It was initially called the Special Presidential Brigade (French: Brigade spéciale présidentielle) before being enlarged into a division in 1986, and was one of several competing forces directly linked to the president, along with the Civil Guard and Service for Action and Military Intelligence [fr].[3] Trained by Israeli advisors, the DSP was among the few units paid adequately and regularly.[4]
It was commanded by Mobutu's cousin, General Etienne Nzimbi Ngbale Kongo wa Basa.[5] The soldiers were recruited only from Mobutu's own tribe.[6] The force was used to deal with internal opponents or suspected opponents. People were taken away, tortured, imprisoned without trial, exiled to another part of the country, or simply disappeared.[6]
After the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded northern Rwanda which lead to the Rwandan Civil War, Mobutu sent several hundred DSP troops to assist the government of Juvénal Habyarimana.[7][8] In 1993, the DSP was sent to quell unrest in Masisi, North Kivu but inflamed the situation after it sided with the Hutu residents against the indigenous Bahunde.[9] It also shipped cobalt from Shaba Province to Zambia. (Reno 1997, 48) A 1996 United Nations report noted that Prime Minister Étienne Tshisekedi and his staff were subject to routine surveillance and harassment by DSP soldiers.[10]
Notes and references
^Central Intelligence Agency, 'Zaire: The Military Under Mobutu [Deleted],' document created 1/11/1988, accessible via Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room, [1], accessed 4 June 2010
^Martin Meredith (2005) The Fate of Africa: From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair, a History of Fifty Years of Independence, New York: Public Affairs, p. 535
^Mahmood Mamdani (2001) When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 252-253
Gérard Prunier, From Genocide to Continental War: The "Congolese" Conflict and the Crisis of Contemporary Africa, C. Hurst & Co, 2009, ISBN1-85065-523-5
