The ‘big bwana’ syndrome and the state

A big man, big man syndrome, or bigmanism, within the context of political science, refers to corrupt, autocratic and often totalitarian rule of countries by a single person.

Generally associated with neopatrimonial states, where there is a framework of formal law and administration but the state is informally captured by patronage networks. The distribution of the spoils of office takes precedence over the formal functions of the state, severely limiting the ability of public officials to make policies in the general interest. While neopatrimonialism may be considered the norm where a modern state is constructed in a preindustrial context, however, the African variants often result in bigmanism in the form of a strongly presidentialist political system.
  
Examples

• Mobutu Sese Seko - President of Zaire from 1965 to 1997. He remained in office for 31.5 years. While in office, he formed a totalitarian regime in Zaire which attempted to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence and entered wars to challenge the rise of communism in other African countries. His mismanagement of his country's economy, and personal enrichment from its financial and natural resources, makes his name synonymous with kleptocracy in Africa.

• Papa Doc Duvalier - President of Haiti from 1957 to 1971. In 1964 he made himself President for Life. He ruled until his death in 1971, in a regime marked by autocracy, corruption and state-sponsored terrorism through his private militia known as Tonton Macoutes. It has been estimated that he was responsible for 30,000 dead and exile of thousands more.

• Saparmurat Niyazov - President of Turkmenistan from 1990 until his death in 2006. Foreign media criticized him as one of the world's most totalitarian and repressive dictators, highlighting his reputation of imposing his personal eccentricities upon the country, which extended to renaming months after members of his family.

• Saddam Hussein - President of Iraq from 1979 to 2003. As president, Saddam maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988) and the first Persian Gulf War (1991). During these conflicts, Saddam repressed several movements, particularly Shi'a and Kurdish movements seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence, respectively. Whereas some Arabs looked upon him as a hero for his aggressive stance against foreign intervention and for his support for the Palestinians, many Arabs and western leaders vilified him for murdering scores of Kurdish people of the north and his invasion of Kuwait. Saddam was deposed by the U.S. and its allies during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

• Suharto - President of Indonesia from 1967 to 1998. The legacy of Suharto's 32-year rule is debated both in Indonesia and abroad. Under his "New Order" administration, Suharto constructed a strong, centralized and military-dominated government. An ability to maintain stability over a sprawling and diverse Indonesia and an avowedly anti-Communist stance won him the economic and diplomatic support of the West during the Cold War. For most of his presidency, Indonesia experienced significant economic growth and industrialization. Against the backdrop of Cold War international relations, Suharto's "New Order" invasion of East Timor, and the subsequent 24-year occupation, resulted in an estimated minimum of 102,800 deaths. A detailed statistical report prepared for the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor. By the 1990s, the New Order's authoritarianism and widespread corruption—estimates of government funds missappropriated by the Suharto family range from US$1.5 billion and US$35 billion was a source of much discontent, and was referred as one of the world's most corrupt leaders. Suharto tops corruption rankings. In the years since his presidency, attempts to try him on charges of corruption and genocide failed because of his poor health.

• Nicolae Ceauşescu was the General Secretary of the Romanian Workers' Party, later the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 until 1989, President of the Council of State from 1967 and President of Romania from 1974 until 1989. His rule was marked in the first decade by an open policy towards Western Europe and the United States of America, which deviated from that of the other Warsaw Pact states during the Cold War. He continued a trend first established by his predecessor, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, who had tactfully coaxed the Khrushchev regime to withdraw troops from Romania in 1958. Ceauşescu's second decade was characterized by an increasingly erratic personality cult, extreme nationalism and a deterioration in foreign relations with Western powers and also with the Soviet Union. Ceauşescu's government was overthrown in December 1989, and he was shot following a televised two-hour session by a military court.

It should be noted that every single leader above was strongly funded and supported by the United States government.

Source: Wikipedia

Send feedback Court agrees to release Mobutu assets

Assets belonging to the deceased dictator of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko, are to be released from Swiss banks and returned to his heirs.

In a ruling published on Tuesday, the Federal Criminal Court rejected a citizen's appeal by Basel University criminologist Mark Pieth to keep a freeze on funds worth SFr7.7 million ($6.68 million).

