Mobutu Sese Seko's foreign policy emphasized his alliance with the United States and the Western world while supposedly maintaining a non-aligned position in international affairs.Zaire: A Country Study, "Government and Politics Mobutu ruled the Republic of the Congo and then Zaire as president for 32 years, from 1965 to 1997.
United States
For the most part, Zaire enjoyed warm relations with the United States. The United States was the third largest donor of aid to Zaire (after Belgium and France), and Mobutu befriended several U.S. presidents, including John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. Relations did cool significantly between 1974 and 1975 over Mobutu's increasingly radical rhetoric, including his scathing denunciations of American foreign policy,Young and Turner, p. 372 and plummeted to an all-time low in the summer of 1975 when Mobutu accused the CIA of plotting to overthrow his government. Eleven senior Zairian generals and several civilians were arrested while a former head of the Central Bank was condemned (in absentia). However, Nzongola-Ntalaja, one of Mobutu's staunchest critics, speculated that Mobutu invented the plot as an excuse to purge the military of officers who might pose a threat to his rule.Jeffrey M. Elliot and Mervyn M. Dymally, eds., Voices of Zaire: Rhetoric or Reality, p. 150 In spite of these hindrances, the chilly relationship quickly thawed during the Angolan Civil War when the U.S. government began aiding the anti-communist National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), led by Mobutu's Holden Roberto.
Because of Mobutu's poor human rights record, the Carter administration worked to put some distance between itself and the Kinshasa government;Zaire: A Country Study, "Relations with the United States" even so, Zaire was the recipient of nearly half the foreign aid Carter allocated sub-Saharan Africa.David Lamb, The Africans, p. 46 During the first Shaba invasion, the United States played a relatively inconsequential role; its belated intervention consisted of little more than the delivery of non-lethal supplies. But during the second Shaba invasion, the U.S. played a much more active and decisive role by providing transportation and logistical support to the French and Belgian paratroopers that were deployed to aid Mobutu against the rebels. Carter echoed Mobutu's (unsubstantiated) charges of Soviet and Cuban aid to the rebels, until it was apparent that no hard evidence existed to verify his claims.Young and Turner, p. 389 In 1980 the House of Representatives voted to terminate military aid to Zaire, but the Senate reinstated the funds, in response to pressure from Carter and American business interests in Zaire.Elliot and Dymally, p. 88
Mobutu enjoyed a very warm relationship with the Reagan administration (through financial donation); during Ronald Reagan's presidency, Mobutu visited the White House three times, and criticism of Zaire's human rights record by the U.S. was effectively muted. During a state visit by Mobutu in 1983 Reagan praised him as "a voice of good sense and goodwill".Metroactive: "When He Was King: On the trail of Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire's former Kleptocrat-in-Chief"
Mobutu also had a cordial relationship with Reagan's successor, Bush; he was the first African head of state to visit Bush at the White House. Even so, Mobutu's relationship with the U.S. radically changed shortly afterward with the end of the Cold War; with the Soviet Union gone, there was no longer any reason to support Mobutu as a bulwark against communism. Accordingly, the U.S. and other Western powers began pressuring Mobutu to democratize the regime. Regarding the change in U.S. attitude to his regime, Mobutu bitterly remarked: "I am the latest victim of the cold war, no longer needed by the U.S. The lesson is that my support for American policy counts for nothing."Gbadolite, Adam Zagorin (24 June 2001). "Leaving Fire in His Wake". Time. In 1993 the U.S. State Department denied Mobutu a visa after he sought to visit Washington, D.C. Shortly after this, Mobutu was befriended by televangelist Pat Robertson, who promised to try to get the State Department to lift its ban on the African leader. Pat's Mass-Murdering Friends
Angola Mobutu supported his ally, Holden Roberto, leader of the National Liberation Front of Angola, in his war for independence and his anti-communist struggle after 1975. Western nations hid aid to the FNLA by giving it to Mobutu who transferred it to Roberto. Mobutu's relationship with Roberto made the FNLA effectively part of the Zairian military.Erik P. Hoffmann and Frederic J. Fleron. The Conduct of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1980. Page 524.
Mobutu met with António de Spínola, the transitional President of Portugal, on 15 September 1974 on Sal island in Cape Verde, crafting a plan to empower Roberto, Jonas Savimbi of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), and Daniel Chipenda of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola's (MPLA) eastern faction at MPLA leader Agostinho Neto's expense while retaining the facade of national unity. Mobutu and Spínola wanted to diminish Neto's standing and present Chipenda as the MPLA head, Mobutu particularly preferring Chipenda to Neto because Chipenda supported autonomy for Cabinda and Neto did not. The Angolan exclave has immense petroleum reserves estimated at around 300 million tons which Zaire, and thus the Mobutu government, depended on for economic survival.
