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Zaire Mobutu, Self-Proclaimed Father of the Nation
Ever since 1965, Mobutu Sese Seko has dominated the
political
life of Zaire, restructuring the state on more than one
occasion,
and earning his self-appointed title of "Father of the
Nation." Any
discussion of Zaire's political structures and processes
must
therefore be based on an understanding of the man who
literally
gave the country its name.
Mobutu was born in the town of Lisala, on the Congo
River, on
October 4, 1930. His father, Albéric Gbemani, was a cook
for a
colonial magistrate in Lisala. Despite his birthplace,
however,
Mobutu belonged not to the dominant ethnic group of that
region but
rather to the Ngbandi, a small ethnic community whose
domain lay
far to the north, along the border with the Central
African
Republic.
Mobutu referred frequently both to his humble
background as the
son of a cook and to the renown of his father's uncle, a
warrior
and diviner from the village of Gbadolite. Although
officially
known as Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, Mobutu was also given the
name of
his great-uncle, Sese Seko Nkuku wa za Banga, meaning
"allconquering warrior, who goes from triumph to triumph."
When, under
the
authenticity
(see Glossary) policy of the early 1970s,
Zairians
were obliged to adopt "authentic" names, Mobutu dropped
JosephDésiré and became Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku wa za Banga--or,
more
commonly, Mobutu Sese Seko
(see Zairianization, Radicalization, and Retrocession
, this ch.).
Mobutu, who had completed four years of primary school
in
Léopoldville, took seven more years to reach the secondary
level,
moving in and out of different schools. He had frequent
conflicts
with the Catholic missionaries whose schools he attended,
and in
1950, at the age of nineteen, he was definitively
expelled. A
seven-year disciplinary conscription into the Force
Publique
followed.
Military service proved crucial in shaping Mobutu's
career.
Unlike many recruits, he spoke excellent French, which
quickly won
him a desk job. By November 1950, he was sent to the
school for
noncommissioned officers, where he came to know many
members of the
military generation who would assume control of the army
after the
flight of the Belgian officers in 1960. By the time of his
discharge in 1956, Mobutu, had risen to the rank of
sergeant-major,
the highest rank open to Congolese. He also had begun to
write
newspaper articles under a pseudonym.
Mobutu returned to civilian life just as decolonization
began
to seem possible. His newspaper articles had brought him
to the
attention of Pierre Davister, a Belgian editor of the
Léopoldville
paper L'Avenir. At that time, a European patron was
of
enormous benefit to an ambitious Congolese; under
Davister's
tutelage, Mobutu became an editorial writer for the new
African
weekly, Actualités Africaines. Davister later would
provide
valuable services by giving favorable coverage to the
Mobutu regime
as editor of his own Belgian magazine, Spécial.
Mobutu thus acquired visibility among the emergent
African
elite of Léopoldville. Yet one portal to status in
colonial society
remained closed to him: full recognition as an
évolué
depended upon approval by the Roman Catholic Church.
Denied this
recognition, Mobutu rejected the church.
During 1959-60, politically ambitious young Congolese
were busy
constructing political networks for themselves. Residence
in
Belgium prevented Mobutu from the path of many of his
peers at
home, who were building ethno-regional clienteles. But
their
approach would have been unpromising for him in any case,
since the
Ngbandi were a small and peripheral community, and among
the socalled Ngala (Lingala-speaking immigrants in Léopoldville)
such
figures as Jean Bolikango were potential opponents. Mobutu
pursued
another route, as Belgian diplomatic, intelligence, and
financial
interests sought clients among the Congolese students and
interns
in Brussels.
Fatefully, Mobutu also had met Patrice Lumumba, when
the latter
arrived in Brussels. He allied himself with Lumumba (whose
school
background, like that of Mobutu, inclined him to
anticlericalism),
when the Congolese National Movement (Mouvement National
Congolais-
-MNC) split into two wings identified, respectively, with
Lumumba
and Albert Kalonji. By early 1960, Mobutu had been named
head of
the MNC-Lumumba office in Brussels. He attended the Round
Table
Conference on independence held in Brussels in January
1960 and
returned home only three weeks before Independence Day,
June 30.
When the army mutinied against its Belgian officers,
Mobutu was a
logical choice to help fill the void. Lumumba, elected
prime
minister in May 1960, named as commander in chief a member
of his
own ethnic group, Victor Lundula, but Mobutu was Lumumba's
choice
as chief of staff.
During the crucial period of July-August 1960, Mobutu
built up
"his" national army by channeling foreign aid to units
loyal to
him, by exiling unreliable units to remote areas, and by
absorbing
or dispersing rival armies. He tied individual officers to
him by
controlling their promotion and the flow of money for
payrolls.
Lundula, older and less competitive, apparently did little
to
prevent Mobutu.
After President Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba as premier
on
September 5, and Lumumba sought to block this action
through
parliament, Mobutu staged his first coup on September 14.
On his
own authority (but with United States backing), he
installed an
interim government, the so-called College of
Commissioners,
composed primarily of university students and graduates,
which
replaced parliament for six months in 1960-61.
During the next four years, as weak civilian
governments rose
and fell in Léopoldville, real power was held behind the
scenes by
the "Binza Group," a group of Mobutu supporters named for
the
prosperous suburb where its members lived.
When in 1965, as in 1960, the division of power between
president and prime minister led to a stalemate and
threatened the
country's stability, Mobutu again seized power (again with
United
States backing). Unlike the first time, however, Mobutu
assumed the
presidency, rather than remaining behind the scenes.
Data as of December 1993
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