Zaire

• 1. Introduction

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  Zaire held a presidential election on the 1st of November 1970, and the count was striking. Mobutu Sese Seko won by more than 10,131,000 votes, against only 157 voters who said no. Zaire was a country in Central Africa, run by this one man from 1965 to 1997. It was the third-largest nation in Africa, behind Sudan and Algeria. From 1965 to 1991 it ranked 11th in the world by area. With more than 23 million people, it was the most populous French-speaking country on the continent. How does a state produce a result like that one? Why did a leader obsessed with authenticity choose a name that was itself a puzzle? And why did powerful governments keep backing him while his country slid toward ruin? The answers lie in how Mobutu rebuilt the state around himself, and in what finally pulled it apart.

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• 2. Authenticity

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  On the 27th of October 1971, Mobutu announced that his country would henceforth be the Republic of Zaire. Between 1965 and 1971 it had officially been the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The new name came from the Congo River, which Portuguese speakers sometimes called Zaire. That word traces back to the Kikongo phrase nzere o zadi, meaning river that swallows rivers.

  During the 18th century, English writers had gradually swapped Zaire for Congo, and Congo was the usual choice in 19th-century books. Even so, Zahir and Zaire lingered as the names believed to be used by local people.

  The name Congo, which Mobutu discarded, referred to both the river and the mediaeval Kongo Empire. That rooted it firmly in pre-colonial Africa. Zaire, by contrast, was a Portuguese corruption of the African word Nzadi, which simply means river. Given his talk of authenticity, the choice struck observers as curious.

  The colonial city names went first. Léopoldville became Kinshasa, Stanleyville became Kisangani, and Élisabethville became Lubumbashi. Jadotville became Likasi, and Albertville became Kalemie. Many of these changes, along with a new currency, had already happened between 1966 and 1971.

  Joseph-Désiré was the first name Mobutu gave up. Under the authenticité policy of the early 1970s, Zairians had to take authentic African names in place of European ones. Mobutu became Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga, usually shortened to Mobutu Sésé Seko. Roughly, it means the all-conquering warrior who goes from triumph to triumph. The armed forces were renamed the Zairian Armed Forces, or FAZ. In 1972, Zairian names replaced Western or Christian ones, and the abacost replaced Western dress. Both were promoted as signs of authenticity.

  The zaïre replaced the franc as the national currency. One zaïre was worth 100 makuta, and each likuta was divided into 100 sengi. The sengi was worth so little that the smallest coin was for 10 sengi.

  The ideas behind all this were set out in the Manifesto of N'sele, issued from the president's rural residence at N'sele. That estate lay 60 km up the Congo River from Kinshasa. Made public in May 1967, the manifesto named nationalism, revolution and authenticity as the themes of what became known as Mobutism. Nationalism meant economic and political independence. Revolution, described as "truly national revolution, essentially pragmatic", meant rejecting both capitalism and communism. "Neither right nor left" became a regime slogan, alongside "authenticity".

  The party's own doctrine tied authenticity to "authentic Zairian nationalism and condemnation of regionalism and tribalism". Mobutu defined it as being conscious of one's own personality and values, and at home in one's culture. He also used it to justify his rule. In his words: "in our African tradition there are never two chiefs... That is why we Congolese, in the desire to conform to the traditions of our continent, have resolved to group all the energies of the citizens of our country under the banner of a single national party."

  Critics pointed to the doctrine's vagueness and its self-serving streak. The party took it seriously all the same. Its ideological training centre, the Makanda Kabobi Institute, was tasked with spreading the teachings of the Founder-President in the same fashion across the land. Members of the Political Bureau were named "the repositories and guarantors of Mobutism".

  The party also drew legitimacy from the mass parties that had arisen across Africa in the 1960s. One such party, the MNC-Lumumba, had inspired it directly, and the MPR tried to appropriate that Lumumbist heritage.

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• 3. The Party State

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  In 1965, a stalemate between President and Parliament once again threatened the stability of Congo-Léopoldville, a former Belgian colony. This followed five years of upheaval after independence from Belgium, known as the Congo Crisis. Mobutu seized power in a military coup. The first time, in 1960, he had stayed behind the scenes. This time he took the presidency himself and claimed the title "Father of the Nation".

  Looking back, Mobutu summed up the First Republic as a record of "chaos, disorder, negligence, and incompetence". His new regime spent its first two years on political reconstruction. Next came a new foundation of legitimacy, in the form of a single party.

  By June 1967, a new constitution was ready, and a popular referendum approved it with 98 per cent of the vote. It made the president head of state, head of government, commander in chief of the armed forces and the police, and the director of foreign policy.

  The most far-reaching change came on the 17th of April 1967, with the founding of the Popular Movement of the Revolution, the MPR. It marked the emergence of "the nation politically organised". Government institutions no longer expressed the state. Instead, the state was defined as the expression of the party. In October 1967, party and administrative duties were merged into a single framework. That extended the party's role to every central and provincial office, and to trade unions, youth movements and student organisations.

