War Crimes: Rwanda government dragged again in DR Congo for supporting M23 rebels

Families flee fighting between the Congolese army and M23 rebels in Rutshuru territory, eastern Congo in May 2012.

© 2012 Human Rights Watch

By Manuel Odeny
The Rwanda government has been accused of committing war crimes after being dragged again in DR Congo conflict by supporting the M23 rebels.

In a new research by Human Rights Watch between May and September this year which interviewed 190 Congolese and Rwandan victims Rwanda has been implicated to be complicit in war crimes through continued military assistance to M23 rebels.

This new report collaborates the June United Nations Security Council by Group of Experts Democratic Republic of Congo which led to Rwanda being sanctioned and denied aid for supporting the rebels against sanctions.

The two findings accuse Rwanda of the following:

·         Direct assistance in the creation of M23 through the transport of weapons and soldiers through Rwandan territory

·         Recruitment of Rwandan youth and demobilized ex-combatants as well as Congolese refugees for M23

·         Provision of weapons and ammunition to M23

·         Mobilization and lobbying of Congolese political and financial leaders for the benefit of M23

·         Direct Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF) interventions into Congolese territory to reinforce M23

·         Support to several other armed groups as well as Forces armées de la République démocratique du Congo (FARDC) mutinies in the eastern Congo

·         Violation of the assets freeze and travel ban through supporting sanctioned individuals.3

This contravenes the Security Council resolution that states “all States shall take the necessary measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer, from their territories or by their nationals, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, of arms and any related materiel, and the provision of any assistance, advice or training related to military activities, including financing and financial assistance, to all non-governmental entities and individuals operating in the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo;”.

Following this report senior Rwanda official are at risk of facing ICC trials at the Hague for being party of the M23’s widespread war crimes, including summary executions, rapes, and forced recruitment.

“In July, several hundred Rwandan army soldiers, possibly more, were deployed to eastern Congo to assist the M23 take the strategic border post town of Bunagana, Rumangabo military base, the towns of Rutshuru, Kiwanja, and Rugari, and surrounding areas,” HRW says.

Witnesses, especially M23 defectors say Rwandan forces enter DR Congo through various footpaths near Njerima, Kanyanje and through Ugandan territory and vehicles around Sabyinyo volcano.

Ugandan media has reported Rwandan military arrested in the country as they head to DR Congo.

HRW says Rwanda “had directed, or helped to direct, military operations, provided weapons, or supervised the training of new recruits.”

M23 in Congo has forcibly recruited 286; of whom at least 68 were children under 18, 24 of them under 15 with Rwandan military recruits by-passing them with estimated 600 of its citizens by force to fight.

Most Rwandan recruits are “men and boys with no previous military experience and Congolese Tutsi refugees living in refugee or transit camps in Rwanda. Others targeted for recruitment included demobilized soldiers from the Rwandan army, the CNDP, and demobilized fighters from the FDLR who had returned to Rwanda.”

Sadly FDLR are a largely Rwandan Hutu militia group operating in Congo, some of whose members participated in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

“There are lots of children with [M23 ICC suspect General] Ntaganda now, and they send us to the front lines so we’re the first to die. It’s as if they take us to kill us,” a 17-year-old Rwandan boy who was recruited in June in Ruhengeri told HRW.

So why does Rwanda recruit its citizens for rebels? A M23 combatant is succinct, “We have a small number of soldiers, and Rwanda has many, we recruit everywhere in Rwanda. We look especially for those with families in Congo, former CNDP fighters, or demobilized soldiers. The street children are also very susceptible to recruitment.”

But Rwanda and M23 continue to deny such allegations. Earlier as an undergrad student I had published an OpEd in this blog, The EastAfrican, Daily Nation and other papers (read it here) on why Rwanda and Uganda who have pilfered Eastern DR Congo resources will not support any report in the country.

The two who claim DR Congo has been used to front rebels in their countries have their armies and presidents to be profiteers and glutton mineral thieves.

Rwandan president Paul Kagame has resorted to dictatorship by forcing the world to bend to his whims by using the genocide guilt card and economic development under his rule as the carrot and its army in UN peace keeping mission in the region as the stick for submission.

