In The Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz

Michela Wrong

Long before it became fashionable to describe countries like Afghanistan and Somalia as "failed states", there was Zaire: the failed state par excellence. Michela Wrong's Looking For Mr Kurtz is the story of how it got that way, and of how its kleptocratic president Mobutu Sese Seko prospered then was overthrown. Zaire (now rebadged the Congo) is potentially a rich country, one of the richest in Africa. But Wrong's history describes how Mobutu and his entourage stripped the country of its wealth in diamonds, copper, cobalt and rubber. Since short term gain was Mobutu's sole concern and since there was no investment in the infrastructure built up in colonial times each resource was exhausted in turn, almost as if Mobutu was conducting a series of giant and shambolic ram raids on his own country.

OK, so Mobutu is the kind of monster who makes the colonial era in Africa look good. But if you're a Belgian reading this and feeling smug then think again. Much of the root cause for Zaire's troubles is placed at the door of the Belgians in general and the colonial era monarch King Leopold in particular. The period of Belgian rule in the Congo was notoriously brutal and their departure in 1960 was hasty and botched. Wrong also criticises modern day Belgium for failing to acknowledge its disgraceful role in the region over several decades and its responsibility for the current mess.

But there's plenty of blame to go around. Mobutu's ministers, generals, family and friends joined in the thieving. The French and the Americans wrote Mobutu blank cheques for decades. The IMF and World Bank commissioned reports whose concluding paragraphs told the world, in lay terms, "this man is a crook and a liar and his country doesn't function" then promptly issued further loans and credits.

Read this book and weep wearily for the destitute people of the wealthy Congo region. Read this book and itch to visit this fascinating area while at the same time knowing that travel in this lawless land is prohibitively dangerous now and for the foreseeable future.