Mobutu Sese Seko
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| Mobutu Sese Seko | |
|---|---|
| President of Zaire | |
| In office 24 November 1965 – 16 May 1997 |
|
| Preceded by | Joseph Kasa-Vubu |
| Succeeded by | Laurent-Désiré Kabila |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 14 October 1930 Lisala, Belgian Congo |
| Died | 7 September 1997 (aged 66) Rabat, Morocco |
| Nationality | Congolese |
| Political party | Popular Movement of the Revolution |
| Spouse(s) | Marie-Antoinette Mobutu (Deceased) Bobi Ladawa |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
During the Congo Crisis, Belgian and US-backed forces aided Mobutu in a coup against the nationalist government of Patrice Lumumba in 1960 to take control of the government. Lumumba was the first leader in the country to be democratically elected and was killed by a Belgian firing squad; Mobutu soon became the army chief of staff.[2] In a second coup (1965), he assumed the office of Prime Minister in 1966 and then established a presidential form of government headed by himself in 1967. As part of his program of “national authenticity”, Mobutu changed the Congo's name to Zaïre in 1971 and his own name to Mobutu Sese Seko in 1972.
Power was concentrated in Mobutu, who established a single-party state and a cult of personality.[2] During his reign, Mobutu built a highly centralized state and amassed a large personal fortune through economic exploitation and corruption, leading some to call his rule “kleptocracy”. The nation suffered from uncontrolled inflation, a large debt, and massive currency devaluations. By 1991, economic deterioration and unrest led him to agree to share power with opposition leaders, but he used the army to thwart change until May 1997, when rebel forces led by Laurent Kabila expelled him from the country. Already suffering from prostate cancer, he died three months later in Morocco.
Mobutu Sese Seko is notorious for corruption, nepotism, and the embezzlement of billions of US dollars that took place during his reign, as well as extravagances such as Concorde-flown shopping trips to Paris.[3] Mobutu presided over the country for nearly four decades, a period of widespread human rights violations. As such, he has been described as the "archetypal African dictator".[3]
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Biography
Early years
Mobutu, a member of the Ngbandi ethnic group,[4] was born in Lisala, Belgian Congo.[5] Mobutu's mother Marie Madeleine Yemo, was a hotel maid who fled to Lisala to escape the harem of a local village chief.[6] There she met and married Albéric Gbemani, a cook for a Belgian judge.[7] Shortly she gave birth to Mobutu. The name "Mobutu" was selected by an uncle. Gbemani died when Mobutu was eight.[8]The wife of the Belgian judge took a liking to Mobutu and taught him to speak, read and write fluently. Yemo relied on the help of relatives to support her four children, and the family moved often. Mobutu's earliest studies were in Léopoldville, but his mother eventually sent him to an uncle in Coquilhatville, where he attended the Christian Brothers School, a Catholic mission boarding school. A physically imposing figure, he dominated school sports. He also excelled in academics and ran the class newspaper. He was also known for his pranks and impish sense of humor. A classmate recalled that when the Belgian priests, whose first language was Dutch, misspoke in French, Mobutu would leap to his feet in class and point out the mistake. In 1949 Mobutu stowed away aboard a boat to Léopoldville and met a girl. The priests found him several weeks later. At the end of the school year, in lieu of being sent to jail, he was ordered to serve seven years in the Congolese army, the Force Publique (FP)--the usual punishment for rebellious students.[9]
Army service
Mobutu found discipline in army life, as well as a father figure in Sergeant Joseph Bobozo. Mobutu kept up his studies by borrowing European newspapers from the Belgian officers and books from wherever he could find them, reading them on sentry duty and whenever he had a spare moment. His personal favorites were the writings of French President Charles de Gaulle, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli. After passing a course in accounting, he began to dabble professionally in journalism. Still angry after his clashes with the school priests, he did not wed in a church. His contribution to the wedding festivities was a crate of beer, all his army salary could afford.[10]As a soldier, Mobutu wrote pseudonymously on contemporary politics for a new magazine set up by a Belgian colonial, Actualités Africaines. In 1956, he quit the army and became a full-time journalist,[11] writing for the Léopoldville daily L'Avenir.[12] Two years later, he went to Belgium to cover the 1958 World Exposition and stayed to receive training in journalism. By this time, Mobutu had met many of the young Congolese intellectuals who were challenging colonial rule. He became friendly with Patrice Lumumba and joined Lumumba's Mouvement National Congolais (MNC). Mobutu eventually became Lumumba's personal aide, though several contemporaries indicate that Belgian intelligence had recruited Mobutu to be an informer.[13]
During the 1960 talks in Brussels on Congolese independence, the U.S. Embassy held a reception to gain a better sense of the Congolese delegation. Embassy staff were each assigned a list of delegation members to meet and then discuss their impressions. The ambassador noted, "One name kept coming up. But it wasn't on anyone's list because he wasn't an official delegation member, he was Lumumba's secretary. But everyone agreed that this was an extremely intelligent man, very young, perhaps immature, but a man with great potential."[14]
Congo Crisis
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Main article: Congo Crisis
Following the granting of independence on 30 June 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 Mobutu as Chief of Staff of the Armée Nationale Congolaise, the Congolese Army, under army chief Victor Lundula.
