Mobutu
1965-1996
President Kasavubu and Prime Minister Tshombe
were ousted in a 1965 coup led by former army commander Joseph
Mobutu. Stressing a "return to African authenticity,"
Mobutu renamed the country Zaire in 1971, after an old, supposedly
more authentic local name for the Congo River. In 1972, he changed
his name to Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga (officially
translated as "the all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance
and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest leaving
fire in his wake.") He also banned European names and dress,
and promoted the use of African languages. His efforts to extend this
nationalism to the economy, however, failed. Nationalism, in Mobutu's
fiscal terms, meant taking foreign-owned firms and giving them to
less-experienced, often corrupt political cronies, who drove their
firms into the ground. Mobutu crushed political dissent and executed
rivals. He consolidated power by sharing the country's wealth with
allies, reportedly stealing billions of dollars in Western aid and
earnings from the nation's mineral wealth. Continuing the Belgian
tradition, Mobutu amassed a vast personal fortune while his nation
suffered economic ruin.
In 1996 a military rebellion began to emerge in Zaire led by Laurent
Desiré Kabila. In May, 1997 Kabila, Mobutu, and South Africa's
President Nelson Mandela met in Kinshasa in a futile effort to broker
peace. Within weeks Kabila took the city. Mobutu
fled and died in exile in September of that year.
