28 years after his death, a documentary series sheds new light on Mobutu: “He brought his country to the abyss, but he did, for a brief moment, give the Congolese their pride back.”

He had champagne served in ostentatious palaces from breakfast onwards, while many Congolese could not even have one decent meal a day. Yet Mobutu remained in power in Zaire for 32 years, the name he himself gave to the former Belgian colony. How did he do that? And who was he really? A new Belgian documentary series, which took no less than 4.5 years to complete, paints a complex portrait. “He actually wanted to be white.”

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