Independence & Mobutu's Reign

Independence and Mobutu’s Rise to Power

  The most important and famous members of the Congo intelligentsia were Patrice Lumumba, Joseph Kasavubu, Moise Tshombe, and eventual dictator Joseph Mobutu. Lumumba (Figure 6.2) was a fiery orator born in Kasai in 1925. He received his education at a Protestant missionary school and then trained to become a post office clerk. As an adult, he moved to Stanleyville, where he became the president of an intellectual club and contributed articles to numerous magazines regarding the inequities caused by colonialism.[1] After overt political activity emerged in 1956, Lumumba was the first to call for Congolese independence openly and helped found and later led the Mouvement Nationale Congolaise (MNC) political party. Kasavubu (Figure 6.3) was born in the Bas-Congo province north of Boma in 1915. His math aptitude allowed him to study in a seminary in the Congo, where he would earn a degree in philosophy before leaving for a civil service position.[2] Kasavubu moved to Leopoldville (current-day Kinshasa) during World War II. He began to develop his views and arguments on the right of occupancy and fair wages and advocated for greater political and personal freedoms for the Congolese.[3] In 1955, Kasavubu was appointed head of the tribal organization ABAKO, which he turned into a political organization that advocated for immediate independence.[4] Moise Tshombe (Figure 6.4) inherited a family fortune from the Katanga region, eventually becoming the first Congolese millionaire.[5] A member of the Lunda tribe that occupied much of Katanga, Tshombe was more conservative than his counterparts. He preferred regional autonomy to centralized government and was not radically anti-colonial; he wanted Belgian support in the Congo after the proposed independence.[6] Joseph Mobutu (Figure 6.5) was born in Lisala in 1930 and joined the Force Publique at twenty. After leaving that position, he worked as a journalist when he met Lumumba and joined the MNC in 1958.[7]

The independence movement gradually evolved, but one of its defining events was the 1955 Brussels World’s Fair (Figure 6.6). Many Congolese attended a Belgian attempt to tout colonization's economic and social success. The Congolese consisted of traditional chiefs and members of the new class of intelligentsia. Here, Lumumba and Mobutu saw how isolated they had been. They were exposed to members of other more mature African independence movements and other like-minded Congolese from whom they had been isolated.[8] In 1956, a poorly received Belgian report stated that independence was at least thirty years away and would hopefully occur by 1990. This report fueled the independence movement, reaching a breaking point on January 4, 1959. Following a fiery speech by Patrice Lumumba, colonial officials canceled an ABAKO rally planned by Joseph Kasavubu in Leopoldville. This decision set off two weeks of clashes between government troops and Congolese citizens, causing anywhere from dozens to hundreds of deaths, primarily citizens. This event is still celebrated in the DRC as Martyr’s Day, spurred the Roundtable conferences to follow, and according to Ngonzola-Ntalaja, “sounded the death knell of colonialism” in the Congo.[9]

The Belgian government called the Roundtable Conferences in Brussels (Figure 6.7) in response to the Leopoldville uprisings, and Lumumba, Kasavubu, Tshombe, and Mobutu all attended. The Belgians hoped to pacify and negotiate with the Congolese delegation by resolving the timeline differences concerning independence. Still, they were met with two non-negotiable demands: a set date for independence and to make the resolutions of the conference binding agreements.[10] The date for independence was set for 30 June 1960. Often overlooked but possibly more impactful than the first conference was the Economic Roundtable that followed attended only by Tshombe and a handful of university students. The Congolese contingent at this conference relied on Belgian expertise to guide them through the complicated matters of managing the finances of an entire country.[11] The consequences of this conference saw Congolese state wealth transferred to Belgium through private companies, leaving the Congolese state with the burden of accumulated public debt.[12]

 On Independence Day, King Badouin of the Belgian royal family (Figure 6.8) delivered a patronizing speech at the official independence ceremony in Leopoldville, praising Leopold II and Belgium for civilizing and advancing the Congolese people. This prompted an impromptu and famous response from Patrice Lumumba, who proceeded to highlight the darker side of the civilizing mission:

That was our lot for the eighty years of colonial rule, and our wounds are too fresh and painful to be forgotten. We have experienced forced labor in exchange for pay that did not allow us to satisfy our hunger, to clothe ourselves, to have decent lodgings, or to bring up our children as dearly loved ones. Morning, noon, and night we were subjected to jeers, insults, and blows because we were “Negroes.” Who will ever forget that the black was addressed as “tu,” not because he was a friend, but because the polite “vous” was reserved for the white

man.[13]

