Mobutu Sese Seko.

Mobutu Sese Seko. I INTRODUCTION Mobutu Sese Seko (1930-1997), president of Zaire, who seized power by force in 1965 and held it for more than three decades. Mobutu kept a chokehold on political power, amassing vast amounts of wealth while his country collapsed. After Mobutu was overthrown in 1997, Zaire was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo. II EARLY LIFE AND CAREER Born Joseph Désiré Mobutu in Lisala in the north of the former Belgian colony of Belgian Congo, Mobutu was educated in missionary schools. Joining the Belgian colonial army at age 19, he rose to the rank of sergeant-major, the highest rank open to Africans. In the late 1950s, as the colony moved toward independence, he worked as a journalist and joined the Congolese National Movement of militant nationalist Patrice Lumumba. The country achieved independence in June 1960 as the Republic of the Congo (it would be renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1964) with Lumumba as prime minister. Lumumba chose Mobutu as his private secretary and soon afterward named him army chief of staff. The immediate postindependence era was marked by turmoil. In less than a week the army mutinied against its officer corps, which was still composed entirely of Belgians. The southern province of Katanga seceded less than a month l...