Amnesty International accuses the dictator of Zaire of orchestrating a campaign of murder, imprisonment and torture to keep power in his Central African country, which has collapsed into near-anarchy.
The human rights organization, with headquarters in London, blamed Mobutu Sese Seko for the deaths of "hundreds, perhaps thousands of civilians" since 1990, when he began backing away from promises to institute democratic reforms."Zaire is sliding inexorably toward a total breakdown of law and order and the government is using the country's worsening political and economic situation as an excuse for appalling human rights violations," it said.
The Amnesty statement this week accused Mobutu's security forces of causing the disappearances of hundreds of people and jailing political foes, including Joseph Olenga Nkoy, a U.S.-raised Zairean who leads the youth wing of the opposition movement.
Zaire contains 35 million people in a nation as big as the United States east of the Mississippi River.
A Mobutu spokesman said on Zairean television Thursday that the Amnesty report had "aim of destabilizing the Republic of Zaire."
Mobutu has ruled the country since 1965. Under pressure from the United States and other Western nations and buffeted by unrest at home, he appointed an opposition-led government in 1990, then tried to dissolve it and has since appointed a government of his supporters.
Zaire now has two governments, one a Mobutu puppet regime and the other led by longtime opposition figure Etienne Tshisekedi, who wields little actual power but is recognized by most nations as prime minister.
The Amnesty report accused Mobutu forces of subjecting political prisoners to whippings, mock executions, mutilations, electric shocks and rape.
It noted that Mobutu's elite Presidential Guard slaughtered 52 men, women and children on Feb. 22 to avenge the death earlier of a security officer by a group of civilians.
Most Western nations have cut off all aid to Zaire, the world's largest producer of diamonds. The loss of aid and breakdowns in the economy and food distribution system have led to big increases in deaths by malnutrition and disease in the country, relief groups say.