Jean-Claude Buhrer in Bern reports on Swiss banks’ efforts to keep a distance from Mobutu and rumours of his hoarded millions
AFTER getting its fingers burnt by the Ferdinand Marcos affair and, even more, by the present controversy about what happened to assets deposited in Swiss banks by the victims of Nazism, the Bern government is keen to avoid further unpleasant surprises that may arise from the actual or imagined fortune that is rumoured to have been stashed away in Switzerland by President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire.
The Swiss Bankers’ Association (SBA), concerned as it is about the degree to which Switzerland’s image as a financial centre has been tarnished, is also watching developments closely. It is prepared to co- operate with the authorities in the event of Mobutu’s assets being frozen.
As Mobutu’s grip on power weakens, there is intense speculation about the size of the Zairean president’s personal fortune. Estimates range from $100-million to more than $15-billion.
Opinions also vary as to just how much of his fortune Mobutu has deposited in Switzerland. The foreign ministry jurist in charge of the case says some people claim Mobutu still has a great deal of money in Switzerland, while others say almost none of it is left.
An SBA spokesman is even more cautious: “We know nothing about the size of the funds concerned. Indeed we have no indication that there are any at all. We recognise that any well-run financial centre is exposed to this kind of risk.
“But it should be remembered that there were similar rumours going round when the communist regime in Romania fell, and that in the end it turned out Ceausescu had no account with any Swiss bank.”
The most visible aspect of Mobutu’s fortune in Switzerland is his luxury 30-room residence in Savigny, above Lausanne, which is thought to be worth $5,5-million. The mansion was built in the Seventies, at a time when Zaire’s strong man was made to feel welcome in Bern. According to the local press, Mobutu pays annual rates of $7000 on this house alone.
Until about 1990, he regularly came to relax at his Savigny residence accompanied by a large retinue. But from then on the worsening situation in Zaire prompted the Swiss authorities to keep their distance from a man they no longer regarded as a welcome guest, and he was granted only the occasional visa.
In August 1996, Bern gave “purely medical” reasons as justification for allowing Mobutu into the country, thus enabling him to have a prostate cancer operation at a Lausanne hospital.
The government also took advantage of that occasion to ensure that the debts of about $1,75-million run up by Zairean diplomatic staff in Switzerland, as well as at the United Nations in Geneva, since 1990 would be reimbursed with greater alacrity.
After being criticised for allowing the Zairean president to spend a long convalesence period on the banks of Lake Lman, the Swiss government refused to allow him back into the country once he had left for the C’te-d’Azur on November 4, 1996.
With events in Zaire taking an ever more dramatic turn, the Swiss government has been coming under mounting pressure to freeze Mobutu’s assets.
A Socialist deputy for Basle has urged the Federal Council to “safeguard the rights of the Zairean people, who have been despoiled for years”, while a Genevan deputy has called for “the immediate freezing of the bank accounts of political figures suspected of having grown rich at the expense of their peoples”.
The Swiss government set a precedent on March 24 1986 when it ordered, on preventive grounds, the freezing of the Marcos’s assets shortly after the Filipino dictator had been toppled. Since then, the Manila government has been embroiled in an endless court battle with Marcos’s heirs in a attempt to lay its hands on the $350- million discovered in various accounts Marcos had opened in Swiss banks.
So as to prevent a repetition of the Marcos affair, the supervisory body, the Federal Bank Commission, made it compulsory for Swiss banks to identify their clients, and urged them to act with great caution when dealing with foreign politicians, and above all heads of state.
In the meantime, stiffer legislation was also introduced to prevent money laundering. And an agreement now requires banks to act “with all due diligence”.
Government sources argue that Switzerland is now better equipped to deal with this kind of situation than it was at the time of Marcos’s fall.
According to a foreign ministry spokesman, the Swiss government can decide to freeze Mobutu’s fortune immediately by virtue of the powers it enjoys under the federal constitution.