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Zaire Opposition to the Regime prior to 1990
As the Zairian political scientist Ilunga Kabongo has
observed,
the origin of the Mobutu regime, together with subsequent
foreign
aid, had the effect of generating "a myth of the foreign
element in
Zairian politics." Whereas foreign, and especially
American,
scholars have tended to underplay foreign influence as
secondary to
local forces in shaping Zairian events, "it is
overemphasized by
many a Zairian scholar, the political elite as well as the
commoners, to a point where most Zairians think that any
change in
their condition will have to come from outside decisive
influence."
This interpretation explained the futility felt by Zairian
opposition groups, whose activities consisted mainly of
lobbying
Western powers in order to persuade the latter to remove
Mobutu.
One could extend Ilunga's argument to cover groups that
relied on
violence to overthrow Mobutu, most of which have depended
on
foreign support. The People's Revolutionary Party (Parti
Révolutionnaire du Peuple--PRP) may be an exception to
this rule.
Certainly the aura of foreign influence, or foreign
protection, as
well as lobbying by international human rights
organizations,
conditioned the eventual emergence of successful
opposition
movements, notably the UDPS, which was able to survive
within Zaire
and to demonstrate that, like the government, it too had
support
from the United States.
Data as of December 1993
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