Pieth opposed returning the funds to Mobutu's heirs, who he alleged were suspected of criminal activities in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Switzerland blocked assets deposited by the late ruler and his family in 1997 following a request from the country's government.

In 2008 Swiss authorities agreed to keep the assets frozen so that a Congolese government lawyer could initiate proceedings in Switzerland to block the assets and for the competent legal authority to decide how to deal with the case.

However in April 2009 the Swiss Prosecutor's Office declared Mobutu's heirs should receive the money since the statute of limitations had run out in the case.

Source: ICAR

In First for Africa, Woman Wins Election as President of Liberia

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated economist and former World Bank official who waged a fierce presidential campaign against the soccer star George Weah, emerged victorious on Friday in her quest to lead war-torn Liberia and become the first woman elected head of state in modern African history. "Everything is on our side," said Morris Dukuly, a spokesman for Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf. "The voters have chosen a new and brighter future."

With 97 percent of the runoff vote counted on Friday, Ms. Johnson- Sirleaf achieved an insurmountable lead with 59 percent, compared with Mr. Weah's 41 percent, in a nation where women make up more than half the electorate.

Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf's victory propels her into an old boys' club unlike any other. From the Cape to Cairo, from Dar es Salaam to Dakar, men have dominated African politics from the earliest days of the anticolonial struggle. "There are so many capable women," said Yassine Fall, a Senegalese economist and feminist working on women's rights in Africa. "But they just don't get the chance to lead." Indeed, when supporters of Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf, 66, a onetime United Nations official and Liberian finance minister, marched through the broken streets of Monrovia in the final, frantic days of the campaign for Liberia's presidency, they shouted and waved signs that read, "Ellen - she's our man."

Mr. Dukuly said Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf held off formally declaring victory because Mr. Weah, who won the first round of the election last month and enjoys broad support among Liberia's huge youth population, had alleged that the results were tainted by fraud. Mr. Weah told reporters in Monrovia that he had submitted a formal complaint to the Supreme Court, which will investigate. International observers said that while there were some minor irregularities, they were too small to change the outcome.

Mr. Weah, speaking Friday to a crowd of supporters at his campaign headquarters, appealed for calm, but hundreds of supporters wielding branches marched through the streets in protest, chanting, "No Weah, no peace!" They threw stones at police officers in front of the National Elections Commission, and United Nations peacekeepers fired tear gas to keep protesters from storming the United States Embassy, according to Reuters.

Mr. Weah, whose base was the young, discontented population who idolized him for his exploits on the soccer field and his rags-to-riches life story, was seen as a favorite because young voters make up 40 percent of the electorate. But the women's vote appears to have been stronger. There were slightly more women registered to vote in Liberia, and while there were no reliable surveys of voters leaving the polls, women appeared to be a strong presence.

Political strategy played a role as well. In the final weeks of the campaign, Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf formed crucial alliances with parties whose candidates had lost in the first round, which winnowed the field of 22 presidential contenders to 2. The impact of her victory went well beyond Liberia, a nation still trying to recover from more than a decade of civil war.

The history of the continent rings with the names of heroes like Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela and Jomo Kenyatta, fathers of the modern African states they helped form, and villains like Mobutu Sese Seko, Idi Amin and Sani Abacha, the despotic "big men" who ruled ruthlessly over their subjects, enriching themselves along the way. Despite the large role women played in many national struggles for independence, they were largely relegated to the sidelines in the post-colonial era. The most ambitious women often went abroad, and some, like Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf, rose to prominence in international organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank. But in recent years, African women have gained power and visibility. In 2004 a Kenyan environmentalist, Wangari Muta Maathai, won the Nobel Peace Prize, while Nigeria's finance minister and feared corruption fighter, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has emerged as one of that country's most respected officials.

