Word: landed
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...eastern border of the vast Belgian Congo. Thereafter, first under a League of Nations mandate and then under the U.N., Belgium continued to rule Ruanda and Urundi through a master tribe of willowy African giants named the Watutsis. The Watutsis had been for four centuries the lords of the Land of the Mountains of the Moon, and there seemed little reason why they should not continue to be so. But last week, this convenient arrangement lay in ruin. "Belgium did a very bad business," sighed Premier Gaston Eyskens as he surveyed the latest of Belgium's colonial disasters, "when...
...froze the hearts of the tribes already living there. The pygmy Mutwas (average height: 4 ft. 6 in.) quickly became their slaves, and the industrious Muhutus (average height: average) gradually settled down into a kind of serfdom. Though only some 550,000 strong, the tall Watutsis dominated a land of 4,600,000. They dressed themselves in fine togas and rich skins, performed war dances and dedicated themselves to the accumulation of lyre-horned cattle...
Over the centuries, the pattern hardly changed-until the tides of African nationalism began to lap even at the borders of the Land of the Mountains of the Moon. Though the Belgians never seriously interfered with the old order, the schools they opened gave the Muhutus some new notions about their old masters. In 1957 the Muhutus even formed their own political party. The Watutsis in turn also organized, began badgering Brussels to give them autonomy at once while they still had the Muhutus firmly under their thumb. The last thing they wanted was for Brussels to push through...
...Prime Minister, who is "so different, so unapproachable, stern, hard and even intolerant." Worst of all, laments sister Béti, Nehru "has allowed himself to be surrounded by those who are known to be opportunists, and the entire government machinery, corrupt and heavy with intrigue, rules the land with no hope of an honest hearing from any quarter...
Nehru was still worried by Peking's militaristic intentions, but heartened by the support India was getting around the world. In Moscow, instead of siding with his Communist partner, Nikita Khrushchev was urging both sides to embrace and make up. The remote land is not worth fighting over, said Khrushchev at a Moscow reception, though "give a general any situation and he will find strategic significance in it. I don't trust generals' appraisal of strategic significance...