Word: mobutu
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Like a Roman emperor at the Colosseum, Zaïre's President Mobutu Sese Seko strutted into Kinshasa's 20th of May Stadium last week to the cheers of 60,000 of his countrymen, many of whom had just snake-danced through the streets of the capital. Waving an elaborately carved cane, he pointed contemptuously at a pair of bedraggled, badly wounded prisoners-the first, apparently, to have been captured by government forces in nearly two months of fighting against invaders in Shaba province (TIME, April 25). Mobutu's gestures brought cries of "Mort, mort," (Death, death...
Most of the battlefield gains seem to have been made by the Moroccans. In part, though, the lift in Zaïre's fortunes was due to the fact that Mobutu belatedly shipped additional pay, food and weapons to his 4,000 soldiers in Shaba. In the interests of boosting their morale, he made a rather bizarre request of Washington: that some 16,000 cases of canned Coca-Cola be included in the $15 million in "nonlethal" military equipment the U.S. is sending to Zaïre. It seems that potable water for the thirsty soldiers is in short...
...Mobutu also unveiled a remarkable secret weapon in the war: pygmy power. Some 150 "expert pygmy bowmen" -as a Zaïrian official described them -were sent to Shaba to infiltrate enemy lines. The diminutive tribesmen (average height under 5 ft.) were praised by one government newspaper as "formidably efficient units who can move silently and well against the enemy." Although they were issued rifles, most pygmies prefer carrying home-made bows that shoot arrows whose tips are coated with a lethal drug (derived from local plants), which kills the monkeys that they hunt for food. Skeptical foreign correspondents could...
Lukas said the U.S. should not unequivocally support the currently ruling regime of Mobutu Sese Seko, calling the idea that Mobutu is essential to U.S. national security a "myth...
...example of the incompetence of Mobutu's army, Lukas said, was a battle in which the army drove their trucks backwards up a hill so that they could beat a hasty retreat if necessary...