In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz

by Michela Wrong

  On the surface, Nzanga’s life was now one of gilded ease. Travelling freely between Brussels, Paris and the family base in Rabat, he had no problems with the European authorities as long as he made clear he was not planning to demand political asylum. Building on a Canadian degree in communications, he set up a communications group although, as one of the heirs to the Mobutu estate, it seems unlikely he will ever actually need to work.

  When he talked about the president his voice thickened with pain, and it was clear that the events of 1997 had left their mark. He was obviously still mourning the father he belatedly came to know. De facto guardian of the Mobutu flame, he knew the risks he ran in talking to a journalist. But if there was any chance to contribute to a more nuanced, a more generous picture of the man whose crimes had been denounced across the world, he wanted to seize it.

  When historians came to re-examine Zaire’s ills, Nzanga was convinced, they would absolve Mobutu of much of the blame and focus instead on those he nicknamed ‘the bloodsuckers’ as a child: the aides and army men, premiers and ministers who manipulated the president, only to portray Mobutu as sole, misguided decision-maker when events turned sour. ‘I call him the tree that hid the forest. I used to tell him to be careful of those around him. But he always thought of himself as a tribal chief. He would say, “I must cover this”, and take responsibility for actions of others. He took everything on his own shoulders. He did not believe in passing the buck.’

  The last battle in the long ‘war of influences’ that raged around Mobutu for three decades was staged in surprisingly simple surroundings for a head of state associated with often laughable levels of personal luxury. Mobutu’s last months in Zaire were spent in a modest grey villa in the cool of the hills overlooking the first cascade of Stanley Falls, with a clear view across the river to the glinting skyscrapers of Congo-Brazzaville. Here he ensconced himself with Nzanga as his spokesman, twin sisters Bobi and Kossia as emotional supports, his son Kongulu—the feared ‘Saddam Hussein’—looking after security, daughter Ngawali, the infamous Uncle Fangbi and his personal doctors. To their fury, the advisers whose services Mobutu had once called upon were now rendered virtually redundant, as increasingly he left family members to man the presidential Telecels. ‘He no longer listens to us,’ the head of the MPR party despaired. ‘He only listens to his family, and they are pursuing their own agendas.’

  There had been a time when Mobutu had groomed one of his sons—Niwa, widely regarded as one of the smartest of an original brood of seventeen children—for a role in politics. But with Niwa’s death of AIDS any attempt to found a ruling dynasty was abandoned and Mobutu sought instead to keep his offspring out of the world that had disillusioned him. For Nzanga—‘a garter snake in a nest of cobras’, in the words of one ambassador—this was to be his first venture into Zaire’s intrigue-laden political arena.

  The villa in Kinshasa had pale echoes of Gbadolite magnificence: peacocks paraded the lawns, monkeys scrabbled at their cages and fountains played in ornamental gardens where lizards in lurid shades of purple and orange basked in the sun. But the reality which Mobutu had managed to keep at a distance in the forest lay just outside the grey railings surrounding the house.

  The first presidential residence of independent Congo, the villa lies smack in the middle of Camp Tsha Tshi, main barracks of the DSP, a stone’s throw from the washing lines hung out by the officers’ wives. Only in this enclave within an enclave, surrounded by his clan’s warriors, with a helicopter on standby to lift him to safety, could the besieged president now feel safe.

  It was to this residence of convenience, not a place that Mobutu himself had ever called home, that the negotiators came, delegation after delegation, in their Mercedes and wailing motorcades, trying—as tense days ran into even tenser weeks—to answer the question which was baffling Kinshasa’s inhabitants, Western governments and Mobutu’s African allies. With the rebels marching unstoppably towards the city, with the Big Vegetables and their families heading out of town, with even Ethiopian Airlines, that most unflappable of African airlines, cancelling flights to Kinshasa for fear of being hijacked by hysterical soldiers, why was the president refusing to leave?