In that capacity, Mobutu toured the country convincing soldiers to
return to their barracks. 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. The U.S. government saw the
Soviet activity as a maneuver to spread communist influence in Central
Africa. Kasa-Vubu, riled by the Soviet arrival, dismissed Lumumba. An
outraged Lumumba declared Kasa-Vubu deposed. Both Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu
then 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 favored getting rid of the Soviet
presence. On 14 September 1960 Mobutu took controlin a CIA-sponsored coup.[15] The new regime placed Lumumba under house arrest for the second time and kept Kasa-Vubu as president.[16]All Soviet advisers were ordered to leave. Next, Mobutu accused Lumumba of pro-communist sympathies, thereby hoping to gain the support of the United States. 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. Later, in November 1960, he was captured and sent to Katanga. Mobutu still considered him a threat and ordered him to be arrested and beaten publicly on 17 January 1961. He then disappeared from the public view. It was later discovered he was murdered that day as well.
On 23 January 1961 Kasa-Vubu promoted Mobutu to major-general; de Witte argues that this was a political move, aimed to strengthen the army, the president's sole support, and Mobutu's position within the army.'[17]
In 1964, Pierre Mulele led partisans in another rebellion. They quickly occupied two thirds of The Congo, but the Congolese army, led by Mobutu, was able to reconquer the entire territory in 1965.
Second coup and consolidation of power
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Under the auspices of a regime d'exception (the equivalent of a state of emergency), Mobutu assumed sweeping—almost absolute—powers for five years.[19] 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."[20] 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.
Initially, Mobutu's government was decidedly apolitical, even anti-political. The word "politician" carried negative connotations, and became almost synonymous with someone who was wicked or corrupt. Even so, 1966 saw the debut of the Corps of Volunteers of the Republic, a vanguard movement designed to mobilize popular support behind Mobutu, who was proclaimed the nation's "Second National Hero" after Lumumba. Ironically, given the role he played in Lumumba's ouster, Mobutu strove to present himself as a successor to Lumumba's legacy, and one of the key tenets early in his rule was "authentic Congolese nationalism."
1967 marked the debut of the Popular Movement of the Revolution (MPR) which until 1990 was the nation's only legal political party. It was officially defined as "the nation politically organized"—in essence, the state was a transmission belt for the party. All citizens automatically became members of the MPR from birth. Among the themes advanced by the MPR in its doctrine, the Manifesto of N'Sele, was nationalism, revolution, and authenticity. Revolution was described as a "truly national revolution, essentially pragmatic," which called for "the repudiation of both capitalism and communism." One of the MPR's slogans was "Neither left nor right," to which would be added "nor even center" in later years. The MPR elected its president every seven years. At the same time, he was automatically nominated as the sole candidate for a seven-year term as president of the republic; he was confirmed in office by a referendum. A single list of MPR candidates was returned to the legislature every five years. In practice, this gave the party president—Mobutu—all governing power in the nation.
