rights record, the Carter administration put some distance between itself and Zaire; even so, Zaire received nearly half the foreign aid Carter allocated to sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Mobutu’s relationship with the U.S. radically changed shortly afterward with the end of the Cold War, and the U.S. began pressuring Mobutu to democratize his regime.
  • Mobutu’s relationship with the Soviet Union was generally negative, although he did allow some relations to maintain a non-aligned image.

Key Terms

proxy conflict
A conflict between two states or non-state actors where neither entity directly engages the other. While this can encompass a breadth of armed confrontation, its core definition hinges on two separate powers utilizing external strife to somehow attack the interests or territorial holdings of the other.
non-aligned
A group of states that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc, especially during the Cold War.

Decolonization in the Cold War

The combined effects of two great European wars weakened the political and economic domination of Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East by European powers. This led to a series of waves of African and Asian decolonization following the Second World War; a world that had been dominated for over a century by Western imperialist colonial powers was transformed into a world of emerging African, Middle Eastern, and Asian nations. The Cold War started placing immense pressure on developing nations to align with one of the superpower factions. Both promised substantial financial, military, and diplomatic aid in exchange for an alliance in which issues like corruption and human rights abuses were overlooked or ignored. When an allied government was threatened, the superpowers were often prepared to intervene.

The Congo Crisis can be seen in this context as a proxy conflict in the Cold War with the Soviet Union and United States supporting opposing factions, Patrice Lumumba and Mobutu, respectively. The CIA backed Mobutu’s initial coup against Lumumba and the Soviet Union provided Lumumba weapons and support while in exile. When Lumumba was killed and Mobutu took total control of the Congo’s government, he enjoyed considerable support from the United States due to his anti-communist stance.

Relations with the United States

For the most part, Zaire enjoyed warm relations with the United States. The U.S. was the third largest donor of aid to Zaire (after Belgium and France), and Mobutu befriended several U.S. presidents, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. Relations did cool significantly in 1974–1975 over Mobutu’s increasingly radical rhetoric (which included his scathing denunciations of American foreign policy) and plummeted to an all-time low in the summer of 1975, when Mobutu accused the Central Intelligence Agency of plotting his overthrow, arrested eleven senior Zairian generals and several civilians, and condemned a former head of the Central Bank (Albert N’dele). However, many people viewed these charges with skepticism; in fact, one of Mobutu’s staunchest critics, Nzongola-Ntalaja, speculated that Mobutu invented the plot as an excuse to purge the military of talented officers who might otherwise pose a threat to his rule. In spite of these hindrances, the chilly relationship quickly thawed when both countries found each other supporting the same side during the Angolan Civil War.

Because of Mobutu’s poor human rights record, the Carter administration put some distance between itself and the Kinshasa government; even so, Zaire received nearly half the foreign aid Carter allocated to sub-Saharan Africa. During the first Shaba invasion, the United States played a relatively inconsequential role; its belated intervention consisted of little more than the delivery of non-lethal supplies. But during the second Shaba invasion, the U.S. provided transportation and logistical support to the French and Belgian paratroopers that were deployed to aid Mobutu against the rebels. Carter echoed Mobutu’s (unsubstantiated) charges of Soviet and Cuban aid to the rebels, until it was apparent that no hard evidence existed to verify his claims. In 1980, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to terminate military aid to Zaire, but the Senate reinstated the funds in response to pressure from Carter and American business interests in Zaire.

Mobutu enjoyed a very warm relationship with the Reagan Administration through financial donations. During Reagan’s presidency, Mobutu visited the White House three times, and criticism of Zaire’s human rights record by the U.S. was effectively muted. During a state visit by Mobutu in 1983, Reagan praised the Zairian strongman as “a voice of good sense and goodwill.”

Mobutu also had a cordial relationship with Reagan’s successor, George H. W. Bush; he was the first African head of state to visit Bush at the White House. Even so, Mobutu’s relationship with the U.S. radically changed shortly afterward with the end of the Cold War. With the Soviet Union gone, there was no longer any reason to support Mobutu as a bulwark against communism. Accordingly, the U.S. and other Western powers began pressuring Mobutu to democratize the regime. Regarding the change in U.S. attitude to his regime, Mobutu bitterly remarked: “I am the latest victim of the cold war, no longer needed by the US. The lesson is that my support for American policy counts for nothing.” In 1993, Mobutu was denied a visa by the U.S. State Department after he sought to visit Washington, DC.

Photo of Mobutu Sese Seko and Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C., October 1973.

Mobutu and Nixon: Mobutu Sese Seko and Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C., October 1973. Mobutu enjoyed warm relations with the United States during the Cold War, receiving substantial financial aid despite criticism of his human rights abuses.

Relations with the Soviet Union

Mobutu’s relationship with the Soviet Union was frosty and tense. Mobutu, a staunch anticommunist, was not anxious to recognize the Soviets; he remembered well their support, albeit mostly vocal, of Lumumba and the Simba rebels before he took power. However, to project a non-aligned image, he did renew ties in 1967; the first Soviet ambassador arrived and presented his credentials in 1968. Mobutu did, however, join the U.S. in condemning the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia that same year. Mobutu viewed the Soviet presence as advantageous for two reasons: it allowed him to maintain an image of non-alignment, and it provided a convenient scapegoat for problems at home. For example, in 1970, he expelled four Soviet diplomats for carrying out “subversive activities,” and in 1971, 20 Soviet officials were declared persona non grata for allegedly instigating student demonstrations at Lovanium University.

Relations cooled further in 1975, when the two countries found themselves opposing different sides in the Angolan Civil War. This had a dramatic effect on Zairian foreign policy for the next decade; bereft of his claim to African leadership (Mobutu was one of the few leaders who denied the Marxist government of Angola recognition), Mobutu turned increasingly to the U.S. and its allies, adopting pro-American stances on such issues as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Israel’s position in international organizations.

Mobutu condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and in 1980, his was the first African nation to join the United States in boycotting the Summer Olympics in Moscow. Throughout the 1980s, he remained consistently anti-Soviet, and found himself opposing pro-Soviet countries such as Libya and Angola; in the mid-1980s, he described Zaire as being surrounded by a “red belt” of radical states allied to the Soviet Union and Libya.

The collapse of the Soviet Union had disastrous repercussions for Mobutu. His anti-Soviet stance was the main catalyst for Western aid; without it, there was no longer any reason to support him. Western countries began calling for him to introduce democracy and improve human rights.

Attributions