Women have also made gains at the ballot box. The prime minister of Mozambique, Luísa Dias Diogo, is widely seen as a likely future president. In Rwanda, there is a greater proportion of women serving in Parliament than in any other nation; they occupy nearly half the seats. Indeed, Africa leads the developing world in the percentage of women in legislative positions, at about 16 percent, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an organization of parliamentary bodies worldwide. Yet having more women leaders does not necessarily bring decisions that benefit women. While women generally make decisions that favor women and children, they often gain political power as an embattled minority that feels it must follow men's lead in order to maintain power, said Geeta Rao Gupta, president of the International Center for Research on Women, a Washington-based research group. "When there is a critical mass of women leaders, they gain confidence over time and are more likely to exhibit diversity of experience as women in their decisions," Ms. Rao Gupta said. "It takes a few cycles to really sink in."

Liberia's presidential election came two years after the nation emerged from a brutal civil war that claimed more than 200,000 lives and displaced a third of the population. Pushed from power by rebels, Charles Taylor, the warlord who became Liberia's president and fomented bloody wars that racked the region for more than a decade, went into exile in 2003 and is now in Nigeria.

He left behind a nation shattered by war, with the entire infrastructure, from roads to electric wires to water pipes, rotted away or looted. Despite its natural wealth in gems, rubber and timber, Liberia is one of the poorest nations. Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf, who has been known as Liberia's Iron Lady since she ran against Mr. Taylor for president in 1997 and was jailed for more than a year under the former dictator Samuel Doe, will have no trouble fitting into the all-male club of African heads of state, said Ms. Fall, the economist, who has known her for years. "She is fearless," Ms. Fall said. "No men intimidate her."

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 11 (Reuters) - The Security Council voted unanimously on Friday to authorize peacekeepers to arrest Charles Taylor, the former president, if he returns to Liberia and turn him over to a special tribunal in Sierra Leone. Mr. Taylor, in exile in Nigeria, was indicted in Sierra Leone in March 2003 on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In addition to calling for Mr. Taylor's arrest, the resolution referred to his stay in Nigeria as temporary, which rights activists said could clear the way for Nigeria to turn him over for trial in Sierra Leone.

Source: New York Times

Suharto, Marcos and Mobutu head corruption table with $50bn scams

Mohammed Suharto, Ferdinand Marcos and Mobutu Sese Seko ripped off up to $50bn (£28bn) from the impoverished people of Indonesia, the Philippines and Zaire, a sum equivalent to the entire annual aid budget of the west, anti-bribery campaigners said yesterday.

Releasing a list of the top 10 most corrupt politicians of the past two decades, headed by the former Indonesian dictator, Transparency International warned that the scale of political corruption was undermining hopes for prosperity in the developing world and damaging the global economy.

No country is immune from corruption, the report says, citing the lax controls over political financing in Greece, the close connection between companies and the Bush administration and the unchallenged power of Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, over his country's media.

But the most egregious examples of wholesale looting have occurred in the developing world, TI said, depriving the desperately poor of vital state resources.

"The abuse of political power for private gain deprives the most needy of vital public services, creating a level of despair that breeds conflict and violence," said Peter Eigen, TI's chairman.

Most of the names on the list were protected by western governments who turned a blind eye to their criminal activities in exchange for support during the cold war.

Suharto, regarded as a bulwark against communism in Asia, stole as much as $35bn from his impoverished country during his three decades in power, before being deposed in 1998 in a popular uprising that was triggered by the Asian economic crisis.

He was charged with looting up to $500m from the state through various charities controlled by his family, but the judges ruled that he was too ill to stand trial.

Marcos, whose wife's 3,000-piece shoe collection became a byword for the corrupt excesses of his regime, was backed by successive US administrations.

Efforts to track down the estimated $10bn he embezzled during his 20 years in power were frustrated by years of strict banking secrecy laws in Switzerland. In August last year, 14 years after his death, the Swiss courts finally authorised the release of $657m to the Philippines' authorities.

Mobutu cleverly used the threat of an invasion from the then Marxist government of Angola to quieten concerns in the west about his increasingly blatant looting from one of the most resource-rich countries in Africa. Washington leaned on the International Monetary Fund to continue lending, despite the doubts of IMF officials.

By the time he was overthrown in 1997, Mobutu had stolen almost half of the $12bn in aid money that Zaire - now the Democratic Republic of Congo - received from the IMF during his 32-year reign, leaving his country saddled with a crippling debt.

