Dictator's dark side skirted

EXHIBITION: ‘MOBUTU, A LIFE, A DESTINY', ATTEMPTS TO CLEAN UP HIS CORRUPT IMAGE

- 

EMBEZZLER. Zairean currency during Mobutu's reign as president of Zaire displayed at the exhibition.

(Pictures: AFP)

Mobutu Sese Seko ruled the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for more than three decades as a dictator who plundered the vast mineral wealth while propped up by the West.

But 30 years after his fall, an exhibition at the National Museum in the capital Kinshasa - opened at his family's initiative - hopes to tell the "another side" of the story of a man who many still blame for the corruption that has penetrated every aspect of life.

His son, Nzanga Mobutu, acknowledged that the exhibition, Mobutu, A Life, A Destiny, skirts the darker side of his father's time in power.