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External collusion with kleptocracy: can Zaïre recapture its stolen wealth?
Abstract
For 28 years, Mobutu Sese Seko has carefully and thoughtfully refined his system for transforming the public resources of Zaïre into private wealth, while using bribery, coercion and violence to thwart all movements for change. The consequences of his system, commonly known as ‘kleptocracy’ or government by theft, are well known: immiseration of the people; destruction of the nation's infrastructure; enrichment of Mobutu and his collaborators; the transformation of Zaïre into the prime staging ground for foreign intervention against other African nations. This article will focus neither on the consequences of kleptocracy nor the growing opposition which, for the past three years, has aggressively but so far unsuccessfully challenged Mobutu's rule.
It will instead examine questions of causation and culpability. It will identify some of the architects, beneficiaries and allies of kleptocracy; analyse the methods used for misdirecting Zaïre's wealth, and catalogue the benefits Mobutu, his domestic associates and his external sponsors drew from this system. It will also discuss the legal mechanisms a post‐Mobutu government might use to recapture stolen assets or set aside debts arising from loans whose proceeds were stolen.
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