And following the same script the Rwandan defense minister, James Kabarebe (he was named in the June UN report, full list later) in an interviews with Belgian newspaper Le Soir on August 29 said, “Everyone knows that Rwanda does not have a single soldier amongst the M23 and does not give it any support.”

M23 leadership has also denied any report linking it to war crimes extensively.

About M23

Wanted: M23 General Bosco Ntaganda

The rebel M23 are soldiers who mutinied to protest the Congolese government’s failure to fully implement the March 23, 2009, peace agreement (hence the name M23), which had integrated them into the Congolese army and was started in late March and May.

Most M23’s senior commanders have well-known histories of serious abuses, ethnic massacres, recruitment of children, mass rape, killing, abductions and torture with some being blacklisted by UN and wanted by ICC.

General Bosco Ntaganda led the mutiny following Congolese government attempts to weaken his control and increased calls for his arrest and surrender to the ICC others are Sultani Makenga, Col. Innocent Zimurinda, Col. Baudouin Ngaruye and Col. Innocent Kayna.

HRW reports that with such tainted past both Ntaganda and Zimurinda have traveled to openely Rwanda since April to seek logistical support against international sanctions and arrest warrants on them.

“The Rwandan government’s repeated denials that its military officials provide support for the abusive M23 rebels beggars belief, the United Nations Security Council should sanction M23 leaders, as well as Rwandan officials who are helping them, for serious rights abuses.”  Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Africa researcher with HRW says.

According to the earlier report by UN the following Rwandan officials were extensively named and should be sanctioned and brought to justice:

·         General Jacques Nziza, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence he  supervises all military, financial, and logistic support as well as mobilization activities related to M23.

·         General James Kabarebe, the Rwandan Minister of Defence, with the support of his personal secretary Captain Celestin Senkoko for recruitment and mobilizing of political and military support to M23. Kabarebe has often been in direct contact with M23 members on the ground to coordinate military activities;

·         General Charles Kayonga, the RDF Chief of Staff, manages the overall military support to M23. Kayonga is frequently in communication with Makenga and oversaw the transfer of Makenga’s troops and weapons through Rwanda;

·         The military support on the ground, recruitment of civilians and demobilized soldiers for M23 has been channelled by General Emmanuel Ruvusha, RDF Division commander based in Gisenyi, as well as General Alexi Kagame and RDF Division commander based at Ruhengeri. Both facilitate

·         Colonel Jomba Gakumba, a native of North Kivu, who used to be an RDF instructor at the Rwandan Military Academy at Gako.

DR Congo polls chaos invokes a country with a violent history

Supporters of Joseph Kabila on streets.

As tension is brewing in the Democratic Republic of Congo following elections results announced this month, there is fear that the country may slide back to civil war even as a defiant Jospeh Kabila took the oath of office, this invokes a country marred by a history of violence since the 30^th June 1960  independence.

The results had been delayed with Joseph Kabila, 40 trouncing ten contestants to garner forty-nine percent of 18 million votes against his closest rival Etienne Tshisekedi, 78, who got thirty-two percent in polls with had a fifty-nine voters turnout.

“I consider this declaration an outright provocation to our people and I reject it in full. As a result I consider myself from this day on as the elected president of DR Congo” Tshisekedi said in a statement insisting that he garnered fifty-four percent of the votes against Kabila’s twenty-six percent.

Four other contestants have already rejected the results which the international observers say the voting was flawed but it wasn’t fraudulent enough to skew the results.

As tension escalates dozens of citizens have died while others including international expatriates have fled the capital Kinshasa where the government have deployed over 20,000 forces to try and restore calm.

“I call on the international community, which has relentlessly encouraged me to guarantee a peaceful process, to not only find a solution to this problem but take all possible measures so that the blood of the Congolese people is not spilled again” Tshisekedi is quoted by AFP correspondent before he sow himself with a bible in his house.

Analysts have ruled out the Supreme Court which will arbiter on the results before announcing the winner on 17 this month not to be able to quell the tension. Earlier during the campaign Kabila expanded the apex court from seven to twenty seven sitting judges believed to be his supporters.  Earlier this year the clause that required a seconded runoff in case of no definite winner with a 50% win was scrapped off stoking the legality of the court ruling.