That same year, all trade unions were consolidated into a single union, the National Union of Zairian Workers, and brought under government control. By Mobutu's own admission, the union would serve as an instrument of support for government policy, rather than as a force for confrontation. Independent trade unions were illegal until 1991.
Facing many challenges early in his rule, Mobutu was able to turn most opposition into submission through patronage; those he could not, 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 nearly all parts of the country. That year marked the pinnacle of Mobutu's legitimacy and power. King Baudouin of Belgium, made a highly successful state visit to Kinshasa. That same year legislative and presidential elections were held. The electorate was presented a single list of candidates for the legislature, for which 98.33% of voters voted in favor. For the presidential election, Mobutu was the only candidate, and voters were offered two ballot choices: green for hope, and red for chaos: Mobutu won with a vote of 10,131,699 to 157.[21]
As he consolidated power Mobutu set up several military forces whose sole purpose was to protect him. These included the Special Presidential Division, Civil Guard and Service for Action and Military Intelligence (SNIP).
Authenticity campaign
Main article: Authenticité (Zaire)
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."[23]), Mobutu Sese Seko for short. It was also around this time that he assumed his classic image—abacost, thick-framed glasses, walking stick and leopard-skin toque.
One-man rule
In 1968 Pierre Mulele, Lumumba's Minister of Education and later a rebel leader during the 1964 Simba Rebellion, was lured out of exile in Brazzaville on the assumption that he would be amnestied, but was tortured and killed by Mobutu's forces. While Mulele was still alive, his eyes were gouged out, his genitals were ripped off, and his limbs were amputated one by one.[25] Mobutu later moved away from torture and murder, and switched to a new tactic, buying off political rivals. He used the slogan "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer still"[citation needed] to describe his tactic of co-opting political opponents through bribery. A favorite Mobutu tactic was to play "musical chairs," rotating members of his government, switching the cabinet roster constantly to ensure that no one would pose a threat to his rule. Another tactic was to arrest and sometimes torture dissident members of the government, only to later pardon them and reward them with high office. The most famous example of this treatment is Jean Nguza Karl-i-Bond, who was fired as foreign minister in 1977, sentenced to death, and tortured. Mobutu then commuted his sentence to life imprisonment, released him after a year, and later appointed him prime minister. Nguza fled the country in 1981 only to return in 1985, first serving as Zaire's ambassador to the U.S. and later as foreign minister.[26]
In 1972 Mobutu tried unsuccessfully to have himself named president for life.[27] In 1983, Mobutu promoted himself to the rank of Field Marshal.[28]
He initially nationalized foreign-owned firms and forced European investors out of the country. In many cases he handed the management of these firms to relatives and close associates who stole the companies' assets. This precipitated such an economic slump that Mobutu was forced by 1977 to try to woo foreign investors back.[29] Katangan rebels based in Angola invaded Zaire in 1977 in retaliation for Mobutu's support for anti-MPLA rebels. France airlifted 1,500 Moroccan paratroopers into the country and repulsed the rebels, ending Shaba I. The rebels attacked Zaire again, in greater numbers, in the Shaba II invasion of 1978. The governments of Belgium and France deployed troops with logistical support from the United States and defeated the rebels again.
Another feature of Mobutu's economic mismanagement, directly linked to the way he and his friends siphoned off so much of the country's wealth, was rampant inflation. The rapid decline in the real value of salaries strongly encouraged a culture of corruption and dishonesty among public servants of all kinds.
