Synopsis
"Of all the human passions, the appetite for domination is the most inebriating" (St. Augustine)
The ultimate "African King, Joseph Désiré Mobutu was one of the most enduring and tenacious dictators to rise to power as a result of the Cold War and the decolonisation.
November 1965. With the help of the CIA, Mobutu launched a coup d'état and seized power in the former Belgian Congo. He renamed the country Zaïre and imposed on his people a peace based upon fear, violence and repression.
In less than 25 years, this young sergeant of the colonial army became one of the richest and most feared men in the world. He sided with the West and built a pyramid of autocratic, predatory power, underpinned by money. He handed out favours and disgrace, and wielded absolute rule over the ruins of a country ravaged by corruption,.
Mobutu, King of Zaïre is the story of one man's exceptional destiny, founded on ambition and grandeur, betrayal and cowardice, a character worthy of the great Shakespearean tragedies.