Following riots in Kinshasa by unpaid soldiers, Mobutu brought opposition figures into a coalition government, but he still connived to retain control of the security services and important ministries.

Cecil was brought to the Democratic Republic of the Congo when he was still very young, but was evacuated at two years after Mobutu Sese Seko's coup d ' etat.

Never liked by the public, and loathed by the Roman Catholic Church and the Armed Forces despite his avowed right-wing views, López Rega was a man considered by others in the halls of power as a borderline psychopath, and, worse, the sport of being the " power behind the throne ," which he leveraged to secure business partnerships with Muammar Gaddafi, Zairean dictator Joseph Mobutu, and the Italian Fascist Licio Gelli ( to whose P-2 lodge López Rega belonged ).

Nzemba, who was appointed by Mobutu in 1986, was considered one of the more powerful players in Mobutu's political party, the Mouvement Populaire pour le Revolution ( MPR ), but also called himself a " brother " of Étienne Tshisekedi, a popular local political figure and Mobutu's most significant political opposition.

An engineer by profession, he was educated in Belgium at Leuven University and was considered an integral part of Prime Minister Kengo Wa Dondo's entourage during the Mobutu years.

During the crucial period of July – August 1960, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu built up " his " national army by channeling foreign aid to units loyal to him, by exiling unreliable units to remote areas, and by absorbing or dispersing rival armies.

The wife of the Belgian judge took a liking to Mobutu and taught him to speak, read and write fluently.

As he consolidated power Mobutu set up several military forces whose sole purpose was to protect him.

"< ref > There are multiple translations of the full name, including " the all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake ", " the earthy, the peppery, all-powerful warrior who, by his endurance and will to win, goes from contest to contest leaving fire in his wake " and " the man who flies from victory to victory and leaves nothing behind him "< http :// www. plexoft. com / SBF / N04. html # Sese > and " the all-powerful warrior who goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake " ( Wrong, p. 4 )</ ref >), Mobutu Sese Seko for short.

Mobutu then commuted his sentence to life imprisonment, released him after a year, and later appointed him prime minister.

Mobutu viewed the Soviet presence as advantageous for two reasons: it allowed him to maintain an image of non-alignment, and it provided a convenient scapegoat for problems at home.

From eastern Zaire, the rebels and foreign government forces under the leadership of President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Rwandan Minister of Defense Paul Kagame launched an offensive to overthrow Mobutu, joining forces with locals opposed to him as they marched west toward Kinshasa.

According to Transparency International, Mobutu embezzled over $ 5 billion USD from his country, ranking him as the third-most corrupt leader in the past two decades and the most corrupt African leader during the same period .< ref > But after his death the Swiss Government has claimed that Mobutu's legacy was just evaluated at 5. 3 millions dollars.

It has been alleged but never proved that, fearing Lumumba's increasing popularity amongst the soldiers who might release him ( soldier mutinies and unrest increased by the day at prison camp Hardy in Thysville ), Harold d ' Aspremont Lynden ( Belgian minister for African Affairs ) sent a highly confidential telegram on January 16, 1961 to the government in Léopoldville ( Kasavubu and Mobutu ) to send Lumumba to Katanga.

On September 12, forces loyal to the Chief of Staff of the Army, Joseph Mobutu, placed Lumumba under house arrest at the prime minister's residence, however he was soon released by Congolese troops loyal to him.

The tripartite of Kasa-Vubu, Tshombe and Mobutu took quick action to bolster their threadbare army's fighting strength, calling in Irish mercenary commander Mike Hoare from South Africa and asking him to recruit a thousand white fighters from South Africa and Rhodesia.

Mobutu had the political and military support of Western countries, who saw him as an ally against communism in Africa.

They had long been discriminated against for being relative newcomers to the region and having a different language and culture than neighboring tribes, part of Mobutu Sese Seko's strategy of encouraging a low level of internal discord in the country so an alliance would not form against him.

That status enabled him to mobilize public opinion and the international community, and he continued advocating for change during Mobutu ’ s tenure.

The first lasted only one month ( September 29, 1991 – November 1, 1991 ) before Mobutu sacked him, and the second only seven months ( August 15, 1992 – March 18, 1993 ).

Mobutu would not have been pleased by the emergence of a Rwandan government that was allied with Uganda and may have hoped that the Hutu militants could rid him of the new government of Paul Kagame.

A favorite Mobutu tactic was to play " musical chairs ," rotating members of his government, switching the cabinet roster constantly to ensure that no one would pose a threat to his rule.

However, many people viewed these charges with skepticism ; in fact, one of Mobutu's staunchest critics, Nzongola-Ntalaja, speculated that Mobutu invented the plot as an excuse to purge the military of talented officers who might otherwise pose a threat to his rule.

Even in captivity, Lumumba was a threat to Mobutu.

Regardless of the reasoning in Kinshasa, Angola entered the war on the side of the rebels and was determined to overthrow the Mobutu government, as this would be the only way to address the threat posed by the Zairian-UNITA relationship.

Both Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu then ordered Mobutu to arrest the other.

Laurent-Désiré Kabila proclaimed himself president on September 7, 1997, the same day that Mobutu died in Morocco, and immediately ordered a violent crackdown to restore order.

Mobutu said Lumumba would be tried for inciting the army to rebellion and other crimes.

It later became, successively, the Republic of the Congo, Zaire ( under Mobutu Sese Seko ), and currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo or DRC, not to be confused with Republic of the Congo formerly owned by France.

Mobutu eventually became Lumumba's personal aide, though several contemporaries indicate that Belgian intelligence had recruited Mobutu to be an informer.

According to Mobutu, it had taken " the politicians " five years to " ruin " the country ; therefore, said Mobutu, " For five years, there will be no more political party activity in the country ".

Zaire's president Mobutu Sésé Seko asked for the fight to be held in his country, eager for the publicity such a high-profile event would bring.

Mobutu promised Habyarimana's family that his body would eventually be given a proper burial in Rwanda.

During the early 1990s Mobutu allowed a transitional parliament to be set up, and Kengo was chosen Prime Minister by it in 1994 as a candidate in an attempt to neutralise the challenge from the country's then most popular politician, Étienne Tshisekedi.

Kabila himself had credibility because he had been a longtime political opponent of Mobutu, and had been a follower of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the independent Congo who was murdered by a combination of internal and external forces, to be replaced by the then-Lt. Gen. Mobutu in 1965.

He quoted Moese Nyarugabo, an aide to Mobutu, as saying that killings and disappearances should be expected in wartime.

Mobutu blamed the five years of turmoil on " the politicians " and decreed: " For five years, there will be no more political party activity in the country.

Belgian advisors convinced Mobutu that Lumumba was a liability that needed to be eliminated.

Mobutu amassed a personal fortune estimated to be as much as US $ 5 billion, while what infrastructure the country had was left to decay.

Burundi, Angola, the rebels of southern Sudan, and the security forces of the province of Katanga, all of which had long standing grievances with the Mobutu government, especially his sponsoring of foreign rebel groups to destabilize neighboring countries, also proved to be important backers of the ADFL.

The first and most probable, is that Angola had joined the anti-Mobutu coalition, giving it numbers and strength far superior to the FAZ and demanding that Mobutu be removed from power.

The new Congolese state under Kabila's rule proved to be disappointingly similar to Zaire under Mobutu.