Mobutu Sese Seko

Mobutu Sese Seko ruled the Democratic Republic of the Congo — which he renamed Zaire in 1971 — from 1965 until 1997. Born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu in 1930 in Lisala, he served in the Force Publique under Belgian colonial rule before becoming chief of staff of the army at independence in 1960. During the Congo Crisis he played a central role in the removal and subsequent killing of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in early 1961, an episode in which Belgian and U.S. intelligence services were also implicated.

On 24 November 1965 Mobutu seized power in a coup against President Joseph Kasa-Vubu. He consolidated a one-party state under the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution (MPR) and launched a campaign of authenticité, replacing colonial-era names (Congo became Zaire, Léopoldville became Kinshasa) and adopting the name Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga in 1972. His 1973 "Zairianization" decrees nationalized foreign-owned businesses, contributing to severe economic decline.

Mobutu became a key Cold War ally of the United States, France, and Belgium, who tolerated his rule in exchange for anti-communist alignment in Central and Southern Africa, including support for UNITA in Angola. His regime is widely cited as a paradigm case of kleptocracy: estimates of his personal fortune at its peak ran into the billions of dollars, while public infrastructure collapsed.

After the end of the Cold War, Western support waned. The 1994 Rwandan genocide and the subsequent flow of refugees and génocidaires into eastern Zaire destabilized the country. The First Congo War (1996–1997), led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila's AFDL with Rwandan and Ugandan backing, drove Mobutu from Kinshasa in May 1997. He fled to Togo and then Morocco, where he died of prostate cancer in Rabat on 7 September 1997.