  A second constitution came in 1974, three years after the renaming. Every five years, and every seven after 1978, the MPR chose a president, who was also its only candidate. A referendum then confirmed him. Mobutu was reelected in 1977 and 1984 with implausibly high margins, claiming a unanimous or near-unanimous yes. National Assembly candidates came as a single MPR list, again with near-unanimous official support. Every citizen of Zaire became an MPR member at birth. The MPR was called the country's "single institution", and its president held what the text named "plentitude of power exercise".

  Two weeks after the 1970 presidential vote, voters faced a single MPR list for parliament. It won over 99 per cent approval. The bicameral parliament was replaced by a one-chamber Legislative Council. Governors were no longer elected by provincial assemblies but appointed by the central government.

  In the 1970s and 1980s, Mobutu drew on a chosen pool of technocrats, often called the "nomenklatura", and rotated them between posts. One was Djamboleka Lona Okitongono, who became Secretary of Finance under Minister of Finance Citizen Namwisi. He later headed OGEDEP, the National Debt Management Office, and finally served as Governor of the Bank of Zaire. His path was typical of the rotations Mobutu favoured. Mobutu kept the most sensitive portfolios, such as Defence, for himself.

  The president could appoint and dismiss cabinet ministers, provincial governors, and the judges of every court, including the Supreme Court of Justice. Under certain conditions he could also govern by executive order, which carried the force of law.

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• 4. Capturing Civil Society

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  In June 1967, Mobutu's regime launched the National Union of Zairian Workers, known as UNTZA. It pulled three existing trade unions into one framework. A month later, in July 1967, the Political Bureau announced a youth wing, the JMPR. The Manifesto of N'Sele said the union merger would turn unions from "being merely a force of confrontation" into "an organ of support for government policy". The youth wing was meant to link students to the state. In practice, the regime wanted control of the places where opposition might gather. Many observers found little evidence that this won support beyond the most superficial level.

  Women's associations were brought under party control, as was the press. Ethnic groups were next. The Association of Lulua Brothers had formed in Kasai in 1953 in reaction to the rising influence of the rival Luba people. Liboke lya Bangala, literally "a bundle of Bangala", had represented Lingala speakers in large cities since the 1950s. Mobutu outlawed both, while declaring himself opposed to ethnicity as a basis for politics. It helped him that the public had a blurred picture of his own ethnic background. As dissatisfaction grew, ethnic tensions surfaced again anyway.

  In December 1971, Mobutu moved against the churches. Only three remained officially recognised: the Church of Christ in Zaire, the Kimbanguist Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. A law from that month let the state dissolve any church or sect that threatened public order. Scores of unrecognised sects were shut down, and their leaders were jailed.

  The Catholic Church was the hardest to bring to heel. The state nationalised the universities of Kinshasa and Kisangani, banned all Christian names, and demanded JMPR sections in seminaries. Only in 1975, after heavy pressure from the Vatican, did the regime soften its attacks and return some control of schools to the church.

  Pope John Paul II arrived on the 2nd of May 1980, the centenary of Catholic evangelization in the country. He greeted over a million people during his tour. Nine people were trampled to death trying to attend mass, and the pope left on the 6th of May.

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• 5. Breaking the Rocks

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  In 1967, a reform in Kinshasa abolished provincial governments altogether. State officials appointed by the capital replaced them. The same principle reached districts and territories, each headed by an administrator the central government chose. Chiefdoms and sectors, called local collectivities, kept a fair measure of autonomy, but not for long. The result looked strikingly like the colonial system it replaced, except that from July 1972 provinces were called regions.

  A second reform in January 1973 went further. Each head of an administrative unit became president of the local party committee, which fused political and administrative hierarchies. Hereditary claims to authority were no longer recognised. All chiefs were to be appointed and controlled by the state, so that in theory no centre of local autonomy remained. Later, in 1988, the province of Kivu was split into three regions.

  The 1973 introduction of "obligatory civic work" deepened the echo of the colonial state. Locally known as Salongo, after the Lingala word for work, it demanded one afternoon a week of compulsory labour on agricultural and development projects. Officially it was a revolutionary return to communalism and solidarity, to be carried out "with enthusiasm and without constraint".

  Popular enthusiasm was conspicuously absent. Resistance and foot dragging spread, and many local administrators looked the other way. By the late 1970s most Zairians avoided their Salongo duties. Reviving one of the most resented features of colonial rule drained away much of the regime's legitimacy.

  By 1976, the drive to expand the state had begun to produce its own contradictions. That opened the way for the revival of a Bula Matari system, named for "the breaker of rocks", built on repression and brutality. Failing to comply with Salongo carried penalties of one to six months in jail.

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• 6. Patrons and Debts

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  Washington had good reasons to keep Mobutu in power. During the Cold War, Zaire served the West, and especially the United States, as a counterbalance to Soviet influence in Africa. The United States and its allies gave the regime military and economic aid to hold back communism.