  ‘Maybe he is hoping that if he waits long enough the rebel alliance will fall apart,’ speculated a Zairean banker. ‘Or maybe he’s hoping Kabila will realise taking Kinshasa by force would be a very bloody affair. Or maybe he thinks he can simply buy Kabila off, as he has bought off so many others. One of these days he’s going to wake up, call for one of his aides and discover he’s the only mouvancier left in town.’

  To think that Mobutu was hanging on to power for its own sake, to equate him with the generals clutching their posts for a few million dollars more, was to misunderstand what made him tick, insisted Nzanga. ‘It wasn’t a question of power. It was a question of the country’s future. He was still trying to find a solution. Not to have bloodshed in Kinshasa, not to have someone like Kabila in control. Nobody wanted to understand the nature of his fight.’

  It was at this point, one senses, that the lack of reliable intelligence, the decades of toadying by aides who told Mobutu only what he wanted to hear, finally took their toll. Long after the succession of army defeats made it clear that there was nothing to stop the AFDL, Mobutu still, to the bafflement of Western powers and his own population, seemed to believe he had cards to play. Nursing a fatal cancer, he knew his rule was coming to an end. But he was holding out for a deal which would allow him to exit gradually and with dignity, remaining perhaps as titular head of state while a transitional government took over administration and prepared the long-promised elections.

  It was a scenario unacceptable to Kabila, who had said the only thing to discuss was Mobutu’s departure, and one the president was in no position to enforce: but procrastination had served Mobutu well in the past. The longer he hung on, he calculated, the greater chance some former friend would come to the rescue. ‘Emissaries were being sent out left, right and centre to try and get someone to do the fighting the Zaireans wouldn’t do,’ said former US ambassador Daniel Simpson. ‘They were reaching out in every direction they could.’

  Mobutu must have looked longingly across the river to Brazzaville, where a crack force of 2,000 Western troops had gathered. Ostensibly they were there to evacuate expatriates from Kinshasa if all hell broke loose, but he knew how such missions could end up rescuing a faltering regime. With this in mind, the French embassy in Kinshasa kept raising false alarms, pushing for intervention, only to be slapped down by Western chancelleries who realised the implications.

  It was with the mission of shattering lingering presidential illusions that the Americans came to the villa on 29 April 1997 bent on engineering what Bill Richardson, the troubleshooter Bill Clinton entrusted with this delicate task, called a ‘soft landing’ for the rebels. For Mobutu’s entourage, unwilling to accept the embarrassing truth about their army, US readiness to act as intermediaries proved what they had suspected all along. Washington, their former friend, was the secret weapon that explained the AFDL’s extraordinary success.

  The delegation entrusted with presenting what had been flagged as ‘Mobutu’s last chance’, had been carefully picked to include representatives from the CIA, State Department and National Security Council. ‘Mobutu had this trick of playing one side off against each other. We wanted to make it 100 per cent clear this was the US government position,’ remembered Simpson, who did the translating. The man they met, seated on a throne, surrounded by his family and aides, was a shadow of his former self. The cancer had advanced and Mobutu, they saw, was now having difficulties walking, sitting and standing. He had become so cut off from events outside, the visitors found themselves in the bizarre position of giving him a military update, assuring him that Kenge, the last major town on the route into Kinshasa, had indeed fallen to the rebels, whatever his generals might be telling him about a DSP recapture.

  But they did not allow his fragility to dilute the for
ce with which they delivered their message. Arguing that the crisis had now reached an irreversible stage, they appealed to the president to step down ‘with honour and dignity’ while there was still time. Nzanga remembered that the team was sweating with nerves as they handed over a letter from Clinton in which the US leader urged Mobutu to meet Kabila and appoint a government team to negotiate a transfer of power. ‘Richardson spelt it out in words of one syllable,’ recalled Simpson. ‘It was a very stark presentation. It was heavy-going, as you can imagine. This was a guy who had worked with the US since the 1950s and he was being told: “You’ll be dragged through the streets. These things could happen to you and we are not going to stop them.” ’

  The Americans then called a halt and the family went off into a huddle. Mobutu, Simpson remembered, was concerned that the rebel forces, also heading for Gbadolite, might desecrate his mother’s tomb. The president made one brief, limp attempt to remind his guests of past loyalties, to stir old Cold War embers back into life. ‘He said: “If you want to stop this, you can call in your troops.” ’ But history had moved on. ‘We made it clear he wasn’t going to get that.’