The following elections did not produce a majority result, exposing a flaw in the independence movement. There was no unity in the independence movement. The emergence of more than a hundred political parties based primarily on ethnic and regional groups caused the rapid erosion of central authority.[14] A compromise was reached between the top vote-getters. Joseph Kasavubu was named President of the new Congo Republic, and Patrice Lumumba was named Prime Minister. The fractured nature of the country was immediately evident when Tshombe, frustrated by a lack of Katangan representation in the new government and encouraged by Belgian officials, seceded the resource-rich Katanga province from the new government.[15] To make matters worse, the Kasai province also seceded, and mutinies broke out in the Force Publique. This led to a split in leadership, with a ‘pro-Western’ Kasavubu operating in Kinshasa and an ‘anti-Western’ Lumumba operating in Kinsangani.[16] The Cold War was a mitigating factor for events in the Congo as the United States and the Soviet Union both looked to prevent the other from establishing footholds in resource-rich areas that could be exploited. It was the beginning of neocolonialism. Lumumba was considered a threat to Belgian and United States interests. When exasperated by the lack of response from the West to help with the succession problems, he reached out to the Soviet bloc instead. This prompted Eisenhower to approve Lumumba through assassination and caused the CIA to plan his death by poisoning.[17] The Americans' plot to kill Lumumba proved unnecessary. In September 1960, Kasavubu attempted to dismiss Lumumba, and Lumumba responded by trying to fire Kasavubu. Mobutu, appointed Secretary of State following independence and a colonel in the Force Publique following the mutinies, used Western backing to engineer a coup that subdued Kasavubu and Lumumba.[18] This would not mark his dictatorial reign, as a College of Commissioners of recent university graduates would briefly rule before Kasavubu was reinstalled. Fearing Lumumba’s ability to mobilize the masses, Mobutu eventually had him arrested and shipped to Moise Tshombe in Katanga (Figure 6.10).[19] Lumumba was beaten and then executed via firing squad, and his corpse was dissolved in acid. Four Belgian officers took part in the execution, and Moise Tshombe was present.[20]

The next five years of the First Congo Republic were an exercise in ineffectiveness, infighting, and instability. A power vacuum was waiting to be filled, and Joseph Mobutu would do just that. Mobutu realized that catering to Western business interests could bring him power and money. In 1965, Mobutu dissolved the political system, suspended parliament, and took complete government control. Tshombe fled into exile, dying without ever returning to his home country.[21] Mobutu dismissed all civilian politicians but knew he needed Kasavubu’s endorsement to legitimize his reign. Left without much choice, Kasavubu endorsed Mobutu, took an honorary Senate title, and quietly retired.

Mobutu’s Reign

         Mobutu’s reign and legacy are those of an entrenched patronage network that relied on large flows of easily corrupted revenues.[22] Part of his consolidation of power included either the brutal suppression of dissidents or co-opting them into his patronage networks.[23] He appealed to the West as a staunch anti-communist and appealed to the Congolese people as a leader who would restore African pride. Mobutu went about this through a return to authenticity policy that saw cities and landmarks return to their African names, changed the country's name to Zaire, and changed his name to Mobutu Sese Seko (Figure 6.11). Mobutu created a cult of personality by presenting himself as the Messiah of Zaire and representing the dress and personality of what he considered true Zaire nationality.[24] Mobutu released his N’sele Manifesto and introduced the Mouvement Populaire de la Revolution (MPR) as the country’s only political party, to which every Congolese person belonged from birth to death.[25]

Mobutu’s government quickly devolved into a kleptocracy defined as rule by thieves.  Mobutu instituted a policy of Zaireanization that nationalized foreign companies and put them in the hands of his friends and family for profit. Privately owned companies provided a buffer to the economy against an unpredictable commodities market, and privatization caused slumps in the market, directly affecting Zaire’s economy.[26] This policy caused unemployment to rise, and those with jobs were forced to take other jobs, while many women had to resort to microcommerce to survive.[27] The policy of Zaireanization was so disastrous that shortly after its introduction, Mobutu announced a policy of Retrocession, returning companies to their foreign owners.

Mobutu shuffled the government over sixty times during his reign, which resulted in massive embezzlement and mismanagement of public domain and funds.[28] Foreign aid was regularly embezzled from. On average, Mobutu spent thirty-five percent of the national budget on himself between 1972 and the late 1980s, and during his reign in the 1990s, he was in charge of ninety percent of government spending.[29] This plundering came at the expense of food and services for Zaire’s citizens. In 1972, twenty-eight percent of the nation’s expenditures were allocated to the presidential office, thirty percent to agriculture, and eighteen percent to social services. By 1992, ninety-five percent of the budget was assigned to the presidential office, four percent to agriculture, and less than one percent to social services.[30] Additionally, Mobutu’s near-exclusive investment in copper caused other industries to suffer and fail. Mobutu’s infrastructure was geared exclusively to export minerals, so when food had to be imported to the urban centers in Zaire, millions of pounds of maize were left to rot in the countryside due to a lack of infrastructure and the inability to transport it to cities.[31] Mobutu’s policies caused inflation rates that are unheard of in modern history. Inflation rates accelerated in the 1970s and eclipsed one hundred percent by 1979. [32]By the 1990s, Mobutu continued to print money, exacerbating an already perilous situation. In 1991, inflation rates eclipsed two thousand percent; in 1992, the rates rose to over four thousand percent; in 1993, inflation rates peaked at an unfathomable twenty-three thousand percent.[33] By 1992, Mobutu’s government printed five million Zaire franc notes worth approximately two U.S. dollars (Figure 6.13).[34]

Ngonzola-Ntalaja refers to Mobutu’s participation in the DRC’s ‘original sin’ of Lumumba’s assassination.[35] In addition to this and the economic crimes of Mobutu’s entrenched network of corruption, Mobutu was guilty of several atrocities against the Zairian people, including massacres of university students, Christian demonstrators, and diamond miners. Selling land to foreign weapons companies, ethnic cleansing, execution of political opponents, and assistance to Hutu extremists can all be attributed to Mobutu’s reign.[36] Mobutu’s theft of the Congo’s wealth bears a terrible resemblance to Leopold II’s reign of terror. Mobutu’s reign of terror left the country in shambles, and his networks of patronage and corruption still plague the DRC today.