“We saw what happened in Kenya . We saw what happened in Zimbabwe and we saw what happened recently in Ivory Coast . Things have got worse because we have not anticipated this” Vital Kamerhe, third placed contestant said.

As sporadic armed conflict starts, memories of conflict as started with the birth of the nation is rekindled. While other African countries stared as colonies, DR Congo started as a personal estate of King Leopold II of Belgian to make him the richest men in Europe with ivory, copper, timber and rubber from the country.

Leopold’s ambition and greed which spurred the scramble and partition of the continent saw him hire Welsh born journalist-explorer Henry Morton Stanley in 1878 to cut treaties with over 400 chiefs to form the current DR Congo.

Stanley was nicknamed by locals as Bula Matari- ‘Breaker of Rocks’ from dynamite, for his ability to hand out severe punishments to dissents. By independence several millions, estimated to be a half of the population had lost their lives to what Joseph Conrad in his famous book on Leopold’s Congo Heart of Darkness call “the vilest scramble for loot to ever disfigure the history of human conscience”

As reality of independence dawned and faced with the wind of change engulfing the continent Belgium tried to rig the first election in country against first Prime Minister who had irked the colonialist with his pan-Africanist ideology he got from the 1958 All African conference in Ghana .

“Who can forget the volleys of gunfire in which so many of our brothers perished, the cells where the authorities threw those who would not submit to a rule where justice meant oppression and exploitation” Lumumba said told Belgium delegates during independence “We are no longer your monkeys”

This caused the first loose coalition government headed by Lumumba as election winner and other 12 parties forming to shaky like an extension ladder and lasted only a few days of peace in the country. Chaos was sparked when the army controlled by 1,100 Belgian corps mutinied for salary increase.

Hell bend to outset Lumumba Belgium flew in more troops, liaised with the mining companies on 11^th July and reinstate Moise Tshombe to declare Katanga , rich in mineral an independent state.

The bloodshed that followed saw assassination of Lumumba on January 1961 for siding with Russia and Czech Republic to aid in military expedition to rein Katanga and control an uprising in Kasai . USA cold war interests and Belgium mining welfare aided in propping Tshombe and Joseph Desire Mobutu to power fast on 14th September 1960 and later in 1965 as the absolute president. As the western ‘friendly tyrant’ Mobutu lead a kleptomaniac regime enjoying a $9Billion aid, US contribute $860Million of this. 

“The Congo paid heavily for the chaos surrounding the advent of independence. For years to come it became the battleground for warring factions, marauding soldiers, foreign troops, mercenaries forces, revolutionary enthusiasts and legions of diplomats and advisers.” Martin Meredith writes in his book The State of Africa .

Most serious and detailed conflict detailed in The UN backed report on Illegal Exploration of Natural Resources and other forms of Wealth from the DRC published from 2001-2003which unearth the extent of the great lakes war fought in the country.

It is from the start on 1988 that DRC was engulfed in humanitarian crisis in four stages according to the report; 1993-1996; July 1996-July 1998; August 1998-January 2000 and the final transition of January 2001- June 2003.


From 1988 to 2003 conflict drew a score of African countries; Angola , Zimbabwe , Rwanda , Burundi , Uganda , Namibia , Chad and all the way to the bloody diamond fields of Sierra Leone . The main allure being DRC’s vast mineral resources with the uncanny ability to bring to her doorstep hounds picking on he carcass amid plundering, war inhumanities and smuggling. 

In 1988 DRC was rotting under corruption, weak central government and huge debt. Mobutu was ‘dinosaur’ against the second democratic wind of change which turned the world against him. The fall of the Berlin wall and the extent at which aid was misused was enough cocktail to bring the world against Mobutu.

Joseph Kabila

To shore his failing image, Mobutu took a populist angle by being a regional powerbroker to meddle in Rwanda and Burundi’s genocide conflict despite DRC hosting over 1.5 million Rwandan refugees like Interahamwe, Mayi Mayi and Banyamulenge escaping the prolong tribal conflicts in the region.





