Word: mobutu
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...dream, everything seemed to be moving at half speed. But slowly, the Congo's balance was tipping toward the forces that bore the label of reckless Patrice Lumumba, though he was still in Colonel Joseph Mobutu's jail. If Lumumba won, the world could thank the ceaseless efforts of Moscow and Cairo and Accra. The U.N. itself, under the myriad pressures of its diverse membership, stood by in confusion...
...Stanleyville regime of Antoine Gizenga, once Lumumba's vice premier, was getting clandestine arms shipments from Gamal Abdel Nasser's U.A.R., freely used terror to consolidate its control over neighboring Kivu province. Escaping missionaries were prevented from crossing the border, prisoners of the old pro-Mobutu regime at Bukavu were tortured, and the Mother Superior and a nun from Bukavu's hospital were under arrest for alleged misuse of funds...
Lumumba's Stanleyville pals now controlled more than 30% of the entire Congo, were clearly preparing to make it closer to 50% by grabbing sprawling Equator province in the northwest. Léopoldville's harassed Colonel Joseph Mobutu hastily packed two platoons of troops into planes and flew them to Lisala, one of Equator province's main towns. But how effective Mobutu's troops would be was anyone's guess, for there was trouble in the ranks; many of his soldiers wanted more pay. At the big Camp Hardy troop center at Thysville, where Lumumba...
Straying Escort. Sputtering with rage, Colonel Mobutu vowed to retaliate and to bring Kivu back under his control. But how? The only troops he could depend on were nearLéopoldville, 900 miles away, and the U.N. surely would forbid the use of trucks or planes to haul them east for an all-out invasion. No one, however, could complain when he airlifted 100 troops to Kasai as an escort for President Joseph Kasavubu on his official visit to Bakwanga, capital of the secessionist Mining State in Kasai. But soon after the heavily armed "escort" got to Kasai, the transports...
...Roundup. But when Mobutu's troops crossed the bridge under a white flag and advanced on the town, Kashamura's pro-Lumumba soldiers greeted them with a cascade of chattering machine guns and banging rifles. When it was all over four hours later, no one much had been hurt, but Mobutu's invaders were in jail. So was their commander, who promptly changed sides and began issuing statements damning Mobutu as a "colonialist intriguer...