Word: coups
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...bloodless coup. No tanks rumbled through the streets, nobody was arrested or shot, no special patrols were dispatched to maintain the peace. Mobutu simply ordered the government radio station in Leopoldville to broadcast his proclamation, then sent a delegation of staff officers over to the presidential palace to ask Kasavubu to start packing, followed that up with a formal letter offering him a permanent seat in the Congolese Senate. "The race for the top is finished," Mobutu declared. "Our political leaders had engaged in a sterile struggle to grab power without consideration for the welfare of the citizens. Political bank...
...when Nendaka's police promptly set them free, Mobutu decided that it was time to step in. He summoned his 14 regional commanders to Leopoldville, where in a conference that lasted until 1:30 a.m., they decided that Kasavubu had to go. "This is not a military coup," claimed Mobutu. "The army is merely fulfilling its responsibilities to the nation...
Military Hero. Coup or not, it was the second time that "Jumping Joe" Mobutu, a sometime paratrooper and former sergeant in the Belgian army, had tried it. Five years ago, in the midst of a racking feud between Kasavubu and leftist Premier Patrice Lumumba, he had "neutralized" them both by seizing power on behalf of a "college of commissioners." But his army withdrew its full support, and Mobutu, then only 30 years old, was forced to retire after four hectic months...
Terror & Treason. Throughout the far-flung archipelago, at least 30,000 proCommunists have been arrested since the Red-led October coup attempt. According to rumors, hundreds of Red leaders have been quietly killed. In West Java, the Moluccas and the East Celebes district military commanders last week took it upon themselves to ban local Communist parties-a move that Sukarno has been "considering" but has not yet been able to stomach. The Bung, who badly needs the Communists as a balancing force against the military, has been toying with the idea of a new nationalistic Communist Party, free of Peking...
Among other things, President Héctor García-Godoy and his beleaguered provisional government could use a good laugh. Last week they got at least a chuckle-from a bloodless, sadly undernourished attempted coup that looked like something out of Gilbert and Sullivan...