At the end of 1965 in the ex-Bel­gian Congo torn and exhaust­ed by five years of unrest, Gen­er­al Mobutu and the army set up a pow­er­ful state soon to be known as Zaire. The pop­u­la­tion is clev­er­ly kept under con­trol, the oppo­si­tion is muz­zled and nation­al­ism rein­vent­ed. For 30 years, Mobutu Sese Seko Wa Zaban­ga, Mar­shall of Zaire, equal­ly well known as the »The Guide of the Authen­tic Zairi­an Rev­o­lu­tion«, »The Uni­fi­er«, »The Peace Maker«, »The Founder Pres­i­dent« or »The Father of the Nation«, has ruled undi­vid­ed­ly, hand­ing out favors and dis­graces. To do this, he will sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly exploite the phys­i­cal resources of a coun­try that he’ll lead to ruin. For over a quar­ter of a cen­tu­ry he has con­tin­ued to wave the slogan »chaos or me«. The Zairi­an monarch, machi­aval­lian prince, remains dread­ed pre­cise­ly because he is feared. How­ev­er, his ill­ness and the rebel­lion in East Zaire has under­mined his credit-wor­thi­ness and author­i­ty and sub­se­quent­ly forced him to mis­er­able exile. His defeat was both mil­i­tary and polit­i­cal. A few months after his res­ig­na­tion he dies amidst com­plete polit­i­cal indif­fer­ence of the inter­na­tion­al community.