Mobutu Sese Seko Quotes
The chief is the chief. He is the eagle who flies high and cannot be touched by the spit of the toad.
Joseph Desire Mobutu, 1930-1997, Mobutu Sese Seko, President for Life of the Congo, October 1991
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
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In Pakistan, the civilian governments were not in control of the army who would have their own polices, foreign and domestic. When the head of the Army assumed the Presidency in a coup, he approached the Prime Minister of India—the Pakistan traditional enemy—and assured him that unlike with the civilian governments, he could negotiate for the country. Ironically, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh disclosed this quotation after Pervez Musharraf was deposed and democracy and civilian government returned to Pakistan. However the Indian Prime Minister then complained that there was no one to negotiate with as the civilian elected prime minister could not speak for the army—still the major power in Pakistan.
This was a prevailing philosophical view in England and other monarchies. American Founding Fathers were quite familiar with Hobbes’ works and views and many specifically rejected it. Some of the Federalists wanted to extend some of the traditional prerogatives of monarchy to the American Presidency while the Jeffersonian Republican Democrats wanted the executive treated like any, one else before the law. Today that view generally holds, but there is a vestige of the Hobbes’ view still present in things like Executive Privilege.
Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga (/məbuːˈtuː ˈsɛseɪ ˈsɛkoʊ/; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997), commonly known as Mobutu Sese Seko or simply just Mobutu, was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the president of Zaire from 1965 to 1997 (known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo until 1971).