Rwanda and Uganda resentful at cross border raid in Kivu and Eastern Congo chose to support Laurent-Desire Kabila rebellion against Mobutu. Angola too joined the fray by supporting Katanga rebels to hit back on CIA and Mobutu’s support to Jonas Savimbi and Unita by spying on her and the support offered by Cuba and Russia . 


When Angolan backed rebels tried to overthrow Mobutu in 1977 & 78 the west swiftly came to his aid, this was hit back time for Angola .

The second stage saw Kabila becoming the president of DRC on 17th May 1997 while Mobutu died four months later in Morocco . Uganda ’s Yoweri Museveni is quoted by Times journalist Martin Meredith in State of Africa to capture the all incident thus:

“The big mistake of Mobutu was to involve himself in Rwanda . So it’s really Mobutu who initiated the programme of his own removal. Had he not involved himself in Rwanda, I think he could have stayed, just like that, as he had been doing for the last 32 years – just doing nothing to develop Zaire, but stay in what they call power, by controlling the radio station, and so on”







The third stage (August 1998-January 2000) flared when Laurent Kabila dismissed Rwandan who aided his rise to power. His advisers couldn’t understand why a country ‘so small to be found in the map’ could control their government.



After propping him to power, Burundi , Rwanda and Uganda financed rebels because Kabila could not control the cross border raids by rebels from DR Congo to their country. On the other hand, Zimbabwe and Angola aided Kabila with help from Namibia and Chad .

Although the initial aims was to control their borders, the president’s otiose ambition of being regional kingmakers and unbridled greed for diamond, petroleum, gold, timber, Colton and other minerals the  DRC was a proxy war for looters. Generals from these foreign countries unleashed terror on citizens on mines to loot minerals. 

The acme of this stage was in 2000 when Rwanda and Uganda turned against each other in three occasions to control Kisangani the diamond hub. The illegal exploitation become an open secret.

Etienne Tshisekedi who sow himself as president

“Outraged by their ill-concealed looting enterprises and the damage inflicted on Kisangani, The UN Security Council demanded that Rwanda and Uganda withdraw from Congo with both Museveni and Kagame cited as ‘accomplishes’ by the UN panel” Meredith writes.


The last stage (January 2001-June 2003) saw the withdrawal of foreign armies after the July 2002 peace treaty by Joseph Kabila after his father was shot at a close range by his bodyguard on 16^th January 2001. 

The just concluded election rekindles a history of bloodshed in DR Congo as the world waits with abated breath the outcome of Supreme Court ruling as Tshisekedi , US and France already call for calm in the country.

Kagame scorns UN report as DRC burns.

Paul Kagame, Rwanda's President

I read with interest several articles about DRC on this weeks issue of The EastAfrican. The UN leaked report implicating Rwanda and Uganda shows how DRC’s wealth has attracted plunder from the world stage to the detriment of the country.

Of course Rwanda was ingurgitated enough to threaten a withdrawal of its 3,500 army aiding in peacekeeping effort in Sudan. UN in a diplomatic twist (after realizing Rwanda’s potential in peace of the region) has pushed the publishing the report, with Rwanda’s reaction, on 1st October.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon flew unexpectedly in Rwanda last week for talk, showing the seriousness of the repercussions.

I wasn’t shocked on Rwanda’s reaction on the leaked report. Prolific writers and journalists covering DRC have got the same backlash on their work. Dutch journalist Ludo de Witte’s The Assassination of Lumumba (first published in Dutch, 1999) is a good example. The fuss it caused in Belgium, DRC former colony, made the Belgium parliament to accept its country involvement in Lumumba’s death.

The UN backed report on Illegal Exploration of Natural Resources and other forms of Wealth from the DRC published from 2001-2003 received the same backlash.

The allure of DRC’s vast mineral resources has brought to it’s doorstep the world stage like hounds picking on it carcass amid plundering, war inhumanities and smuggling.

The 1988-2003 conflict drew a score of African countries; Angola, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Namibia, Chad and all the way to the bloody diamond fields of Sierra Leone.

