Word: mobutu
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Tshombe went to Europe for medical care in February and March, returned to the Congo, and then went into exile in Spain. By July he was writing letters from Barcelona to Congolese politicians: he developed ties with the three most powerful men behind the Adoula government: General Mobutu, Minister of Justice Bomboko and chief of the national security police, Nendaka. In February, 1964, a Tshombe propoganda newsletter began appearing in Leopoldville...
...only man who had any effective control of Katanga. He had won only 25 of 60 legislative seats in Katanga's only election, and without ever controlling the province military, had power and connections in Katanga far greater than any one else's. He had the support of Mobutu, Bomboko and Nendaka, the powers behind the throne...
Wooed back to the Congo, Tshombe claimed the allegiance of every major faction. Wheeling and dealing as if every card were a wild deuce, Tshombe seemed to hold a royal flush ranging from Kasai's rightist "King" Albert Kalonji through such "moderate" face cards as Army Boss Joseph Mobutu and Justice Minister Justin Bomboko to the Communist-backed National Lib eration Committee's Andre Lubaya. But the N.L.C. could still prove a joker in Tshombe's hand: Leftist Antoine Gizenga still languished in forced exile last week on an island at the mouth of the Congo River...
Flying in from Leopoldville, the plucky Mobutu collected as many soldiers as he could find and strode down a highway in defiance of snipers' bullets to win control of a village 25 miles south of Bukavu. "Advance! Advance! If only to save your general!" exhorted an officer. Ahead, Dearborn and Coney were making strafing passes in their T-28s to keep the rebels scattered. It worked reasonably well, but when Mobutu and the T-28s headed back for Leopoldville, the army's drive stopped, and the rebels were free to begin their marauding again...
...kept reasonably under control. But they are not. Back in the west, Kwilu province is still harassed by Pierre Mulele's Red-backed rebellion; in Stanleyville and Maniema province, the government holds control by a hair, and could be upset at any time. The two battalions that General Mobutu has committed in Kivu are the last remaining government troops available for emergency duty. If the flame of revolt erupts anywhere else, it will simply have to burn itself out-or else spread across the whole country...