office
Chris McGreal in Kinshasa
Beyond the grave, and from his own bedroom, Mobutu Sese Seko is being pursued. Investigators, tracking down billions of rands of cash and property that were plundered by the late Zairean ruler and his cronies, have installed themselves in one of their early finds – a house Mobutu gave to his wife, Marie-Antoinette.
From the bedroom, the director of the Democratic Republic of Congo government’s “Office of Ill-Gotten Goods”, Jean-Baptiste Mulembe, has seized banks, ranches and private homes, and slung more than a dozen of Mobutu’s former cronies into jail.
Now the office itself is facing accusations of misusing public property, for distributing seized houses among senior officials of President Laurent Kabila’s Alliance of Democratic Forces, which took power in May.
Mulembe concedes that in his hunt for the money that was extorted from the former Zaire’s long-suffering population there is a presumption of guilt in dealing with anyone who served Mobutu.
“We know the state was bankrupt, which was induced by massive embezzlement, even though we don’t know how much is stashed away. We estimate that since they stayed so long in power they could not have made the money legitimately from their salaries. It’s clear that they embezzled funds,” he said.
Officially, the office is after everything down to stolen pencil sharpeners. But the focus of the investigators is greater than that. The office has laid claim to three of the country’s largest companies, worth hundreds of millions of rands, on paper at least.
When investigators began delving into the Soza bank records, they discovered it had been built entirely on money embezzled from the treasury. Shares were in the name of Mobutu’s cohorts. The bank has been relaunched under a new name.
The Office of Ill-Gotten Goods has brought in legal firms from New York to Switzerland to Hong Kong to help them track down Mobutu’s properties abroad, in return for a cut of whatever they are able to recover.
Particularly tempting is a report of a large stash of Mobutu gold in Gambia.
The office is also on the heels of one of Mobutu’s most prominent generals who fled to South Africa where he is openly scouting among financial advisers for the best place to put his money.
But the immediate focus is inside Congo. Some of Mobutu’s cronies, who deluded themselves that the new government would find their services invaluable, are languishing in the newly refurbished central prison, while Mulembe takes care of their property and bank accounts.
Among the 15 men locked up by the office is Kithima Bin Ramazani, head of Mobutu’s political party for 22 years.
Cleophas Kamitatu-Massamba, who sold half of Zaire’s embassy in Tokyo when he was ambassador, was similarly confident that he was immune from accountability. Now he is sharing cells with two former ministers and the head of Air Zaire, which did not have a single plane to its name by the time Mobutu fell.
“Some are in prison because they may try to escape. Others have agreed to pay their debts and promised not to leave the country. They have offered to give up their property. But that is not the case with everyone,” Mulembe said.
The Office of Ill-Gotten Goods is responsible either for selling off or for managing the seized property, but it has not proved successful at either.
One Cabinet minister privately bemoaned the frequency with which homes confiscated from Mobutu’s cronies are simply passed on to Kabila’s military officers or political officials with no financial benefit for the cash-strapped government.
Human-rights groups have decried the lack of due process and the arbitrary seizure of properties. Last week Kabila warned against abuses of power by individuals, but he defended seizures by the office. “We’re not trying to take money from people. What we’re trying to do is make the people who stole money give it back,” he said.
For the moment, at least, one category of people complicit in the rape of Zaire is likely to get away with it. Foreign businesses are officially part of the probe, but their files remain at the bottom of the pile while the office concentrates on hunting down property belonging to former Zaireans.
Companies such as the diamond giant, De Beers, which had a close working relationship with Mobutu, can breath a sigh of relief, for now.
“We are told Mobutu had shares in De Beers. We’re looking into it,” Mulembe said.