Word: kasavubu
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...with state papers. In a big, three-story, official residence near the river, bespectacled Premier Patrice Lumumba peered out curtained windows, occasionally shouted invented communiqués to passing newsmen, and cried defiance at the world. On a grassy hilltop overlooking the foaming Congo rapids, stolid President Joseph Kasavubu huddled in his modern-design palace and issued laconic statements to the effect that whatever Lumumba said...
Kinda was happy enough as a drip-dry diplomat until he suddenly encountered a new group of Congolese in the U.N. corridors. He was aghast when told that "they alone" represented the government of Kinda's hero, President Kasavubu, while his master Thomas Kanza was supporting wild-eyed Premier Patrice Lumumba. Next, the dazed Kinda learned that "neither Kasavubu nor Lumumba was anything any more, and a colonel I didn't know was in command of the Congo...
Constitutionally, the Congo was a worse shambles than ever. There were now three governments instead of two-Mobutu's, Lumumba's and moderate President Joseph Kasavubu's. But in the 3,000-man Léopoldville garrison of the Congolese army, Mobutu had at least temporarily enough firepower to make his orders stick. This was a detail that both Lumumba and Kasavubu had overlooked. Both had always been happy when they could line up enough loyal soldiers to form a personal honor guard...
President Kasavubu's counter-interventions were no more effective. Rallying a small troop of loyal soldiers, he sent them off to capture his rival Lumumba. The troop took Lumumba by surprise, bundled him into his own official black Ford and drove him off to a prison cell at Camp Leopold II. But less than two hours later, General Lundula convinced the guards that he had orders to transfer Lumumba to another prison. Once beyond the gates, Lumumba located 40 friendly soldiers and rolled back downtown, with sirens screaming, shouting. "Today victory is mine. Death to the imperialists!" Once again...
...wires by politicians of whatever stripe. He told Parliament to take a vacation for the rest of the year, and when the Deputies tried to meet anyway, his troops barred the doors and turned them away. There was even a good chance that Mobutu could get along with Kasavubu and with Katanga province's Moise Tshombe, an anti-Communist who last week said he had not even "dreamed" of seceding from the Congo until forced to by Lumumba's "dictatorship...