  Exactly what deal Richardson’s team offered in exchange for Mobutu’s voluntary departure remains a topic of dispute. In his memoirs Ngbanda, who was present at the meeting, claims that in return for Mobutu’s withdrawal, the Americans said they would guarantee the safety of the president and his family, promised the MPR would be allowed to operate in the new political landscape—a way of saying his political legacy would not be completely obliterated—and added: ‘We will ensure that your possessions, both inside and outside the country, go untouched.’ The pitch, he maintains, was made orally, and certainly no trace of it appears in the letter from Clinton.

  Even taking into account the understandable desire to win over their interlocutor at such a key moment by making promises that could later be quietly rescinded, this last offer, made to a man reputed to have salted away a fortune in stolen state assets, was one the US had no right to make and no legal jurisdiction to enforce. Ambassador Simpson simply denies it was ever voiced. ‘We guaranteed Mobutu’s personal safety, that’s all. The rest comes from the Terminator.’

  He is challenged by Nzanga, who was also present. While avoiding going into details, he confirms the account given by the Terminator, his arch enemy, as substantially correct. In assuming that an appeal to Mobutu’s materialism would make a difference, he says, the Americans showed a crass misunderstanding of his father’s thought processes. Having logged the decades of stolen profits, the riches of Gbadolite, the Americans must have thought they were touching the nub of the matter, raising an issue close to Mobutu’s heart. But for the former army sergeant, wealth had always constituted a method, a tool for getting what he wanted, never an end in itself. ‘That was never his concern. What bothered him was having to hand over power to a bandit, a man who had run smuggling rings and taken Westerners hostage. That was too much to swallow. The way they should have dealt with this problem was to talk to him as the father of the nation, and not deal with him as you would deal with a businessman, because that was an insult and he would never accept that, never.’

  Due to fly on to meet Kabila the following day, Richardson demanded a swift answer with what must have come across to the Zaireans as unconscionable American arrogance. Seething, but aware he was being presented with an ultimatum, not an exchange of views, Mobutu indicated that he would accept the deal, but needed time to put his agreement in words. Feverishly, Ngbanda and Vundwawe drew up the letter for Clinton that would end Mobutu’s rule. But when the American team returned for their second meeting, the letter had vanished. Without notifying them, Mobutu had scrapped the resignation offer, agreeing only to a face-to-face meeting with Kabila.

  For Ngbanda this was the final proof of the Mobutu family’s interference in affairs it did not understand. However, another explanation is just as plausible. Mobutu was not used to being dictated to and the blunt language of the US team had stuck in his gullet. No decision at all seemed preferable to one that involved bowing to the nation he felt had masterminded his overthrow. ‘A man like him could never have signed a surrender,’ said Nzanga. ‘He did not want to quit. He would rather have died.’

  The meeting between Kabila and Mobutu took place on 4 May, after interminable wrangling over venue. With Mobutu refusing to fly to South Africa on the grounds of ill-health and Kabila ruling out either Gabon or Congo-Brazzaville for fear of a French-masterminded assassination attempt, South Africa came up with a compromise solution in the form of SAS Outeniqua, a navy vessel which was redirected to the port town of Pointe Noire.

  The occasion had its share of black comedy, threatening to collapse entirely during the five hours officials spent debating how to get the president, too weak to climb the steep metal steps from quayside to deck, onto the vessel without making him look ridiculous. The president’s doctor had warned against the effect of helicopter vibrations. Winching him aboard like a piece of cargo was deemed unacceptable. Finally, a makeshift ramp was built and Mobutu was driven aboard the Outeniqua in his bullet-proof limousine.

  It was all to no avail. The two men’s positions were too far apart for them to have anything to talk about. Photographs of the summit show a gaunt Mobutu and a chubby Kabila beaming for the cameras while still managing to look thoroughly ill at ease. The rebel chief is gazing at the ceiling, the sky, anywhere but into the eyes of his adversary, the only way, he had been told, to avert the spell Mobutu, that practitioner of black magic, would undoubtedly try to cast upon him.

