Word: mobutu
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...late the next morning before anyone realized that Patrice Lumumba had escaped. Hastily, Military Boss Colonel Joseph Mobutu dashed to a telephone to sound the alarm and begin the chase. Out went telegrams to outposts around the country ordering "nationwide vigilance by every Congolese to capture the traitor"; roadblocks were set up on all the roads, and runways at the airport were blocked just in case Lumumba was still in town. Lumumba himself left a note behind saying that he had merely gone to Stanleyville to attend the funeral of one of his children who had died...
...when Colonel Mobutu's troops finally got their hands on the fleeing Lumumba, he already was beyond remote Port Francqui, a steamboat stop on the Kasai River, 400 miles from Leopoldville. As angry crowds surrounded the Port Francqui police station shouting "Judas" and "Traitor," the soldiers wired their army boss to collect Lumumba immediately, or they would shoot him for treason. Sternly, Mobutu sent back word not to harm the prisoner and dispatched a plane to pick him up. "I cannot judge him. He must defend himself before the courts," explained Mobutu...
When the plane returned a few hours later, the disheveled Lumumba, his hands manacled behind his back, was pushed at gun point into the back of an army truck where he squatted sullenly in his shirtsleeves for the ride to Colonel Mobutu's home in an army camp nearby. "We've got him, we've got him! Come and look!" cried soldiers, twisting his head for the benefit of photographers, and the crowds along the route jeered and cursed the man who once was Premier...
Omuko said, "It is the geenral consensus among African leaders" that the U.S. financed Kasavubu's trip to the U.N. when he was recognized as the Congo's representative. It has been further rumored, he added, that the West has been giving aid to Mobutu's army, which recently captured deposed Premier Lumumba...
Because of Lamumba's wide following, Omuko pointed out, the Congo situation will grow "continually worse" if he is killed. Lumumba is presently being held by Mobutu's army. The West should make sure that the U.N. acts to release him, Omuko said...