I tried looking at 50 years of independence on the land of rhumba and found interesting the world stage in DRC:

The colonial Belgium under Leopold II set the stage for the scramble and partition of Africa. With shrewd ambition and insatiable greed for wealth, Leopold hired Henry Morton Stanley in 1878 to unleash terror to 400 African chiefs to curve the ‘Congo Free State.’ Joseph Conrad’s account in Heart of Darkness about colonial DRC said ‘the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience’ made Leopold the richest man in Europe.

But the wind of independence blowing over Africa reached the country on 30th June 1960 bringing more world figure in -ism schism of the cold war.

Patrice Lumumba, the pm, leading a shaky coalition with Belgium unwillingness to concede power brought chaos. Moise Tshombe with Belgium support declared Katanga, the mineral hub, an independent state on 11th July 1960. UN and USA stepped in but when Lumumba wasn’t impressed by their service called in Russia and Czech personnel at the nadir of cold war.

This culminated into assassination of Patrice Lumumba by Belgium and CIA. The revolt in Kisangani (Lumumba’s stronghold) in 1964 was supported by China, Algeria, Cuba and Egypt, forcing the CIA ti aid Mobutu to power in 1965.

As the western ‘friendly tyrant’ Mobutu lead a kleptomaniac regime, but enjoyed $9Billion aid, US contribute $860Million of this. It is from the start on 1988 that DRC was engulfed in humanitarian crisis in four stages according to the report; 1993-1996; July 1996-July 1998; August 1998-January 2000 and the fina; transition of January 2001-June 2003.

In 1988 DRC was rotting over corruption, weak central government and huge debt. Mobutu was ‘dinasaur’ against the second democratic wind of change which tirned the world against him.

But not France which sided with him against ‘Anglo-phone ‘ encroachment in central Africa. In 1994 Franco-African summit Mobutu got a warm, French president Jacques Chirac gave amoment of silence in memory of Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana whom France supported against RPF.

The then current Rwandan president Pasteur Bizimungu was not invited.

The first stage started with Mobutu, in need of regional powerbroker, to meddle in Rwanda and Burundi’s conflict despite DRC hosting over 1.5 million Rwandan refugees like Interahamwe, Mayi Mayi and Banyamulenge.

Rwanda and Uganda resentful at cross border raid in Kivu and Eastern conge respectively chose to support Laurent-Desire Kabila. Angola too supported Katanga rebels to hit back on Mobutu’s support to Jonas Savimbi and Unita.

Interestingly, Kabila was dismissed by Argentinean revolutionary Ernesto ’Che’ Guevara and 120 Cuban fighters in 1965 as lucking any revolutionary seriousness. Algerian Ben Bella, china’s Zhou En-Lai blessed the expedition while Egypt’s Abdel Nasser had his reservation. Ernesto wrote the 1965 expedition in Dar es Salaam embassy in the book The African Dreams: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in Congo.

On 17th May 1997 Kabila become the president of DRC while Mobutu died four months later in morocco. Uganda’s Yoweri Museni remarked, as quoted by Times journalist Martin Meredith in State of Africa, capturing the all incident thus:

“The big mistake of Mobutu was to involve himself in Rwanda. So its really Mobutu who initiated the programme of his own removal. Had he not involved himself in Rwanda, I think ho could have stayed, just like that….”

The third stage (August 1998-January 2000) flared when Laurent Kabila dismissed Rwanda a country, as his advisers said to be so small to be found in the map.

With aims to control their borders, president’s otiose ambition for being regional kingmakers and unbridled greed for diamond, petroleum, gold , timber, Colton and other minerals, several countries joined the fray at this stage. DRC was a proxy with contracts used to buy loyalty.

Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda financed rebels because Kabila could not control the cross border raids. Zimbabwe and Angola aided Kabila with help from Namibia and Chad. The acme of this stage was in 2000 when Rwanda and Uganda turned against each other in three occasions to control Kisangani, the diamond hub!!

The last stage (January 2001-June 2003) saw the withdrawal of foreign armies after the July 2002 peace treaty by Joseph Kabila. There is no respite as rebels were and are still supported as a proxy war in rivalry in the region.

Published on the Thursday September 30th Issue of The Daily Nation and Syndicated online at: NewsFlavor 

The Great Plunderer: Mobutu Desire Sese Seko, Zaire.

