Word: mobutu
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...problem began in July, when Kisangani was seized by its garrison of Katangese gendarmes, a tough and trou blesome outfit that in theory was incorporated into the Congolese National Army, but whose first loyalty had al ways been to Tshombe. To put down the rebellion, President Joseph Mobutu promised to send the gendarmes back to Katanga - even though he feared that once they were there, the Kats might be used by Tshombe to start another civil war. Mobutu lived up to his prom ise. He made available four transport planes to fly Kisangani's 2,500 gendarmes and their...
...Beer Trucks. That was not exactly what the Kats had in mind. They had been methodically looting Kisangani's shops. To haul away their booty, the gendarmes demanded not planes but trucks. They should have left well enough alone, for Mobutu fortnight ago turned the new dispute into an excuse to go back on his word. Instead of sending them trucks, he ordered his army to surround Kisangani and crush the Kats once...
...hundreds of others into the bush. Part of the Katangese force managed to escape in a column that included 14 commandeered beer trucks and all the city's ambulances, but it did not get far. When reconnaissance planes spotted it on the highway south toward Katanga last week, Mobutu dispatched troops to a river crossing 450 miles from Kisangani, where the Kats were virtually wiped out. An ambush destroyed the first trucks to cross the river, and Congolese air force planes took care of the rest, leaving the survivors to sue for peace to make their way on foot...
Over the months, the Katangese and the A.N.C. troops grew to hate each other largely because the Mobutu men lorded it over the Kats and took all the cold beer and prettiest girls. Two months ago, the gendarmes went "on strike," nabbed A.N.C. Colonel Joseph Damien Tshatshi (known in the Congo as "Tshatshi the Terrible"), sent him back to headquarters in his underwear. Angry and alarmed, A.N.C. Commander Louis Bobozo decided that the time had come to disarm the Kats. When he tried to implement his decision two weeks ago, all hell broke loose in Stanleyville (now called Kisangani...
...Kinshasa (formerly Leopoldville), President Mobutu believed otherwise. Charging that some of the white mercenaries-principally Belgians of the 6th Commando-were behind the mutiny, he fired off angry charges to Brussels and sent Premier Leonard Mulamba to Stanleyville to calm the mutineers. At week's end, Mulamba reported from the rebellious city that the mercenaries were not involved in the mutiny. But 6th Commando Boss Robert Denard, a magnificently mustachioed Frenchman who served Tshombe in the secession, was on the scene, and no one could say for certain that Mulamba's disclaimer had not been uttered at mercenary...