Realpolitik Approach

The Mobutu government thus became increasingly preoccupied throughout the 1970s with raising revenue in order to finance grandiose projects. The local practice of patrimonialism meant that the hot seat and his associates had free rein to enrich themselves in government and another(prenominal) spheres. This means that the revenue needs of the state intersected the need of the government to finance its patrimonial processes to maintain power:

These needs and ambitions guide to a continuing financial crisis. Government administration create weak, inefficient, and infamously corrupt financial structures; the revenue collection corpse, in particular, was footling to a greater extent than an open invitation for personal enrichment by favored administrators. Mobutu, as the patron of patrons, demonstrated a voracious desire for more revenue to spend as he saw fit. more of this pass was untraceable, according to foreign technocrats brought in to salvage the parsimoniousness as its crisis deepened ("Patrimonial Politics and Corruption").

All this spending brought the state to the point of collapse in the 1970s. Even as these issues became known, Washington relied on congou tea as a tack route for the U.S.backed National Union for the Total freedom of Angola (UNITA) rebel movement fighting a 17 yr guerrilla war against the Marxist gov

Zaire is not the only kleptocracy in the world or even in Africa, but it was noted as such early and has been monitored closely by critics of the regime. Mobutu honed the art of stripping the rustic to a fine art, making use of the patrimonial system for his own benefit.

"A Policy of Spoils and Avarice." Africa News Service (24 Aug 1999).

Morrow, Lance. "Africa: The vanquish for Survival." Time (7 Sept 1992), 40.

Zaire was not the only African nation facing this sort of problem over the suffer few years, but in 1992 it was reported that President Mobutu Sese Seko had a personal fortune estimated at from $4 billion to $6 billion, which was not far below the level of the count onry's external debt. At the time, he had further isolated himself from his people aboard a luxury yacht then cruising the Zaire River (Morrow).

As his semipolitical fortunes turned against him, Mobutu found that he could no longer count on the westside for the support he had once enjoyed:

What should be done to ensure that kleptocrats-thieving rulers-surrender their illgotten gains? The wealth they down stolen and hidden abroad belongs to the citizens they have exploited; yet when their regimes be overthrown it is often extremely hard to reclaim the money ("West Turns a Blind Eye to Looting of Zaire").

"Zaire: Patrimonial Politics and Corruption." U.S. State Department Country Studies. hypertext transfer protocol://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgibin/

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