Episode list

In the shadow of independence fighter Patrice Lumumba, Mobutu works his way to the top. He becomes Lumumba's trusted confidant, while simultaneously sealing cunning alliances with the United States and Belgium. When Lumumba, following independence, becomes the West's public enemy number one, Mobutu takes a definitive stance: he stages a coup and cold-bloodedly helps in the murder of his mentor. Like a true Judas Iscariot, Mobutu not only betrayed Lumumba, but squelched the decolonization of the Congo in one fell swoop.

Even after Lumumba's death, the Congolese people long for real independence. When rebels threaten to retake the country, Mobutu needs help: his army is pitiful and as chief of staff he excels in incompetence. In the guise of a humanitarian operation, the West once again rushes to help him. The rebellion is not only quashed in the cruelest way but also costs tens of thousands of Congolese lives. With this intervention, the Congo is once again conquered by the West - recolonized, even. When the country lies in ruins and the ashes still smolder, Mobutu senses his chance and stages his second coup: he will remain in power for 32 years. From the very beginning, Mobutu sees politics as a game, where each country and world leader is a useful pawn. He hobnobs with Western heads of state, and cuts deals with Mao's China. To the Congolese people, he plays the decolonization card. With his policy of 'authenticity', he aims to do away with colonial symbols and restore the Congolese people's pride. But it turns out to be nothing more than a facade: Mobutu sees himself as a god, and his personality cult conceals institutionalized sexual abuse and corruption.

The more power Mobutu consolidates, the more paranoia sets in. Any form of protest is crushed with harsh repression - a human life means nothing in Congo. As the economy collapses, the country relentlessly slides toward the abyss. But while the population suffers in poverty, the powerful elite continues to shamelessly accumulate wealth. Mobutu himself manages to become the greatest kleptocrat of his time. Not only has the people had enough of their leader, but the West, and especially the U.S., find it embarrassing to be mentioned in the same breath as him. When the Berlin Wall falls, and his personal friend Nicolae Ceausescu is tried live on television, Mobutu realizes that this is the fate that awaits him.

With the end of the Cold War, Mobutu's primary reason for existence disappears. His Western allies drop him one by one. Anarchy reigns in Congo - chaos and war have taken over daily life. His divine status is gone, and the Congolese people now dare to openly abandon him. Deathly ill, with prostate cancer in its grip, he lives in total seclusion in his palaces in the impenetrable Equateur province, accompanied only by his wives, the twin sisters Bobi and Kosia Ladawa. When the Rwandan genocide breaks out in 1994, and his former ally François Mitterrand asks him to accommodate Rwandan refugees at the border, Mobutu sees an opportunity for an international comeback and eagerly accepts this unexpected offer. A wrong and fateful assessment: Rwanda, with Laurent-Désiré Kabila, has the perfect pawn to invade Congo and definitively remove Mobutu from the throne. Mobutu, once so powerful and untouchable, will die a few months later as an ordinary exile in Morocco, leaving his country in a deep crisis that continues to this day. In doing so, he laid the foundation for the region's instability, which, fueled in part by the insatiable hunger of the international community for Congolese minerals, led to "the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II" and the death of millions of people.