How the cold war waxed Zaire.

American CIA and Belgium forces propped Joseph Desire Mobutu to power fast on 14th September 1960 and later in 1965 as the absolute president.

The two countries felt jittery when Patrice Lumumba sought the eastern bloc; Russia and Czechoslovakia support against Moise Tshombe and Mobutu. Primarily Belgian, colonizers were interested in Zaire resources while USA had cold war interests.

The two countries later plotted the assassination of Lumumba when the eastern bloc intervened on 15th August 1965.

President Eisenhower regarded Lumumba a maddog and ordered CIA to plan his elimination on 26th August. CIA director Allen Dulles authorized Kinshasa chief Lawrence Devlin to use $100,000 for Lumumba's assassination which was to be ‘urgent and a prime objective’.

CIA scientist Dr. Sidney Gottlieb designed an assassination kit of poison intended to be placed on Lumumba’s toothbrush. It expired before the material day.

Mobutu used to answer directly to CIA chief Devlin when he was an army officer and the president to spy on fellow countrymen.

Lumumba was captured by Mobutu’s forces and beaten badly. Mobutu scrutinized him with malicious air, spat on his face and said:

“Well! You swore to have my skin, now it is I who has yours”.

On 18th January 1976 Lumumba and two accomplishes were taken by Moise Tshombe, Belgian policemen and their commissioner. Under the command of a Belgian officer they were shot by a firing squad and buried in graves.

Afraid of their involvement on the deaths the Belgians unearthed the corpses, chopped them in bits and charred them in a barrel full of sulphuric acid. Their skulls, bones and teeth were grounded and the ashes scattered. A tale was rumored that Lumumba and his accomplishes had been killed by ‘patriotic villagers’.

With the deed over, the western world turned to Mobutu calling him ‘a friendly tyrant’ who had western interest at heart. The CIA used Zaire as a base to spy on its neighbors especially Angola. US aided UNITA forces led by Jonas Savimbi to fight the Angolan government backed by Cuba and Russia.

The pain of the cold war still lingers between Angola and DRC to date. Cabinda secessionists group is aided by DRC, and Angola blamed DRC for changing the border of oil and diamond rich region on December last year.

When Angolan backed rebels tried to overthrow Mobutu in 1977 & 78 the west swiftly came to his aid. In 23 years of mobutu misrule the US aid was $860 million despite the worsening economy. Through flattery president Nixon led the west to invest $2 billion for resources of copper, cobalt, industrial diamond and other minerals by 1974.

On the same year, despite mobutu tyranny US propped the image of Zaire further by organizing world heavyweight boxing match between Mohammad Ali and George Foreman dubbed ‘rumble in the jungle’

Mobutu consolidated power to strengthen his rule. He hanged four former cabinet ministers in public attended by 50,000 spectators for being opponents.

“In our African tradition, there are never two chiefs. Can anyone tell me that he have known a village that has two chiefs?”

He started and become the sole leader of movement populaire de la Revolution (MPR), the only political party in Zaire with ‘mobutuism’ ideology where deviation was a constitutional offence.

To built national spirit mobutu used personal power by decree to change western names to African. The name Congo was changed to Zaire. Towns with western names were changed too: Leopoldville to Kinshasa, Elizabethville to Lubumbashi, Stanleyville to Kisangani and Katanga to Shaba.

On equal measure Christian names were dropped for African and any priest caught baptizing Zairian children with Christian names were sentenced to five years imprisonment.

He changed his name to Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngendu Wa Za Banga which in his Ngbendu tribe meant: “’the warrior who knows no defeat because of his endurance and inflexible will and is all powerful;, leaving fire in his wake as he goes from conquest to conquest.” A more succinct translation in Tshiluba meant ‘invincible warrior; cock who leaves no chick intact’.

European suits were banned too. Men wore a collarless Mao-style tunic without shirt or tie called abscot. The abscot became Mobutu’s personal trademark worn with a leopard skin hat and thick, black framed glasses.

Mobutu built a personality cult. His deeds were praised in songs and dances as the ‘father of the nation’ ‘savior of the people’ ‘supreme combatant’ and ‘great strategist’. Officials in his government had to wear badge with his miniature portrait.