Western multinationals must take responsibility for allowing corruption to flourish, TI says. "The corporate sector has a vital role to play in ending the abuse of power," the report says.

Bribery of local officials by western business is still widespread, despite global initiatives to stamp it out, such as the UN convention against corruption. The culture of secrecy surrounding access to resources in the developing world allows corrupt governments to hide revenues from their populations.

Companies from Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria and Canada topped TI's list of bribe-payers last year [companies from those countries are least likely to bribe, not most likely to bribe], despite the introduction of anti-corruption laws to comply with an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development convention banning bribery of foreign officials.

"We are very much aware that a lot of the responsibility for corruption in the developing world has been with northern companies and northern institutions," said Mr Eigen.

Britain was singled out for dragging its feet on the implementation of the OECD convention. It only outlawed the bribing of officials abroad two years ago, and no one has been prosecuted so far.

Oil, a curse more often than a blessing for poor countries, is a significant factor in corruption. "The flow of oil money is so vast it can distort decision-making in poor producer countries and the rich world alike," the report says.

On the take

Head of state Mohammed Suharto
Place, time Indonesia, 1967-98
Amount $15bn-$35bn

Head of state Ferdinand Marcos
Place, time Philippines, 1972-86
Amount $5bn-$10bn

Head of state Mobutu Sese Seko
Place, time Zaire, 1965-97
Amount $5bn

Head of state Sani Abacha
Place, time Nigeria, 1993-98
Amount $2bn-$5bn

Head of state Slobodan Milosevic
Place, time Serbia, 1972-86
Amount $1bn

Head of state Jean-Claude Duvalier
Place, time Haiti, 1971-86
Amount $300m-$800m

Head of state Alberto Fujimori
Place, time Peru, 1990-2000
Amount $600m

Head of state Pavlo Lazarenko
Place, time Ukraine 1996-97
Amount $114m-$200m

Head of state Arnoldo Alemán
Place, time Nicaragua, 1997-2002
Amount $100m

Head of state Joseph Estrada
Place, time Philippines, 1998-2001
Amount $78m-$80m

Source: The Guardian

MOBUTU GIVES UP, LEAVING KINSHASA AND CEDING POWER

Ending nearly 32 years of rule in Africa's third-largest country, President Mobutu Sese Seko yielded power on Friday. He quietly slipped out of this besieged capital aboard a flight to his northern hometown, which diplomats described as a brief stopover en route to permanent exile. By early evening, there were unconfirmed reports here that Mr. Mobutu, 66, had already left his hometown, Gbadolite, presumably for Morocco, where the President maintains one of many luxurious palaces. Moroccan officials acknowledged that Mr. Mobutu's plane had been given landing rights, but would not confirm whether Mr. Mobutu was on his way there.

Mr. Mobutu's departure came as rebels who have fought a stunningly successful seven-month war against the Government drew within five miles of Kinshasa's international airport at the city's edge, Western diplomats said, and readied themselves to take over control of the capital. Mr. Mobutu, who had resisted entreaties to hand over power, finally did so after his top generals warned him in a series of nighttime meetings that they could neither defend him or the city of Kinshasa any longer.

Diplomats said on Friday that Zaire's generals were trying to make contact with leaders of the rebellion to arrange their peaceful entry into the city so as to avoid destructive fighting or a repeat of the devastating pillaging the capital has already seen twice this decade. Late Friday, however, reports reached here from the de facto rebel capital, Lubumbashi, that the rebel foreign minister, Bizima Karaha, had demanded the unconditional surrender of Zaire's military before hostilities are called off. In the first possible sign of an unraveling of the remnants of Zaire's Army, Zairian security officials reported Friday night that Gen. Mahele Lioko, the Deputy Prime Minister and Chief of Staff, had been killed by officers opposed to talks with the rebels. Diplomats said they could only confirm that General Mahele had been detained at a military camp at the edge of town, where gunfire was heard Friday evening.

