Mobutu and Zaire

33.2.3: Mobutu and Zaire

During the Congo Crisis, military leader Joseph-Desiré Mobutu ousted the nationalist government of Patrice Lumumba and eventually took authoritarian control of the Congo, renaming it Zaire in 1971, and attempted to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence.

Learning Objective

Discuss how Mobutu was able to seize power in the Congo

Key Points

  • Mobutu Sese Seko was the military dictator and President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 1997, which he renamed the Republic of Zaire in 1971.
  • Patrice Lumumba previously appointed Joseph Mobutu chief of staff of the new Congo army and by taking advantage of the leadership crisis between Kasavubu and Lumumba, Mobutu garnered enough support within the army to create mutiny, eventually allowing him to stage a bloodless coup and take control of the Congo’s government.
  • A one-party system was established, and Mobutu declared himself head of state.
  • Although relative peace and stability were achieved, Mobutu’s government was guilty of severe human rights violations, political repression, a cult of personality, and corruption.
  • Mobutu had the support of the United States because of his staunch opposition to Communism; they believed his administration would serve as an effective counter to communist movements in Africa.
  • Embarking on a campaign of pro-Africa cultural awareness, or authenticité, Mobutu began renaming the cities of the Congo starting on June 1, 1966, as well as mandating that Zairians were to abandon their Christian names for more “authentic” ones and adopt traditional attire such as the abacost.

Key Terms

Joseph-Désiré Mobutu
The military dictator and President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which was renamed Zaire in 1971) from 1965 to 1997, who formed an authoritarian regime, amassed vast personal wealth, and attempted to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence while enjoying considerable support from the United States due to its anti-communist stance.
Authenticité
An official state ideology of the Mobutu regime that originated in the late 1960s and early 1970s, aimed at ridding the country of the lingering vestiges of colonialism and the continuing influence of Western culture and create a more centralized and singular national identity.

Rise to Power

Following Congo’s independence on June 30, 1960, a coalition government was formed, led by Prime Minister Lumumba and President Joseph Kasa-Vubu. The new nation quickly lurched into the Congo Crisis as the army mutinied against the remaining Belgian officers. Lumumba appointed Joseph-Désiré Mobutu as Chief of Staff of the Armée Nationale Congolaise, the Congolese National Army, under army chief Victor Lundula.

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, receiving massive military aid and about a thousand Soviet technical advisers in six weeks. Kasa-Vubu was encouraged by the U.S. and Belgium to stage a coup and thus dismissed Lumumba. An outraged Lumumba declared Kasa-Vubu deposed. Both Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu ordered Mobutu to arrest the other. As Army Chief of Staff, Mobutu came under great pressure from multiple sources. The embassies of Western nations, which helped pay the soldiers’ salaries, as well as Kasa-Vubu and Mobutu’s subordinates, all favored getting rid of the Soviet presence.

Mobutu accused Lumumba of pro-communist sympathies, thereby hoping to gain the support of the United States, but Lumumba fled to Stanleyville where he set up his own government. The USSR again supplied him with weapons and he was able to defend his position. In November 1960, he was captured and sent to Katanga. Mobutu still considered him a threat and on January 17, 1961, ordered him arrested and publicly beaten. Lumumba then disappeared from the public view. It was later discovered that he was murdered the same day by the secessionist forces of Moise Tshombe after Mobutu’s government turned him over to them at the urging of Belgium. On January 23, 1961, Kasa-Vubu promoted Mobutu to major-general.

Mobutu’s Coup

Prime Minister Moise Tshombe’s Congolese National Convention won a large majority in the March 1965 elections, but Kasa-Vubu appointed an anti-Tshombe leader, Évariste Kimba, as prime minister-designate. However, Parliament twice refused to confirm him. With the government in near-paralysis, Mobutu seized power in a bloodless coup on November 25, a month after his 35th birthday.

Under the auspices of a regime d’exception (the equivalent of a state of emergency), Mobutu assumed sweeping—almost absolute—powers for five years. In his first speech upon taking power, Mobutu told a large crowd at Léopoldville’s main stadium that since politicians had brought the country to ruin in five years, “for five years, there will be no more political party activity in the country.” Parliament was reduced to a rubber-stamp before being abolished altogether, though it was later revived. The number of provinces was reduced and their autonomy curtailed, resulting in a highly centralized state.

A constitutional referendum after Mobutu’s coup of 1965 resulted in the country’s official name being changed to the “Democratic Republic of the Congo.” In 1971 Mobutu changed the name again, this time to “Republic of Zaire.”

Zaire and the Authenticité Movement

Facing many challenges early in his rule, Mobutu was able to turn most opposition into submission through patronage; those he could not co-opt, he dealt with forcefully. In 1966 four cabinet members were arrested on charges of complicity in an attempted coup, tried by a military tribunal, and publicly executed in an open-air spectacle witnessed by over 50,000 people. Uprisings by former Katangan gendarmeries were crushed, as was an aborted revolt led by white mercenaries in 1967. By 1970, nearly all potential threats to his authority had been smashed, and for the most part, law and order was brought to most of the country. That year marked the pinnacle of Mobutu’s legitimacy and power.

The new president had the support of the United States because of his staunch opposition to Communism; the U.S. believed his administration would be an effective counter to communist movements in Africa. A one-party system was established and Mobutu declared himself head of state. He periodically held elections in which he was the only candidate. Although relative peace and stability were achieved, Mobutu’s government was guilty of severe human rights violations, political repression, a cult of personality, and corruption.

Corruption became so prevalent the term “le mal Zairois” or “Zairean Sickness,” meaning gross corruption, theft, and mismanagement, was coined, reportedly by Mobutu himself. International aid, most often in the form of loans, enriched Mobutu while he allowed national infrastructure such as roads to deteriorate to as little as one-quarter of what had existed in 1960. Zaire became a “kleptocracy” as Mobutu and his associates embezzled government funds.

Authenticité, sometimes Zairianisation in English, was an official state ideology of the Mobutu regime that originated in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The authenticity campaign was an effort to rid the country of the lingering vestiges of colonialism and the continuing influence of Western culture and create a more centralized and singular national identity. The policy, as implemented, included numerous changes to the state and to private life, including the renaming of the Congo (to Zaire) and its cities (Leopoldville became Kinshasa, Elisabethville became Lubumbashi, and Stanleyville became Kisangani), as well as an eventual mandate that Zairians were to abandon their Christian names for more “authentic” ones. In addition, Western-style attire was banned and replaced with the Mao-style tunic labeled the “abacost” and its female equivalent. In 1972, Mobutu renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (“The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake”), Mobutu Sese Seko for short. Mobutu ruled until 1997, when rebel forces led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila expelled him from the country. Already suffering from advanced prostate cancer, he died three months later in Morocco.

Mobutu Sese Seko with the Dutch Prince Bernhard in 1973.

Prince Bernhard and Mobutu Sese Seko: Mobutu Sese Seko with the Dutch Prince Bernhard in 1973. It was also around this time that he assumed his classic image—abacost, thick-framed glasses, walking stick and leopard-skin toque.

Attributions