Congo by David Van Reybrouck

Author:David Van Reybrouck [Reybrouck, David Van]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

TOUJOURS SERVIR

A Marshal’s Madness

1975–1990

IN THE LONELINESS OF HIS OMNIPOTENCE, MOBUTU CONTINUED to stare at the screen. But, fifteen years after the historic bout, he saw things that knocked him for a bigger loop than any footage he’d seen before. It was Christmas Day 1989 and on a foreign channel he saw a turtle poke its head out, slow, helpless, with the fear of death in its eyes. No, this was no turtle, it was a man who came crawling—or who was squeezed, rather—from a compartment beneath an army tank. Amid the grayish-green steel his upper body moved so clumsily—his arms were pressed against his sides, his hands still in the compartment—that it made him look like a turtle. A soldier waiting on the street supported the man and pulled him out, like a midwife.

The video footage was yellowed and grainy, the scene had something wintery about it. But Mobutu recognized the man right away. It was Nicolae Ceauşescu. He and his wife had been arrested shortly before, after days of protest in his country. Mobutu watched the Romanian president stumble to his feet and take off his black astrakhan cap to arrange his hair. The cap looked like a wintertime variation on his own leopard-skin model. That was not the only similarity. Like him, Ceauşescu had come to power in 1965 and Mobutu greatly admired the way he had kept Romania on a course independent from the Soviet Union. And like Mobutu, Ceauşescu had been able to count on great Western support. Both men derived their power from faithful allies abroad and an obedient clique at home, which allowed their presidencies to grow into a sort of monarchy. Both were fond of the same nickname: Ceauşescu had people call him the Conducător, the leader, while Mobutu liked to be called le Guide. Surrounding the “Genius of the Carpathians,” another one of those nicknames, there had grown a personality cult as remarkable as that surrounding the “Great Helmsman” in Kinshasa. In Zaïre, the philosophy of authenticity had meanwhile been transformed into “Mobutuism”; in Romania, “Ceauşesism” reigned supreme. With so much authority on their sides, neither of them were good at dealing with criticism. They curbed the freedom of the press and when it came to dissidents, they were pleased to see the back of them. Let them spew their rancor over full ashtrays in some grimy Parisian café, blind as they were to the blessings these men had brought with them. The security of the state deservedly took pride of place. Ceauşescu’s Securitate displayed striking resemblances to Mobutu’s DSP, the Division Spéciale Présidentielle. The ties between Kinshasa and Bucharest were extremely warm and were topped off by a close personal friendship between Mobutu and Ceauşescu. Mobutu looked to America for money and to the East for methodology. He had learned a lot from Mao and Kim Il-sung, but the only Communist head of state with whom he was still on friendly terms was Ceauşescu. Their wives got along well too.

Mobutu saw the footage.

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