Marshal Mobutu was known to charter a Concorde from Air France for personal use, including shopping trips to Paris for himself and his family. He had an airport constructed in his hometown of Gbadolite with a runway long enough to accommodate the Concorde's extended take off and landing requirements.[33] In 1989, Mobutu chartered Concorde aircraft F-BTSD for a June 26 – July 5 trip to give a speech at the United Nations in New York City, July 16 for French bicentennial celebrations in Paris (where he was a guest of President François Mitterrand), on September 19 for a flight from Paris to Gbadolite, and another nonstop flight from Gbadolite to Marseille with the youth choir of Zaire.[34]
Mobutu's rule earned a reputation as one of the world's foremost examples of kleptocracy and nepotism. Close relatives and fellow members of the Ngbandi tribe were awarded with high positions in the military and government, and he groomed his eldest son, Nyiwa, to succeed him as President;[35] however, this was thwarted by Nyiwa's death from AIDS in 1994.[36] He led one of the most enduring dictatorial regimes in Africa and amassed a personal fortune estimated to be over US$5 billion by selling his nation's rich natural resources while his nation's people lived in poverty.[37] As such he is regarded as one of the most corrupt leaders in history and is a foremost example of kleptocracy.[38] While in office, he formed an authoritarian regime responsible for numerous human rights violations, attempted to purge the country of all Belgian cultural influences and maintained an anti-communist stance to gain positive international diplomacy.[20][39]
Mobutu was able to successfully capitalize on Cold War tensions and gain significant support from Western countries like the United States and international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund.[42]
Coalition government
In May 1990, due to the ending of the Cold War and a change in the international political climate, as well as economic problems and domestic unrest, Mobutu agreed to end the ban on other political parties and appointed a transitional government that would lead to promised elections, but he retained substantial powers. Following riots in Kinshasa by unpaid soldiers, Mobutu brought opposition figures into a coalition government, but he still connived to retain control of the security services and important ministries. Factional divisions led to the creation of two governments in 1993, one pro and one anti-Mobutu. The anti-Mobutu government was headed by Laurent Monsengwo and Étienne Tshisekedi of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress. The economic situation was still dreadful, and, in 1994, the two groups joined as the High Council of Republic – Parliament of Transition (HCR-PT). Mobutu appointed Kengo Wa Dondo, an advocate of austerity and free-market reforms, as prime minister. Mobutu was becoming increasingly physically frail and during one of his absences for medical treatment in Europe, Tutsis captured much of eastern Zaire.Overthrow
Mobutu was overthrown in the First Congo War by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who was supported by the governments of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.When Mobutu's government issued an order in November 1996 forcing Tutsis to leave Zaire on penalty of death, the ethnic Tutsis in Zaire[citation needed], known as Banyamulenge, were the focal point of a rebellion. From eastern Zaire, the rebels and foreign government forces under the leadership of President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Rwandan Minister of Defense Paul Kagame launched an offensive to overthrow Mobutu, joining forces with locals opposed to him as they marched west toward Kinshasa.
Ailing with cancer, Mobutu was unable[citation needed] to coordinate the resistance, which crumbled in front of the march, the army being more used to suppressing civilians[who?] than defending a large country. On May 16, 1997, following failed peace talks, the Tutsi rebels and other anti-Mobutu groups as the Alliance des Forces Democratiques pour la Liberation du Congo-Zaire (AFDL) captured Kinshasa. Zaire was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Burial of Juvénal Habyarimana
Mobutu had the remains of assassinated Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana stored in a mausoleum in Gbadolite. On 12 May 1997, as Laurent-Désiré Kabila's Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo rebels were advancing on Gbadolite, Mobutu had the remains flown by cargo plane from his mausoleum to Kinshasa where they waited on the tarmac of N'djili Airport for three days. On 16 May, the day before Mobutu fled Zaire (and the country was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Habyarimana's remains were burned under the supervision of an Indian Hindu leader.[43]Exile and death
Mobutu went into temporary exile in Togo but lived mostly in Morocco. He died on 7 September 1997, in Rabat, Morocco, from prostate cancer. He is buried in Rabat, in the Christian cemetery known as "Pax".In December 2007, the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of the Congo recommended returning his remains to the Congo and interring them in a mausoleum.[44]
On the very same day he was exiled, Laurent-Désiré Kabila became the new president of Congo. Kabila was assassinated in 2001 and was succeeded by his son, Joseph Kabila.