His personality cult took a religious twist. Before and after every TV News there was an image of Mobutu descending, as it were, from heaven. Places where he had worked and lived became pilgrimage points: high places of meditation. His interior minister Engulu Baanga Mpongo once told party faithfuls:

“God has sent a great prophet, our prestigious guider Mobutu. The prophet. Our liberator, our messiah. Our church id MPR. Its chief is Mobutu. We respect him as one respects a pope. Our gospel is mobutuism. This is why the crucifixes must be replaced by the image of our messiah.”

Mobutu’s personal wealth was unusurped by any African tyrant. In 1973 he seized 2,000 foreign owned enterprises- farms, plantations, ranches and factories. The seizure benefited his family and cronies who were given orders like ’you have been allocated’ and ‘the state authorize you t take possession of.. .’

Mobutu controlled the central bank where he channeled money to his personal Swiss accounts. He controlled mining by filling planes with copper and cobalt for personal use. US House of Representatives heard in ’81 that mobutu sold 2,000 ton of copper worth 35M for personal use.

In a country ravaged by poverty mobutu owned three quarters of ranch cattle and produced a quarter of cocoa and rubber in Zaire. His firms become third largest employer. Within 15 years Mobutu was worth more than $5Billion, a sum larger than Zaire’s $3billion debt.

Mobutu bought houses, apartments and estates in Europe, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Morocco and Brazil. He had a three storey luxury cruiser, Kamanyola, to entertain guests. In Zaire he hard three expensive villas in Kinshasa and a $100 million palace in Gbadolite.

The palaces had private zoos, several lakes and gardens, a nuclear shelter and a private airport for his supersonic concord.

To maintain power Mobutu had to bribe his opponents starting a wave of kleptocracy. Consequently it lead to massive inflation, fuel shortage and failing civil servants. 40% of government expenditure was looted while ‘ghost workers’ existed with their salary being pocketed by senior civil servants.
Mobutu had advice for his greedy ministers:

“If you steal , do not steal too much at a time. You may be arrested. Yibana Mayele- steal cleverly, little by little.”

In ’79 an economist sent to revamp the economy, Erwin Blumenthal, had to sleep with a shotgun and a radio to call West German and American embassies when he was threatened by armed men. The problem started when he gave a list of 50 plundering companies owned by Mobutu’s cronies to be investigated against corruption charges.

“Convectional wisdom said that besides Mobutu and his family there are only 80 people who count in Zaire” Blaine Harden, American journalist noted. “At one time, twenty are ministers, twenty are in exile, twenty are in jail, twenty are ambassadors. Every three Mobutu the music stops and Mobutu shuffles the park.”

Shuffling was a method to neutralize his enemies, mobutu said:

“My father used to say ‘keep your friends close, but your enemies closer still’ leaving people in exile was a danger, they were making a lot of noise. The game was to neutralize their capacity to damage them"

Moise Tshombe nephew Nguza Karl-I-Bond was a good example.

He was a foreign minister in ’74 and ’79. He paid the foreign press to mention him a possible successor of Mobutu. He was accused of involvement with the rebel group, charged with treason, tortured and sentenced to death in ’78. He was imprisoned and made prime minister (’79). Nguza went in exile (’81) where he made noise about Mobutu’s regime. He returned in fold, ’85, made a foreign minister and prime minster again.

Use of Zaire as a CIA base to spy on Angola brought tension in the region. Mobutu end came when he got involved in Rwanda's politics by supporting the Hutu rebels.

“The big mistake of Mobutu was to involve himself in Rwanda.’ Yoweri Museveni said “so it’s really Mobutu who initiated the programme of his own removal. Had he not involved himself in Rwanda, I think he could have stayed.”

Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Angolan forces outset Mobutu by placing Joseph Kabila as president on 17th may 1977.
The western world deserted him.

Three days before Kabila’s inauguration an elite presidential guard from his Ngbendu tribe mutinied against him. He escaped with his family on a cargo plane belonging to Jonas Savimbi, an Angolan rebel he supported, with bullets ripping into the fuselage as it took of.

He died in exile in Morocco bitter and resentful at the betrayal of his cronies and the US.