Mobutu

The First Congo War happened between 1996 and 1997.  From a realism perspective, Rwandan refugees started the First Congo War in order to preserve their respective ethnicities.  Hutu refugees came to the Congo after the Rwandan genocide, and Tutsis eventually led an uprising which started the War.  Rwandan and Ugandan armies backing a man named Kabila invaded the Congo in response to Rwandans being forced out.  Realists would argue this happened because both Hutus and Tutsis had an interest in self-preservation, as did Rwandans and Ugandan.  Constructivists would argue this was created through Belgian colonialism which created the initial cultural divide between Hutus and Tutsis, and through various other historical constructs which created the need for refuge or uprising and created the conflict between the groups.
The Second Congo War, or the Great War of Africa, officially took place between 1998 and 2003, although there is still an aftermath of violence.  Kabila gained power, but changed his allegiance from Rwanda and Uganda to former Hutu armies and allowed them to regroup.  Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Congo again in 1998, starting the Second Congo War.  Various states in surrounding countries backed each side for the next five years.  Realists would argue that this war resulted from the Hutus' need for preservation and Kabila’s interest in the nation of the Congo, as well as the anarchic system of countries involved.  Realists might also see this as a result of the need for Rwanda and Ugandan survival, with other countries involved for the assurance of having the Congo as an ally.  Constructivists could argue that this conflict was based on those social constructs already established by the First Congo War and the history between the countries involved.  Constructivists could also see this war being caused by interpreting the actions of Kabila as threatening or making Rwanda or Uganda enemies.

As Zaire’s most privileged form of cultural expression, popular music in Kinshasa of the 1990s acted as a mediating force between radically divergent socio-economic worlds, but it also reinforced the symbols and structures of power that came to characterize the political culture of an authoritarian system of rule.

This dissertation focuses on French military interventions in Subsaharan Africa during the presidency of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. It is principally based upon two case studies: the French interventions in Zaire in 1977 and 1978, and in Chad between 1974 and 1980. In studying these
interventions, as well as conducting a broader analysis of French Africa policy, this dissertation makes four arguments. First, strategic considerations, strongly linked to ideological concerns relating to security, prestige, and credibility, were the principle factors behind French decisions to intervene. Second, economic interests only played a secondary role in the reasoning of French decisionmakers. Instead, these interests were indirect and were mostly concerned with protecting
the economic bases of client or allied regimes. Third, allied African elites exercised a great deal of influence over French policymaking on the continent, including military interventions. The success of French policy greatly depended upon the agreement and cooperation of local elites. Finally, the outcomes of French interventions demonstrated the ultimate limits of military force as a method for building sustainable political order.

This paper focuses on regime survival in Zaire/Congo. The author will analyse the events in Zaire during Joseph Mobutu’s reign from 1960 to 1997 through the lens of regime and linkage theories. It is no secret that President Mobutu came to power with Western (US and Belgian) assistance. It is also no surprise that Mobutu was dependent on Western support to remain in power. But it is remarkable that when this support was suddenly withdrawn after the Cold War, Mobutu was able to resist both Western pressure to abdicate and internal opposition, and did so successfully until he was invaded by his smaller neighbours and fled in May 1997. If Mobutu was so dependent on Western support, how did he manage to keep his regime afloat at a time when diplomatic and financial ties were severed? How is it possible that he was able to cling on to power with democratic protests on his doorstep, with no capable army and no alternative great powers to court? The author will show that a combination of regime and linkage theories can formulate answer to these questions by linking the domestic and external relations in one model. This text will not provide a full historical overview of the events in Congo/Zaire from 1960 to 1997, but only pick out those phases, which are necessary to explain regime behaviour.

This paper examines international efforts to stabilize Mobutu's regime after the invasions of Zaire's Shaba province by the "Katangan Gendarmes" in 1978-1979. It also outlines the organization and deployment of the "Inter-African Force" (IAF), Africa's first fully-African peacekeeping force, composed of troops from France's African allies. The paper looks at the decisionmaking processes and policies of Zaire's Western partners and those of the IMF to provide military and financial support to Zaire as the IAF bought time for Mobutu's regime to recover and consolidate its authority. Using a wide range of archival sources, it argues that, while Western policymakers and the IMF were generally aware of Mobutu's governance and human rights records, Cold War considerations trumped these concerns. However, Mobutu himself played an important role in manipulating donors, particularly officials in the IMF, to ensure continued access to aid and financial markets. Meanwhile, French efforts to turn its successes in mobilizing the IAF into the creation of a broader largely-francophone Pan-African force were undermined at the OAU and elsewhere by African leaders fearful of an expanded French role on the continent.

Cet article de revue analyse deux ouvrages concernant l'histoire de la République Démocratique du Congo/Zaïre indépendant, en mettant l'accent sur le règne du président Mobutu Sese Seko. En comparant les deux ouvrages, venant de deux traditions bien différentes, le présent article conclut que, vingt ans après la chute du régime de Mobutu, il n'existe pas (ou pas encore) de consensus historiographique sur le caractère dudit régime. Dans sa biographie de Mobutu, Jean-Pierre Lan-gellier, représentant du monde journalistique, soulignait l'amitié du président avec l'Occident, et l'influence de la Guerre Froide. À l'inverse, dans sa publication, l'académicien Gauthier de Villers relativisait dans sa publication le caractère déterministe de la Guerre Froide sur le régime et l'ami-tié inconditionnelle de Mobutu avec ses partenaires Occidentaux.

