The Leopard

A master at changing his spots, Mobutu was also pretty skillful at feathering his own nest. By Michela Wrong

It happens to anyone who makes a habit of public speaking. That moment when tongue runs ahead of brain and you let slip the overly frank admission that has your audience quietly exchanging meaningful glances. For Mobutu Sese Seko, late president of the country formerly known as Zaire, it came during one of his trademark marathon addresses at Kinshasa’s sports stadium in the mid-1970s. “If you want to steal, show a minimum of intelligence,” he told public servants in the audience. “If you steal too much to become rich overnight, you’ll be caught.” Captured on live television, the advice went out to the nation. Aides said it had been misinterpreted, producers excised it from later rebroadcasts, but it was too late. For with his pragmatic exhortation Mobutu – a man, his audience knew, who had hardly refrained himself from becoming “rich overnight” – merely confirmed what anyone who lived in Zaire during the 32 years of his rule always knew: the principle of corrupt self-enrichment governed virtually every significant business decision made in the country.

The two pillars supporting a profit-skimming scheme perfected by Zaire’s predatory elite were provided by the copper and cobalt of Gécamines, the state-owned mining company, and the diamonds of Mbuji Mayi and Kisangani. Part of, sometimes all, export earnings from Gécamines would be deposited in presidential accounts abroad and Miba, the state’s diamond-mining company, would also quietly set aside a share of production for the presidency.

But similar rules applied in every other economic sector and at every social level as ordinary citizens, waiting for government salaries that were never paid, mimicked the techniques of the individuals who came to be known as the “Big Vegetables” - the mobile-wielding, villa-owning, Armani-wearing big shots of Zaire.

Whether you were a market woman crossing a military roadblock with a basket of cassava, a commuter applying at police headquarters for a driving license or a Western aid worker trying to get permission to operate, if you wanted to do business in Zaire, you gave those in power “a little something” just to leave you alone.

Many Congolese trace the rot back to the early 1970s, when Mobutu decided it was time to end the country’s lingering colonial dependence. In the process that came to be known as Zairianisation, foreign-owned businesses and plantations were confiscated and handed out to nationals, with those in Mobutu’s coterie getting all the best prizes.

But Zairianisation, which marked the beginning of the country’s long slide from prosperity into poverty, built on a pre-existing base. Long before Mobutu seized power in 1965, observers commented on the speed with which independence from Belgium gave birth to a Kinshasa-centric “political class”, fond of its Mercedes, chafing over the modest size of parliamentary per diems and determined to live in style.

For this group, political patronage and economic riches were synonymous. Politics was not something to be entered after a successful career in business. It was the very route to that prosperous career. Mobutu’s constant reshuffling of his government – between 1965 and 1997 there were to be a total of 59 cabinets – was not only aimed at ensuring no player stayed long enough in a post to build up a fiefdom and become a threat. It gave as large a number of players as possible their turn to make commissions and earn fat salaries, while making it clear access was determined by one man: the Leopard.

Looking back on this history of kleptocracy, what is remarkable is not that Zaire spiralled into bankruptcy, but that the descent took as long as it did.

Michela Wrong is the author of “In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the brink of disaster in Mobutu’s Congo”, HarperCollins