Zaire The Military under Mobutu
Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko, president of Zaire and
supreme commander of the FAZ
Courtesy Agence Zaïre Presse
Mobutu did not initially establish a military
dictatorship; the
ANC continued in its role as the government's armed force
rather
than becoming the government. Mobutu stated that he had
seized
power in order to end the chaos and anarchy that had
existed since
the country had gained independence. He sought also to
extract the
country from its perennial government stalemate, largely
caused by
a power struggle between President Kasavubu and Prime
Minister
Tshombe, as well as to eliminate Kasavubu's threat to get
rid of
the white mercenaries at a time when they were needed to
crush the
Lumumbist rebellions. He also initiated efforts to
encourage
foreign assistance to reequip and train the ANC along
modern lines.
Belgian and United States involvement in these objectives
became
particularly important. Meanwhile, the ANC, aided by white
mercenaries, continued to fight against insurgents around
Kikwit
and in Kivu.
Another threat to national security occurred in July
1966 when
former Katangan gendarmes, who had joined the ANC during
Tshombe's
comeback, mutinied and took over the city of Stanleyville
(see Toward
Political Reconstruction
, ch. 1). The rebels
managed to hold
out for two months, but the ANC, spearheaded by white
mercenaries,
finally retook the city. Again the next year, the ANC
found itself
fighting against a combined force of Katangans and
mercenaries who
had captured Bukavu, near the Rwandan border. The rebels
held off
a much larger ANC force for more than three months before
United
States air logistic support forced the insurgents to
negotiate for
safe passage out of the country.
While relying on the military to stay in power, Mobutu
based
his legitimacy on the country's only legal political
party, the
Popular Revolutionary Movement (Mouvement Populaire de la
Révolution--MPR), which he created in 1967
(see
The
Party-State as a System of Rule;
Managing
the Military
, ch. 4). Thus,
despite his
rank as field marshal, Mobutu rarely appeared in uniform.
To
safeguard his authoritarian rule, he staffed a high
proportion of
the top echelons of the military with people of his own
ethnic
group, while at the same time shuffling high-ranking
personnel to
weaken the army's professional independence or the
emergence of any
elements within the military that might threaten his rule.
At the
same time, he obtained foreign support to improve the
capabilities
of his military forces, particularly in counterinsurgency.
Mobutu
and his supporters maintained their hold over the defense
ministry,
which meant control of the army and the security forces.
Over the years Mobutu took a number of steps to improve
the
military's capability. In 1969 he established the National
Security
Council to provide coordination over external and internal
security
responsibilities. During the same period, he created
military
schools to train young Congolese at home rather than
having them
sent off to Belgium or another foreign country. By 1969
this effort
had succeeded to the point that recruits from other
African
countries were trained in the Congo
(see Military
Schools
, this
ch.).
Despite this progress, the military still relied
heavily on
foreign aid programs to train its soldiers during the
early 1970s.
Americans, Belgians, and Israelis provided assistance with
various
aspects of military training and invited Zaire (as the
country was
called from October 1971) to send officers and NCOs to
train in
their countries. By expanding and diversifying the sources
of
military assistance, Mobutu hoped to reduce Zaire's
reliance on any
one source of aid. This process would give him greater
flexibility
and could also provide more assistance as the various
donors
competed for access. The wide variety of sources of
military
education assistance, however, did have negative
consequences.
First, it produced a kaleidoscope of military education
that at
times made it difficult for officers in the same unit to
interact
effectively. It also created pockets of competing pressure
groups
that believed that their source of training was superior
to the
others. For example, until the mid-1980s, officers trained
in
Belgium and, to a lesser extent, France, had an advantage
over
United States-trained officers when it came to promotions
and highlevel assignments.
Data as of December 1993
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