Word: kolwezi
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...story contradicts on almost every count the official line we've been fed. The French claimed last week that 200 Europeans had been killed, but independent groups like the Red Cross have been able to verify fewer than 100 European deaths among the more than 2000 Europeans in Kolwezi. And at least 20 Europeans may have been executed by Zairean army troops, not by the rebels. Ottoway reports that the victims, both African and European, "died in a mostly haphazard manner," singly and in small groups, with "no overall design for the killing or even the saving of lives, either...
...lesson we should learn from all this is that the French-Belgian intervention, which Newsweek called "a gallant rescue mission" for the Europeans in Kolwezi, was actually a rescue mission for the shaky, uniquely corrupt and autocratic regime of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire. Even with the hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid that the U.S. has pumped into Mobutu's army, it broke and ran in the face of a few thousand Katangan rebels, and had to be bailed out by the French and Belgians. Mobutu's latest pronouncement on the subject was his call this week...
...Lumumba was outspoken in his opposition to such a future for his country. As a result, the Belgians fostered a coup against him, and then promoted secession by Katanga, which contained most of their assets. (The Katangan rebels who took Kolwezi two weeks ago are the remnants and descendants of the losing side in the civil war that followed secession.) United Nations "peacekeeping" forces, with U.S. support, also played a key role in the success of the coup against the Lumumba government, holding government forces in check while allowing Mobutu, then head of the army and considered "safe...
...first reporters to visit Kolwezi after its liberation was TIME Correspondent William McWhirter. His report...
...Friday, Giscard announced in a television interview that French paratroopers had attacked Kolwezi in two waves. "It was necessary," he said, "to carry out the operation as quickly and quietly as possible." Giscard's statement caused something of a stir both at home and abroad. Socialist Party Leader François Mitterrand, speaking before the National Assembly in Paris, said that "it's absolutely impossible to have this kind of operation going on without the Assembly knowing about it." He also charged that the legionnaires' intervention was not justified by France's cooperation agreements with...