Nguza Karl-i-Bond

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Nguza Karl-i-Bond
Nguza.JPG

SO_CUTE.PNG Foreign Minister of Zaire
In office
February 3, 1997 — present
Political party Popular Movement of the Revolution
Preceded by Gérard Kamanda wa Kamanda
Succeeded by Incumbent

Born
 
August 4, 1938
Musumba, Shaba, Belgian Congo
Spouse
 
Kavidi Wiwine N'Landu
Profession Politician, diplomat
Religion Christian
Languages spoken Six African languages and three European languages
Degrees * Master's in international relations (from Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium)

Nguza Karl-i-Bond (b. August 4, 1938), originally Jean Nguza Karl-i-Bond, is a prominent Zairian politician who served twice as Prime Minister of Zaire (August 27, 1980-April 23, 1981 and November 25, 1991-August 15, 1992), as foreign minister four times (1972-1974, 1976-1977, 1979-1980, and 1997-present), and as Zaire's ambassador to Washington once (for two years, starting in 1986). For a time in the 1970s, he was political director of the MPR, the country's only legal political party.

However, in 1977, he fell out of favor with President Mobutu Sese Seko, was accused of high treason, and was sentenced to death. According to Nguza, Mobutu himself threatened to personally shoot him. During his interrogation, he was subjected to torture which included: the insertion of a metal tube into his penile shaft, through which jets of air were introduced, causing the blood vessels to rupture; the application of electrical shocks to his testicles. The torture is said to have left him impotent. Shortly afterwards, his sentence was commuted, and, after receiving a presidential pardon, he was named Prime Minister in 1979.

In 1981, he fled into exile, testified against Mobutu in front of U.S. Congress hearings, and outlined, in graphic detail, how Mobutu stole hundreds of millions of dollars from the country's treasury and deposited it in foreign banks. He even wrote a book, titled Mobutu ou l'Incarnation du Mal Zairois, which was highly critical of the regime. Even so, Mobutu forgave him, invited him back home, and appointed him as ambassador to Washington.

After the proclamation of the Third Republic, and the subsequent legalization of opposition parties in 1990, Nguza started his own party, the Union des Fédéralistes et des Républicains Indépendants (French: Union of Federalists and Independent Republicans). He later replaced Étienne Tshisekedi as Prime Minister, after Tshisekedi tried to block Mobutu from accessing cash at the central bank. Nguza was regarded by other members of the Sacred Union (of which his party was a member) as a "traitor" because of this, and he subsequently left the Sacred Union. His party formed a new coalition, the Alliance of Patriotic Forces, which was committed to political reform but rejected "extremist" stances. He was often criticized for his inconsistency in supporting/opposing Mobutu, and for a time his influence waned. He formally retired in 1995 to write his memoirs, but in early 1997, after the defeat of the Kabila rebellion and the return of the one-party state, he was summoned back to Kinshasa and persuaded to rejoin the MPR and serve as foreign minister for a fourth time. Since then, he has pursued détente with neighboring countries hostile to the Mobutu regime, worked to reconcile Zaire's relations with the West, and strove to cultivate new friendships with other Third World countries, while maintaining at least a semblance of non-alignment.