Zairian security officers said that on hearing the news, the Prime Minister, Gen. Likulia Bolongo, took refuge in the French Embassy. Late Friday evening, General Likulia's family was seen arriving at the Inter-Continental Hotel. Early this morning, a Western military analyst said that a rebel company traveling along the railroad tracks had entered central Kinshasa. ''Things are coming to a climax very quickly,'' he said. ''The situation is very dangerous now, but I expect it will all be over shortly.'' Mr. Mobutu delivered no message to a nation he has dominated almost since independence from Belgium in 1960. Instead, the first word that people here heard of the news came in foreign radio broadcasts.

Reading a Government statement before a hastily gathered assembly of journalists in Kinshasa on Friday afternoon, the Information Minister, Kin Kiey Mulumba, said that Mr. Mobutu acknowledged that negotiations with the rebels had failed. As a result, he said, the President had ''ceased to intervene in the conduct of the affairs of state.'' Mr. Mulumba said that Mr. Mobutu had not formally resigned from office and could not directly hand over power to the rebel leader, Laurent Kabila, because the country's laws forbade such a transition. People close to Mr. Mobutu said that the deliberate ambiguity allowed a famously vainglorious leader to depart believing that he had fulfilled an oft-repeated vow that he would never be known as the former President, but only as the late President. Given the advanced prostate cancer that has visibly weakened him in recent weeks, many foreign diplomats say that they expect Mr. Mobutu's health will soon fail him.

Mr. Mulumba added that the Government would continue discussions with the rebels over new political arrangements for the country, and said that the Constitution empowered the newly elected head of the National Assembly, Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo, to lead future negotiations. Even as Mr. Mobutu sought to put a good face on his departure, his army commanders made it clear Friday that they had no intention of fighting the rebels any longer. 'It is not military means that we lack,'' said a Defense Ministry official. ''But General Mahele does not want to sacrifice a whole people because of a battle for the power of a single man. That's finished.'' Besides being Chief of Staff and Deputy Prime Minister, General Mahele also served as Defense Minister. He was one of three top officers, including the Prime Minister, General Likulia , who visited Mr. Mobutu on Thursday evening to inform him that they could no longer defend the city or protect him. Western diplomats said the officers, also including Gen. Nzimbi Ngbale, the commander of Mr. Mobutu's feared Presidential Guard, then urged the President to leave the country. Zairian security sources said Friday night that General Nzimbi had crossed the Congo River to the Republic of Congo.

A member of Mr. Mobutu's entourage said the President sent the three generals away in fury when they first approached him about ending the war effort and leaving the country. A second meeting was held at midnight, this associate of the President said. Mr. Mobutu then said he needed time to reflect. At 4 A.M. Friday, Mr. Mobutu again summoned his generals and told them of his decision to leave the country. ''He left Kinshasa a very angry man,'' the presidential associate said. ''A man who could still not believe it was all over, and felt abandoned.'' On Friday, Western diplomats said that Zaire's top generals had already begun to make contact with the rebellion and were preparing ''to open the city'' to Mr. Kabila's forces.

News of Mr. Mobutu's departure spread slowly in Kinshasa on Friday, and for the most part life in the capital was virtually normal through most of the day. By late afternoon, however, there were isolated reports of soldiers firing off their weapons, intimidating people and stealing vehicles. In many districts of this city of five million people, neighborhood welcoming committees freely rehearsed songs and put the finishing touches on banners to greet the rebels. Meanwhile, the elite that had sprouted around Mr. Mobutu made haste to the exits. All day, private speedboats carrying the rich and until now powerful jetted across the Congo River to Brazzaville, the capital of Congo. Many carried with them whatever precious possessions they could, anticipating they may never return.

The end of Mr. Mobutu's rule opened a period of deep uncertainty for Zaire, first in a transition period that will now begin, and eventually, it is almost universally assumed here, under the rule of Mr. Kabila. Mr. Kabila has proved himself a deft political operator who succeeded in riding a localized ethnic rebellion in the country's eastern border region all the way to national power, but little is known of his intentions or abilities as a head of state. Diplomats who have met him recently say that the 56-year-old rebel leader, who has fought against Mr. Mobutu intermittently since the country's early independence period, speaks almost nostalgically of the kind of collectivized agricultural ventures and huge state projects that were in vogue in his Marxist youth.