Legacy
Mobutu was infamous for looting his country to the tune of billions of dollars. According to the most conservative estimates, he stole $4–5 billion USD from his country, and some sources put the figure as high as $15 billion. According to Mobutu's son-in-law, Pierre Janssen—the husband of Mobutu's daughter Yaki—Mobutu had no concern for the cost of the expensive gifts he gave away to his cronies. Janssen married Yaki in a lavish ceremony that included three orchestras, a $65,000 wedding cake and a giant fireworks display. Yaki wore a $70,000 wedding gown and $3 million worth of jewels. Janssen wrote a book describing Mobutu's daily routine—which included several daily bottles of wine, retainers flown in from overseas and lavish meals.[41]According to Transparency International, Mobutu embezzled over $5 billion USD from his country, ranking him as the third-most corrupt leader since 1984 and the most corrupt African leader during the same period.[45]
| “ | Mobutu had really staged a funeral for a generation of African leadership of which he—the Dinosaur, as he had long been known—was the paragron: the client dictator of Cold War neocolonialism, monomaniacal, perfectly corrupt, and absolutely ruinous to his nation. | ” |
Foreign policy
Main article: Foreign policy of Mobutu Sese Seko
Relations with Belgium
Relations between Zaire and Belgium wavered between close intimacy and open hostility during the Mobutu years. Relations soured early in Mobutu's rule over disputes involving the substantial Belgian commercial and industrial holdings in the country, but relations warmed soon afterwards. Mobutu and his family were received as personal guests of the Belgian monarch in 1968, and a convention for scientific and technical cooperation was signed that same year. During King Baudouin's highly successful visit to Kinshasa in 1970, a treaty of friendship and cooperation between the two countries was signed. However, Mobutu tore up the treaty in 1974 in protest of Belgium's refusal to ban an anti-Mobutu book written by left-wing lawyer Jules Chomé.[46] Mobutu's "Zairianization" policy, which expropriated foreign-held businesses and transferred their ownership to Zairians, added to the strain.Relations with France
As the second largest French-speaking country in the world and the largest one in sub-Saharan Africa[47] Zaire was of great strategic interest to France.[48] During the First Republic era, France tended to side with the conservative and federalist forces, as opposed to unitarists such as Lumumba.[47] Shortly after the Katangan secession was successfully crushed, Zaire (then called the Republic of the Congo), signed a treaty of technical and cultural cooperation with France. During the presidency of Charles de Gaulle, relations with the two countries gradually grew stronger and closer. In 1971, then-Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d'Estaing paid a visit to Zaire; later, after becoming President, he would develop a close personal relationship with President Mobutu, and became one of the regime's closest foreign allies. During the Shaba invasions, France sided firmly with Mobutu: during the first Shaba invasion, France airlifted 1,500 Moroccan troops to Zaire, and the rebels were repulsed;[49] a year later, during the second Shaba invasion, France itself would send French Foreign Legion paratroopers (2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment) to aid Mobutu (along with Belgium).[50][51][52]Relations with North Korea
Mobutu's main influence came from the totalitarian regime of Kim il-Sung.[53] Their countries maintained close ties with one another in the early 1990s until the death of Mobutu in 1997.Relations with the People's Republic of China
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China and Zaire shared a common goal in Central Africa, namely doing everything in their power to halt Soviet gains in the area. Accordingly, both Zaire and China covertly funneled aid to the FNLA (and later, UNITA) in order to prevent the MPLA, who were supported and augmented by Cuban forces, from coming to power. The Cubans, who exercised considerable influence in Africa in support of leftist and anti-imperialist forces, were heavily sponsored by the Soviet Union during the period. In addition to inviting Holden Roberto and his guerrillas to Beijing for training, China provided weapons and money to the rebels. Zaire itself launched an ill-fated, pre-emptive invasion of Angola in a bid to install a pro-Kinshasa government, but was repulsed by Cuban troops. The expedition was a fiasco with far-reaching repercussions, most notably the Shaba I and Shaba II invasions, both of which China opposed. China sent military aid to Zaire during both invasions, and accused the Soviet Union and Cuba (who were alleged to have supported the Shaban rebels, although this was and remains speculation) of working to de-stabilize Central Africa.
Relations with the Soviet Union
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Moscow was the only major world capital Mobutu never visited, although he did accept an invitation to do so in 1974. For reasons unknown, he cancelled the visit at the last minute, and toured the People's Republic of China and North Korea, instead.