This review article analyses two publications which deal with the history of the independent Democratic Republic of the Congo/Zaire, emphasising the reign of President Mobutu Sese Seko. In comparing the two publications, originating from two decidedly different traditions, the present article concludes that, twenty years after the fall of the Mobutu regime, there is not (yet) a historiographic consensus on the character of the Mobutu regime. Jean-Pierre Langellier, coming from the world of journalism, emphasised in his biography of Mobutu the importance of the President's friendship ties with the West, and the influence of the Cold War. Conversely, scholar Gauthier de Villers relativised the deterministic character of the Cold War on the regime, as well as the unconditional amical ties of Mobutu with his Western allies.

The primary objective of this collection of articles is to look at how the process of mourning mediates between the past and the future, and how the practices and perceptions of mourning are linked to real and imagined divisions in political time. Mourning, in other words, is a way of rethinking time.

This article addresses the relations between Belgium and Zaire during the time of Mobutu Sese Seko’s rule of Congo/Zaire between 1965 and 1997. Several authors have focussed on the importance of the Cold War, or the existence of Zaire’s dependency relationship with Belgium. This study, however, argues that the Cold War was not the singular decisive factor. Through his foreign policy, Mobutu approached his African neighbours, Eastern European countries, China and North Korea, in order to actively shape his own policy whereby he sometimes acted against the interests of his Western allies. Similarly, the dependency relationship must also be reconsidered, because Mobutu skilfully made use of Belgium’s fractured political landscape, and of his personal relations with his own Ministers, Belgian Ministers, and the King of the Belgians.

La RDC a connu une multicrise depuis son existence en tant qu'état et l'une des racines de ses crises est le mauvais leadership à tous les niveaux. Alors quel modèle de leadership pourrait aider ce pays à ne plus être « au coeur des ténèbres » ou sortir du « trou noir »? Est-ce le modèle du leadership de romance ou celui de « great man » ? Dans cet essai, je commencerai par définir le concept leadership, ensuite effleurer le leadership politique de Mobutu, enfin donner le profil d'un nouveau modèle en leadership, à explorer davantage dans notre pays, un paradigme de rupture avec le passé. Mots clés: modèle de leadership, paradigme, romance, Mobutu, Tshisekedi, République Démocratique du Congo. What leadership for the emergence of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)?Essay of a new model.

The study considers manifestoes and literary programs as a body of choice for tracing the dynamics of sub-Saharan Francophone literature. Controversies and the proliferation of literary groups are inseparable from the different relationships - rivalry, complicity, rupture, imitation, etc. - between writers of the same generation or their predecessors. They reflect the need for each other to assert themselves in a space and to identify with a particular literary project that participates in the changes of literary ideas. The article examines the issues that relate to the logics of ideological rupture and continuity between different manifestoes. We trace in essence the dynamics by which some writers rehabilitate or challenge the positions of their peers. The overt prefaces of the founding novels of the 1920s are analysed from reaction and debates, in the 1960s and 1970s, within the Negritude; the journals, anthologies and poetic manifestos of Negritude are read in opposition to the postures of its “slingers” who prefer, after independence, the novel; a final section (1990-2000), less antithetical, specifies the circumstances that promote the emergence of a literary renaissance.

During Mobutu Sese Seko's presidency of Congo/Zaire between 1965 and 1997, many high-ranking politicians and diplomats went into voluntary or involuntary exile and advocated against the same regime they once endorsed. This chapter highlights the role of these actors in transnational anti-Mobutist advocacy networks and contends that they acted as non-traditional diplomats who were often more credible representatives of the Zairean people than the Zairean regime. Many exiles wrote about their experiences during their time as Zairean government representatives and these were often scathing anti-Mobutist accounts. This particular kind of advocacy brings Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink's boomerang pattern to mind. Surprisingly enough, some exiles were reappointed by the president and defended once again the Zairean state. The remarkable case of politician and ambassador Nguza Karl-I-Bond is well-documented but ambiguous and is highlighted in the chapter. Karl-I-Bond's and other cases show the dexterity of these exile-diplomats in their mobility between different orders. When the Zairean national order proved insufficient to voice their concerns, they not infrequently moved to Belgium, a legacy of the colonial order. Finally, Mobutu skillfully instrumentalised these dissenting voices by playing the politicians off against each other, and used the transnational anti-Mobutist advocacy networks in his diplomatic rows with Belgium. (Full chapter upon request)

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/JCWS_a_00638#.V17oVtIrK71

This article discusses French support for Zaïrian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko during the Shaba crises of 1977 and 1978. During both crises, “Katangan Gendarmes” based in neighboring Angola invaded Zaire's mineral-rich Shaba Province. Direct and indirect French military interventions, including an airborne assault on the mining city of Kolwezi in 1978, helped to defeat the invaders and save Mobutu's regime. The article shows that French policymakers were drawn to Mobutu because they saw him as a bulwark against Communist expansion in Central Africa. The large Cuban military presence in Angola fueled concerns among French leaders that the Shaba invasions were a Soviet- or Cuban-inspired plot to spread instability and influence into Zaïre and beyond. These fears, which were piqued by alarming reports from French intelligence, were substantially influenced by Mobutu himself, who successfully exploited French fears to gain a de facto security umbrella that allowed him to buck broader calls for reform.

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