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Zaire POLITICAL DYNAMICS
Managing the Military
Mobutu's regime emerged from a coup but is not a
military
regime because it has never given priority to the
interests of the
military. Since 1965 Mobutu has continued to manage the
armed
forces by the same methods he used, as chief of staff, to
rebuild
them after 1960, i.e., by tying individual units and
officers to
him. Rather than a traditional pyramidal organization, the
Zairian
security forces resemble a wheel with Mobutu at the hub.
Time and
again, when existing units have proven to be unreliable,
he has
created new units trained by foreigners
(see Armed Forces
Missions and Organization
, ch. 5).
In addition, Mobutu has been careful both to keep the
military
under his personal control and to minimize military
participation
in the civilian government. He has usually been the only
military
man in the cabinet, filling the role of minister of
defense and
veterans' affairs.
The reforms announced in April 1990 ostensibly included
depoliticization of the armed forces, presumably to
include
elimination of the official MPR presence within the
military, which
had annoyed many of the officers. But in a broader sense,
of
course, the military services remain political in that
they are
under the control of President Mobutu. As one part of that
control,
Mobutu's cronies and relatives head key military units.
Nevertheless, despite the military's role as the
backbone of
the regime, it is also a potential Achilles' heel.
Military coup
attempts were reported in 1975, 1978, and 1984. For
several years,
there were no further reports of coup attempts. Then in
August
1987, the Voice of Zaire (La Voix du Zaïre) announced that
a large
cache of arms and ammunition brought illegally into the
country had
been discovered in a military camp in Kinshasa. Each of
the alleged
coup attempts was followed by a major purge of high
military
officers. These purges, as well as Mobutu's general
organizational
policy, made it clear that political reliability would be
given
higher priority than military effectiveness.
The events of September 1991, in which unpaid
paratroopers
mutinied and engaged in a frenzy of looting throughout
Kinshasa
cast into doubt the morale and loyalty of the military.
Such doubts
were reinforced by the periodic bouts of looting that
occurred
throughout 1992 and 1993, as well as an exchange of fire
between
paratroopers and the Civil Guard in June 1992, prompting
fears that
many armed forces elements were beyond any control.
Nevertheless, Mobutu has shrewdly retained the loyalty
of his
most important military units, the DSP in particular. In
the early
1990s, the beleaguered Mobutu reportedly continued to
receive bags
of newly printed currency flown in from abroad, which he
disbursed
to key military personnel.
Data as of December 1993
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