More troubling, Western diplomats say, has been Mr. Kabila's human-rights record at the head of rebel forces that massacred Rwandan Hutu refugees. Similarly, Mr. Kabila has made a long string of contradictory public statements about the future of democracy in Zaire, ranging from warnings that opposition parties will be suspended to pledges that a consensus government will be formed with other anti-Mobutu parties. ''Kabila is like a jack-in-the-box on the question of democracy and elections,'' said a senior Western diplomat here. ''Now that he has arrived, we are all waiting to see which Kabila is going to pop out.'' The form that future negotiations with the rebels will take is equally in doubt. Mr. Kabila has repeatedly said that he will not accord any role to Archbishop Monsengwo, the head of the National Assembly, and will refuse to work with any politicians who have been allies of Mr. Mobutu.

Before the South African-led talks between Mr. Mobutu and Mr. Kabila broke down, diplomats had hoped to get both sides to accept a South African proposal for the formation of a new Government, led by Mr. Kabila, but allowing for broad representation of other political parties. Mr. Mobutu's quiet departure reflected the pain of a man who since early adulthood has known little but undisputed rule. Some diplomats and members of the President's entourage said that in recent weeks the Zairian leader had been angling for a ''dignified way'' out of power that would avoid the humiliation Mr. Kabila has publicly thirsted to give his enemy of three decades. The idea of an exit with dignity was tarnished by the news on Friday that a Swiss court had already placed a lien on one of the President's mansions, in Savigny, after a request by the public prosecutor of the rebel-held city of Lubumbashi.

Mr. Mobutu escaped Zaire with his family intact -- his wife, her twin sister, who is also his concubine, and their children -- but for the remainder of his life he will almost certainly be hounded by efforts by Zaire and private creditors to reclaim whatever is left of the estimated $5 billion fortune that he once accumulated. With help from neighboring countries, the insurgency of Laurent Kabila took only seven months to seize control of virtually the entire country and oust the longtime Zairian dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko.

Timeline

Dec. 4, 1996 A month after the town of Goma became the rebels' first significant conquest, the area of rebel control has spread to other towns along Zaire's eastern border.

March 15, 1997 Kisangani, a key city at the head of navigation on the Congo River, falls to the rebels. Tens of thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees are captured by the rebels, many of whom have scores to settle with the refugees. April 9, 1997 The rebels capture Lubumbashi, the country's second city, consolidating their control over Zaire's diamond, cobalt and copper mines. The Mobutu Government is deprived of its major source of income.

May 7, 1997 Driving toward Kinshasa, the rebel offensive takes Kenge, 120 miles from the capital. Thoughout the campaign, Government forces put up little resistance, fleeing rather than fighting.

May 16, 1997 With rebel forces in control of the entire country except for Kinshasa and Mobutu's hometown, Gbadolite, Mobutu flees the capital and gives up power.

Source: New York Times

Mobutu meets with President George Bush at the White House

By most accounts, the United States was involved in both the death of Lumumba and the coup of 1965, which brought Mobutu to power, although the extent of this involvement is not certain. In any case, because of his longstanding relations with the American intelligence community, Mobutu was very aware of United States backing both as a resource and as a handicap.

Zaire generally received firm American support in the late 1960s and found American influence helpful in various economic and political disputes. The promulgation of a generous investment code in 1969 and a moderate political stance lured extensive foreign, including American, investment, and a substantial program of United States aid was continued. Mobutu returned from a visit to the United States in 1970 with pledges of substantial new investment. Relations continued to be warm until the Zairianization decree of November 30, 1973, which led to the transfer of a large number of foreign-owned enterprises, including facilities owned by international oil companies, into Zairian hands. Thereafter, relations were chilly.

But in 1975, the United States and Zaire found themselves supporting the same faction in the Angolan civil war (see Regional Relations , this ch.). The United States, apparently deciding that it needed a stable Zaire for political and economic reasons and sensing the potential for Zaire to support United States strategic interests in sub-Saharan Africa, promoted the relationship with Zaire. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's first official trip to Africa in April 1976 included a long visit to Kinshasa.