  That support was tested in 1977 and 1978, when Katangan rebels based in Angola launched two invasions, Shaba I and Shaba II. They crossed into Katanga Province, which had been renamed Shaba in 1972. Western Bloc military help, notably from the Safari Club, drove them out.

  The Battle of Kolwezi, fought in May 1978, brought an airborne operation. Its aim was to rescue Zairian, Belgian and French miners held hostage by pro-Communist Katangan guerrillas.

  Meanwhile, the economy was failing. By 1979, purchasing power had dropped to only 4% of its 1960 level. The IMF began providing stabilizing loans in 1976, but Mobutu and his circle embezzled much of the money.

  In 1981, Zaire launched an economic reform to keep up payments on its rescheduled debt of $4.4 billion. The country had recorded small growth in the last three quarters of 1980.

  A 1982 report by the IMF's envoy, Erwin Blumenthal, was blunt. He called it "alarmingly clear" that the corrupt system, with all its mismanagement and fraud, would destroy every effort at recovery by international institutions, friendly governments and commercial banks. He stated that there was "no chance" creditors would recover their loans.

  The IMF and the World Bank kept lending anyway. The money was embezzled, stolen, or wasted on what the text calls "elephant projects". Meanwhile, the structural adjustment programmes attached to IMF loans cut support for health care, education and infrastructure.

  In June 1989, Mobutu visited Washington, D.C. He was the first African head of state invited for a state meeting with the newly elected President George H. W. Bush.

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• 7. Cracks in the Regime

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  In late 1989 and early 1990, a series of domestic protests shook Mobutu. International criticism of the regime's human rights record was growing, the economy was faltering, and corruption was rampant. The worst of it was his massive embezzlement of government funds for personal use. As the Cold War wound down, the American support that had propped him up ended. In 1990 he declared a new republic to meet demands for change.

  An opposition already existed. Throughout the 1980s, Zaire stayed a one-party state, but opposition parties were active. The most notable was the Union for Democracy and Social Progress, the UDPS. Mobutu's attempts to quell these groups drew significant international criticism.

  In May 1990, Mobutu accepted the principle of a multi-party system with elections and a constitution. Details of the reform package lagged. In September 1991, soldiers protesting unpaid wages began looting Kinshasa. Two thousand French and Belgian troops arrived, some flown in on U.S. Air Force planes, to evacuate 20,000 endangered foreign nationals.

  The long-promised Sovereign National Conference finally met in 1992, with over 2,000 representatives from various political parties. It gave itself a legislative mandate. Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya became its chairman, and UDPS leader Étienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba was elected prime minister. By the end of the year, Mobutu had set up a rival government with its own prime minister.

  In 1994, the stalemate ended in a compromise. The two governments merged into the High Council of Republic-Parliament of Transition, with Mobutu as head of state and Kengo wa Dondo as prime minister. Presidential and legislative elections were scheduled repeatedly over the next two years. They never took place.

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• 8. The Fall

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  By 1996, the Rwandan Civil War and genocide had spilled over into Zaire. Rwandan Hutu militia forces, the Interahamwe, had fled Rwanda after an RPF-led government took power. They used Hutu refugee camps in eastern Zaire as bases for raids against Rwanda. These militias allied with the Zairian armed forces and began a campaign against Congolese ethnic Tutsis in the east, known as the Banyamulenge. The Banyamulenge formed a militia to defend themselves.

  In November 1996, the Zairian government escalated its massacres, and the Tutsi militias rose in rebellion. That triggered the First Congo War. Opposition groups joined the Tutsi militia, and several countries, including Rwanda and Uganda, backed it. The coalition was led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila and became known as the AFDL. Its aim grew to ousting Mobutu.

  The AFDL made significant gains in early 1997. By the middle of that year it had almost completely overrun the country. The main thing that slowed it down was Zaire's ramshackle infrastructure. In some areas, irregularly used dirt paths and river ports were the only links to the outside world.

  Peace talks between Mobutu and Kabila failed. On the 17th of May 1997, Mobutu fled into exile in Morocco. Kabila named himself president and marched unopposed into Kinshasa three days later. On the 21st of May, he officially restored the name Democratic Republic of the Congo. The country's internet domain changed from .zr to .cd, and its Olympic code from ZAI to COD. Mobutu died in exile in Morocco less than four months later.

  Zaire's legacy did not vanish with its flag. Factions from Mobutu's former network of supporters claimed and partly continued it. They were led by regime "barons" and members of his family, and included the Union of Mobutist Democrats and the MPR-Fait privé. Several of these groups kept using Zaire's symbols and invoking its traditions.

  In 2024, opposition politician Christian Malanga led a coup attempt against the Congolese government in the name of a self-proclaimed "New Zaire". His followers raised the old flag of Zaire in Kinshasa. The attempt was defeated, and Malanga was killed.

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