  With no deal reached, a grim scenario loomed—a showdown between the AFDL, UNITA and 10,000 elite Zairean troops inside Kinshasa that would probably trigger a complete breakdown in law and order and enormous loss of life. It was to avoid this outcome that Ambassador Simpson set about cultivating the generals, focusing in particular on General Donat Mahele, the unhappy head of Zaire’s armed forces.

  General Mahele was a career professional, a nationalist who won his spurs in the Shaba wars and had been appointed chief of staff in 1991. He had achieved huge popularity amongst ordinary Zaireans for ordering his troops to open fire on looting soldiers during the ‘pillages’ that devastated Kinshasa. But his forthright action made him no friends amongst the other generals. Worse, while he came from the Equateur region, he was not a Ngbandi. Sacked, he had gone into semi-retirement on his plantation until the 1996 crisis forced Mobutu to call upon his services again.

  Mahele was too bright not to register swiftly that he could not win this war. Facing the prospect of humiliating defeat, nursing distant political ambitions of his own, he was receptive to any suggestions the Americans had to make. ‘We began to talk about the shape of a soft landing, a situation in which Kabila’s troops would come in not fighting and Mobutu’s troops would maintain order without firing and hand over power,’ said Simpson. ‘Mahele said he could not stop the Alliance and that he was very interested.’ The two men discussed the advantages of Mahele establishing direct contact with Kabila, an act that, in a nation at war, constituted high treason. ‘Mahele said: “I have to think about it.” I said: “You’d better, as you could wind up dead.” ’

  Accompanying Richardson to Lubumbashi, the new AFDL base, Simpson made a note of Kabila’s satellite telephone number and arranged for a call to be put through to his residence when he was back in Kinshasa. Mahele was invited around to receive it on 13 May. Aware that a botched ‘soft landing’, in which the rebels came into Kinshasa without shooting and the FAZ opened fire, would be far worse than none at all, Simpson asked Mahele: ‘Do you really want to do this?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the general. Knowing that Mobutu’s intelligence services might be listening in, the ambassador was careful to avoid using any names once he picked up the receiver. ‘I just said: “I’d like to introduce someone who wants to talk to you,” handed Mahele the phone and walked out of the room. They spoke for about half an hour. There was a second call a couple of days later when they
really nailed down procedures.’

  But Kinshasa is not a city in which secrets are ever kept for long. General Mahele’s visits to the ambassador’s residence did not go unnoticed by his subordinates or his peers. With the US regarded as the steel in the AFDL glove, the inference was obvious: Mahele was in league with the rebels.

  For the Inseparable Four, the revelation did not come as an enormous shock. The various generals—the recently appointed prime minister Likulia Bolongo in particular—had also been in talks with Kinshasa’s foreign embassies, presenting themselves as Mobutu’s natural successors, perfectly placed to negotiate with the rebels once the dinosaur was out of the picture. They did not appreciate being pipped to the post. So when, on 15 May, the generals asked for an urgent meeting with Mobutu, the Inseparable Four played Mahele a dirty trick, the last and most vicious in their long history of rivalry.

  The day before had seen a diplomatic débâcle. With international encouragement, Mobutu had made a second, laborious trip to the SAS Outeniqua. What he hoped to achieve is not clear, but this time Kabila did not even bother to turn up, too confident now to mind that his no-show represented a slap in the face for both Mobutu and South African President Nelson Mandela, who had flown over to act as peace-maker.

  In Mobutu’s absence, the generals agreed amongst themselves the time for candour had arrived. A group would formally notify Mobutu of what had been blindingly obvious to Kinshasa’s residents for months: they could neither defend the city nor guarantee his safety. The message, it was assumed, would prompt Mobutu to announce his retirement. However, once before the president, the generals turned silent. They left it to Mahele to deliver the news that signalled all hope was at an end, then feigned surprise, casting the general in the role of turncoat. The explanation for the important television announcement that never was, it was the equivalent of handing Mahele the black spot.