IF the writing was not on the wall for the Mobutu Sese Seko regime before, it was there last week in a cable sent to Washington by the United States embassy in Kinshasa. It reported that the newly appointed prime minister of Zaire, General Likulia Bolongo was preparing for “a speedy departure from Kinshasa with a couple of large suitcases of cash”.
The cable noted, sardonically, that the general “seems to be avoiding diversions, such as preparing the defence of Kinshasa, and concentrating on raising as much cash as possible”.
The cable was a fitting epitaph to the kleptocracy which has been Zaire over the last 32 years.
The imminent fall of Mobutu has focused world attention on the extraordinary wealth that the dictator has amassed in foreign lands – assets estimated to be worth a staggering $2,5-billion, ranging from 14 000 bottles of 1930 vintage wine (he has a taste for his year of birth) hidden away in a Portuguese mansion, to a $5,2-million holiday home on the French Riviera.
But it needs to be recognised that the ransacking of Zaire by Mobutu’s family has long been known to the world’s governments as well as the likes of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Yet the international community continued to prop him up and the IMF continued to finance him. In a sense, they connived at the impoverishment of a nation. It is now surely incumbent on the world to make some sort of restitution.
The parallels between Mobutu’s swag and the “Nazi gold” stashed away in Swiss banks are obvious. If the gnomes of Zurich are to be traduced for hanging on to assets looted by Hitler’s Germany, is there not a case to be made against those countries which facilitate Mobutu’s enjoyment of his ill- gotten gains in their jurisdiction ?
It is an issue on which our government is well-placed to take a lead. We know the Mobutus have assets in South Africa. Some sort of inquiry is needed to identify them and to examine the complex legal issues surrounding their possible restitution. We owe at least that much to Zaire.