Mobutu's regime had previously used the tactic of not paying its soldiers in order to provoke riots and looting against the population, thus preventing a popular revolt. The disintegration of the army went so far as to affect layers of the officers. Mobutu must go into exile or retire. The old regime had become one of the most hated in Africa. Mobutu and the clique around him were specialists in extracting wealth from the country and the population and transferring it to their own pockets.
Zaire is potentially one of the wealthiest countries in Africa.
Zinc, tin, manganese, gold, silver, iron ore, and uranium are also found there. Energy resources include 13 percent of the world's total hydroelectric potential, oil reserves, and some coal deposits. Nevertheless its population did not derive the slightest benefit from these riches. Life expectancy in Kinshasa is between 40 and 45 years. But although all Western regimes now hypocritically expose his crimes and corruption, they conveniently forget that it was they who put him in power in 1965 when, with the help of the CIA, he betrayed and murdered the revolutionary leader Patrice Lumumba.