The Carter administration, which had declared its number-one foreign policy objective to be the promotion of human rights, posed a problem for the Mobutu regime, with its poor human rights record. For the first time, criticism of Mobutu by members of Congress and by voluntary agencies was met with some sympathy by the United States president. However, the skeptical attitude toward the Zairian government was partially reversed by Shaba I and Shaba II. On the occasion of the second invasion in 1978, President Jimmy Carter supported Mobutu's accusations of Cuban and Soviet involvement, even though no hard evidence was presented. But the United States refused to become involved militarily and sent only nonlethal military supplies, such as medical and transportation equipment. In 1980 the House of Representatives (concerned over human rights violations and the misuse of United States aid) voted to end all military assistance to Zaire; but the Senate reinstated the funds, reacting to pressure from Carter and American business interests in Zaire.

The election of the more conservative Ronald Reagan as United States president was well received in Zaire, and in fact United States concerns about Mobutu's human rights record became muted. Moreover, Mobutu again was seen as providing useful services to the United States in its struggle against the Soviet Union and Soviet allies such as Libya and Angola. The domestic context in the United States had changed, however, in that an increasing number of American groups had become opposed to administration policy toward Zaire.

As United States-Zaire relations became more visible in Washington, Mobutu countered by becoming more active in promoting a positive image of himself and his country. Two Washington lobbying firms with ties to the Reagan administration received hefty contracts from Mobutu.

Nevertheless, in November 1990, Congress cut military and economic aid (except for some humanitarian aid) to Zaire, crystallizing the longstanding division between Congress and the executive branch and between liberals and conservatives on Zaire policy. As it adjourned, Congress denied the Bush administration's request for US$4 million in military aid and stipulated that US$40 million in economic aid be funneled through humanitarian agencies not affiliated with the Zairian government. Its decision was based on human rights violations--the September 1990 Lubumbashi massacre in particular--and accusations that Mobutu's vast wealth was largely stolen from the Zairian people.

By 1992 the United States-Zaire relationship had reached a turning point. The end of the Cold War had diminished the strategic significance of Zaire to the United States, and events in Zaire since 1990 had made it clear that Mobutu's days in power were numbered. In 1991-92, the United States, together with Belgium and France, attempted to promote peaceful political change in Zaire, by pressuring Mobutu to oversee the transition to democratic government and to depart voluntarily. The Zairian opposition, however, still perceived this approach as a continued "propping up" of the Mobutu regime and called for an unequivocal United States rejection of Mobutu, which was not forthcoming.

In October 1992, the United States joined Belgium and France in extending official support to the Tshisekedi government. The United States also reiterated its support for the national conference and its hope that the conference would lead ultimately to fair and free elections.

Since that time, the United States has continued to support the legitimacy of the Tshisekedi government and to insist that the Mobutu government live up to its promise to turn over real power to that government. It has consistently denounced Mobutu's obstruction of the transition process and has refused to recognize the rival Birindwa government. Moreover, the Clinton administration has taken several concrete steps to show its displeasure with the Mobutu regime. The United States has not replaced its ambassador to Zaire, who was reassigned in March 1993. The United States also refused to allow Zaire's central bank governor into the United States to attend a World Bank-IMF meeting and has made it clear that Mobutu is not welcome in the United States. Nevertheless, the United States has stopped short of taking or even advocating harsher measures against the regime, such as the imposition of economic sanctions or the confiscation of Mobutu's assets abroad. As such, in the view of some observers the United States has put only very limited pressure on Mobutu to step down. Many see this policy as an indication that the United States still regards Mobutu as a stabilizing factor, a viewpoint that would explain United States acceptance of Mobutu as part of the transition process in Zaire. The United States-brokered political accord that accompanied the Transitional Act permitted President Mobutu to remain as titular head of state and thus a legitimate institution of government, albeit with limited powers. One unintended effect of this arrangement has been to confer some legitimacy on Mobutu and thus allow him to obstruct the transition process and the functioning of the legitimate government under Tshisekedi.

Throughout 1993 the United States has continued to urge the various political forces in Zaire to continue negotiating, apparently believing that ongoing negotiations will eventually lead to a power-sharing compromise. It appears increasingly likely that the United States would accept a so-called "neutral administration" replacing both the Mobutu-appointed government and the Tshisekedi government.

Source: US Congress Library