Honoré Ngbanda, former head of intelligence for Mobutu Sese Seko, died in Morocco (as Mobutu). He was 74 years old. The former special adviser to the president had left the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997 a few days before the fall of Marshal Mobutu, who at the time had ruled with the iron fist of the DRC, aka Zaire from 1965 to 1997.
He was former president Mobutu Sese Seko’s master spy. Honoré Ngbanda has been a staunch supporter of the former Congolese head of state until the end. Born in Lisala, like Mobutu, in the early 1970s he joined the powerful National Documentation Center, currently the National Intelligence Agency.
He rose quickly through the row. Following a visit to the Zaire Embassy in Belgium, he was responsible for restoring diplomatic relations with Israel. He was also ambassador there between 1983 and 1985.
Political Adviser to the President, Chief of Intelligence Honoré Ngbanda was appointed Minister of Defense in 1991. It was during this period that he was nicknamed the “Terminator”. He is accused of being involved in the massacre of students in Lubumbashi in 1990 and of Christians in Kinshasa in 1992, accusations he has always denied.
After the fall of Mobutu, Honoré Ngbanda went into exile in France. He founded the Alliance of Patriots for the Refoundation of the Congo (Apareco). Honoré Ngbanda is radically opposed to Joseph Kabila to the point where it sometimes borders on paranoia, condemning the Tutsis and Paul Kagame a strangulation team on the DRC regime. For several years he had lived in Morocco.
