Mobutu Sese Seko was the soldier who seized control of the Congo and ruled it as a personal dictatorship for more than three decades, his name becoming a byword for corruption and "kleptocracy." Born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu in the Belgian Congo, he served as a sergeant in the colonial army and worked as a journalist before independence.
In the violent chaos that followed the Congo's independence from Belgium in 1960 — including the overthrow and murder of the country's first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, in which he was complicit — Mobutu emerged as the army strongman, finally taking absolute power in a coup in 1965. He renamed the country Zaire and, in a campaign of national "authenticity," renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko while building an extravagant personality cult.
A dependable Cold War ally of the United States and the West against Soviet influence in Africa, Mobutu received lavish foreign aid and diplomatic protection. He used his position to amass one of the world's great personal fortunes — salting away billions abroad, building palaces, and chartering Concorde flights — while the resource-rich country sank into poverty and decay.
With the Cold War over, his Western patrons lost interest, and as his health failed his hollowed-out regime crumbled. In 1997 rebels led by Laurent Kabila swept across the country with little resistance, and Mobutu fled into exile, dying of cancer in Morocco soon after.