Belgium Relations between Zaire and Belgium wavered between close intimacy and open hostility during Mobutu's reign. Relations soured early in Mobutu's rule over disputes involving the substantial Belgian commercial and industrial holdings in the country, but relations warmed soon afterwards. Mobutu and his family were received as personal guests of the Belgian monarch in 1968 and a convention for scientific and technical cooperation was signed that same year. During King Baudouin's highly successful visit to Kinshasa in 1970 a treaty of friendship and cooperation between the two countries was signed. However, Mobutu tore up the treaty in 1974 in protest of Belgium's refusal to ban an anti-Mobutu book written by left-wing lawyer Jules Chomé.Young and Turner, p. 172 Mobutu's "Zairianisation" policy, which expropriated foreign-held businesses and transferred their ownership to Zairians, added to the strain.
Even so, later in the 1970s, both sides made efforts to improve the relationship. In 1976 Zaire promised to compensate Belgians who had lost assets during "Zairianization", and also allowed foreigners whose property had been expropriated to recover 60% of their assets, leading to a Belgian renewal of interest in investment. Belgium also contributed paratroopers to Mobutu's defense during Shaba II in 1978.Zaire: A Country Study, "Shaba II"
One of Mobutu's main complaints was that dissidents, students, and exiled opponents were allowed to be active and publish in Belgium, although Belgium did expel François Lumumba (son of Patrice) in 1984 after he was accused of complicity in the bombings of the Voice of Zaire station and Kinshasa's central post office.Zaire: A Country Study, "Armed Opposition"
In 1988 Zaire's National Legislative Council threatened to break diplomatic relations with Belgium in response to accusations by the Belgian media that Mobutu was pocketing Belgian foreign aid money.Blaine Harden, Africa: Dispatches from a Fragile Continent, p. 52 From 1989 onward relations between Zaire and Belgium were periodically troubled over issues ranging from the subject of debt rescheduling to the 1990 University of Lubumbashi massacre. Belgium terminated all but humanitarian aid to Zaire, and in response, Mobutu expelled 700 Belgian technicians and closed all but one Belgian consular office in Zaire. In 1991 and 1993, Belgium and France deployed troops to Kinshasa to evacuate foreign nationals during riots by unpaid Zairian soldiers. Belgium became more overtly critical of Mobutu, with growing numbers of Belgian politicians calling upon Mobutu to resign. Belgium gave a strong indication of its disapproval with Mobutu when it refused to invite him to King Baudouin's funeral in 1993. Before 1990, Mobutu's relation with King Baudouin was cordial, but the amicable ties between the two heads of state already progressively declined after the death of Mobutu's first wife, Marie-Antoinette.Zaire: A Country Study, "Relations with Belgium"Roosens, Claude et al. (2004) La politique étrangère: le modèle classique à l'épreuve. Presses Universitaires Européennes. . p. 228 After the massacre of Lubumbashi, and a bold statement by Mobutu about the Belgian royal family, the Belgian royal palace broke completely with Mobutu, and even Zairian ambassador Kimbulu was henceforth never invited to royal receptions.Zinzen, Walter (1995) Mobutu: van mirakel tot malaise. Hadewijch. . p. 163
France As the largest francophone country in sub-Saharan Africa - and the second-largest French-speaking country in the world,Zaire: A Country Study, "Relations with France" Zaire was of great strategic interest to France.Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa, p. 525 During the First Republic era, France tended to side with the conservative and federalist forces, as opposed to unitarists such as Lumumba. Shortly after the Katangan secession was successfully crushed, Zaire (then called the Republic of the Congo), signed a treaty of technical and cultural cooperation with France. During the presidency of de Gaulle, relations with the two countries gradually grew stronger and closer. In 1971 then-Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d'Estaing visited Zaire. Later, after becoming President, he would develop a close personal relationship with President Mobutu and became one of the regime's closest foreign allies. During the Shaba invasions, France sided firmly with Mobutu: during the first Shaba invasion, France airlifted 1,500 Moroccan paratroopers to Zaire, and the rebels were repulsed.Zaire: A Country Study, "Shaba I" One year later, during the second Shaba invasion, France itself would send troops to aid Mobutu (along with Belgium)."Shaba II: The French and Belgian Intervention in Zaire in 1978" by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas P. OdomSauvetage de Kolwezi
Relations remained cordial throughout the remainder of the Cold War and, even after Belgium and the United States terminated all but humanitarian aid to Zaire, Franco-Zairian relations remained cordial, although France did join other Western countries in pressuring Mobutu to implement democratic reforms. In the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, and the subsequent exodus of two million Rwandan Hutus to eastern Zaire, France pressed for international aid to Mobutu, believing him to be the only one capable of bringing a solution to the refugee crisis.Meredith, p. 533-534 Later, during the First Congo War, France repeatedly agitated for military intervention to save the Mobutu regime; however, unable to intervene directly, French intelligence arranged for 300 Serbian (White Legion) mercenaries to be brought to Zaire to aid Mobutu's crumbling army, but to no avail.Meredith, p. 535
Until his death, Mobutu met with high-ranking French leaders. In 1996 he met then-President Jacques Chirac during what was officially a private visit to France. (Mobutu also owned a villa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, near Nice)."Mobutu reçu à Paris)" J. C., Humanité, 23 April 1996. (Accessed 27 December 2006)
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