Carter’s staff asked me to join the trip to Mobutu’s palace in Gbadolite, Zaire. I watched Mobutu turn the summit into a farce. Eighteen months later, Rwanda overthrew him, installed a new ...

This was where President Mobutu blew hundreds of millions of pounds of his country’s money, building and running palace complexes in the second half of his three decades of rule, when he was one ...

In recent years, fans have likened the white mega-mansion to upmarket malls, while some have likened its architectural designs to the famous Mobutu’s hideaway palace along the Congo River.