I've been reading a book about the Congo for a class, called In The Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz. The former leader of the Congo, Mobutu, is an interesting man to study. He came from a small tribe, not considered one of the better or more advanced of the many tribes that exist in Congo. Regardless, his excellent people skills carried him to the top. Most who met him were impressed with his charisma and intelligence, and there was no reason to think that eventually putting the country in his hands would not be beneficial. He started a leader of the people , but unfortunately ended a leader of thieves.
He wanted the Congo's colonizer and oppressor, the tiny European nation of Belgium, to end their destructive leeching and allow the third largest African nation to begin its own path. It's odd to think of how a nation that's 6200 km away and close to 77 times smaller than the Democratic Republic of Congo, (information from CIA World Factbook), can assert such crippling dominance. Mobutu wanted a Congo that ran itself. Even after Belgium had officially withdrawn, they along with other foreign nations, still ran much of the country's economy and controlled most of it's wealth. So Mobutu decided to basically kick out all foreign business (he was known not to be very savvy nor very interested in economics). You know when someone kicks you in the back of your knee and you just drop, that's basically what Mobutu did to the Congolese economy.
Practically no foreign investment came in after that point. Why would companies risk putting their money in a country with such high risk and instability? There was an abundance of natural resources, there still is, but it's useless without the money and manpower needed to get it. From this point on, or from earlier perhaps, things quickly went downhill. Mobutu stole more and more money from the country, coming up with clever ways to hide it. He ended up with 8 billion dollars in Swiss bank accounts. He was not the only government official to steal, of course, it was regular and expected soon enough. He did set the standard and did lead by example, however wrong that example may have been.
The country suffered, and he prospered. So how does a charismatic and intelligent man who wishes to bring his nation out of the slums end up a thief who pushes it further down? It seems a long process, but it shows itself over and over again in history. Perhaps the systems we live in, capitalism, inevitably brings out greed and hinders philanthropy in us. Lord Acton apparently got it right when he said, "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely."
