Word: mobutu
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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State Department strategists have reluctantly concluded that President Joseph Kasavubu is too ineffectual to rally his nation behind him. The earnest Colonel (now Major General) Joseph Mobutu, on whom the U.S. once pinned its hopes, has turned out to be erratic, unreliable, and one of the weakest strongmen who ever stumbled into power. Wild-eyed Patrice Lumumba, though clubbed by his foes and languishing in jail, disconcertingly continued to command wide loyalty, not only among the Congolese, but also among other African leaders as well. Since Lumumba refused to disappear politically, U.S. strategists concluded that he could no longer...
Opening the Jails. As a first step, Hammarskjold proposed to disarm all the Congolese troops. This would mean disarming not only Mobutu's central Congo army, but also the army of Katanga's Moise Tshombe and the Lumumbaist rebels in Eastern and Kivu provinces; perhaps overoptimistically, Hammarskjold hoped they could be induced to stack arms and retire to training camps. Next, the scattered legislators of the Congo's Parliament would be brought together to form a new government under U.N. supervision. The U.N. would ask all factions to free all political prisoners, a step which admittedly would...
Already Hammarskjold had approached India to supervise the disarming of the Congolese troops, and he hoped to win support for his plan from Ghana, Nigeria and other African nations. But would the squabbling faction leaders go along? Exploded General Mobutu: "We will never allow it. The U.N. is playing with fire...
Though temporarily humiliating, the abduction was actually a testament to Lumumba's burgeoning strength. Congolese President Joseph Kasavubu took alarm when he visited Lumumba in Camp Hardy, only 86 miles from Leopoldville, where he was technically incarcerated by order of Colonel Joseph Mobutu. Kasavubu found Lumumba with the run of the camp and energetically subverting the loyalty of the troops guarding him. For a few hours, no one was certain whether it was Lumumba or Kasavubu who was the prisoner. When order was restored, Kasavubu decided that it was time to move Lumumba to a safer place. He opened...
Scooping up President Joseph Kasavubu himself, Mobutu charged down to Camp Hardy to quell the brewing revolt. What happened is wrapped in the inevitable confusion that surrounds every Congo crisis. One report had it that Mobutu was arrested temporarily by his own troops and that Lumumba was freed. But when it was all over, Patrice Lumumba still sat in jail. With his loyal supporters taking over more and more of the country, how long he would remain there was an open question...