Relations cooled further in 1975, when the two countries found themselves on opposing sides in the Angolan Civil War. This had a dramatic effect on Zairian foreign policy for the next decade; bereft of his claim to African leadership (Mobutu was one of the few leaders who denied the Marxist government of Angola recognition), Mobutu turned increasingly to the U.S. and its allies, adopting pro-American stances on such issues as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and Israel's position in international organizations.
Relations with the United States of America
Because of Mobutu's poor human rights record, the Carter Administration put some distance between itself and the Kinshasa government;[57] even so, Zaire received nearly half the foreign aid Carter allocated sub-Saharan Africa.[58] During the first Shaba invasion, the United States played a relatively inconsequential role; its belated intervention consisted of little more than the delivery of non-lethal supplies. But during the second Shaba invasion, the US played a much more active and decisive role by providing transportation and logistical support to the French and Belgian paratroopers that were deployed to aid Mobutu against the rebels. Carter echoed Mobutu's (unsubstantiated) charges of Soviet and Cuban aid to the rebels, until it was apparent that no hard evidence existed to verify his claims.[59] In 1980, the US House of Representatives voted to terminate military aid to Zaire, but the US Senate reinstated the funds, in response to pressure from Carter and American business interests in Zaire.[60]
Mobutu enjoyed a very warm relationship with the Reagan Administration, through financial donations. During Reagan's presidency, Mobutu visited the White House three times, and criticism of Zaire's human rights record by the US was effectively muted. During a state visit by Mobutu in 1983, Reagan praised the Zairian strongman as "a voice of good sense and goodwill."[61]
Mobutu also had a cordial relationship with Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush; he was the first African head of state to visit Bush at the White House.[62] Even so, Mobutu's relationship with the US radically changed shortly afterward with the end of the Cold War. With the Soviet Union gone, there was no longer any reason to support Mobutu as a bulwark against communism. Accordingly, the US and other Western powers began pressuring Mobutu to democratize the regime. Regarding the change in US attitude to his regime, Mobutu bitterly remarked: "I am the latest victim of the cold war, no longer needed by the US. The lesson is that my support for American policy counts for nothing."[63] In 1993, Mobutu was denied a visa by the US State Department after he sought to visit Washington, DC
Mobutu also had friends in America outside Washington. Mobutu was befriended by televangelist Pat Robertson, who promised to try to get the State Department to lift its ban on the African leader.[64]
Family
Mobutu was married twice. His first wife, Marie-Antoinette Mobutu, died of heart failure on October 22, 1977 in Genolier, Switzerland at age 36. On May 1, 1980, he married his mistress, Bobi Ladawa, on the eve of a visit by Pope John Paul II, thus legitimizing his relationship in the eyes of the Church. Four of his sons from his first marriage died: Nyiwa (d. September 16, 1994), Konga (died 1995), Kongulu (d. September 24, 1998), and Manda (died November 27, 2004).[65] A son from his second marriage, François Joseph Nzanga Mobutu Ngbangawe, was a candidate in the 2006 presidential elections and later served in the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as Minister of State for Agriculture. A daughter, Yakpwa (nicknamed Yaki), was briefly married to a Belgian man named Pierre Janssen, who later wrote a book[66] which described Mobutu's lifestyle in vivid detail.Altogether, Mobutu had at least fourteen children.[67]
Art and literature
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Mobutu featured in the documentary When We Were Kings, which centred around the famed "Rumble in the Jungle" boxing bout between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali for the 1974 Heavyweight championship of the world. The bout took place in Kinshasa, Zaire during Mobutu's rule.
Mobutu also might be considered as the inspiration behind some of the characters in the works of the poetry of Wole Soyinka, the novel A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul, and Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe.
William Close, father of actress Glenn Close, was once a personal physician to Mobutu and wrote a book focusing on his time during his service in Zaire under Mobutu.
Barbara Kingsolver's 1998 historical novel The Poisonwood Bible depicts the events of the Congo Crisis from a fictional standpoint, featuring the role of Mobutu in the crisis.
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