Word: mobutu
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...wrappers and bound together in sequential serialization. Reported TIME Correspondent Lee Griggs last week: "There are more big-denomination U.S. bills floating around Kinshasa's black market than ever before, and mercenary sources there insist the money is coming from the U.S. via Zaïre President Mobutu Sese Seko." Nonetheless, some greenhorn mercenaries who managed to make it back to Britain reported that they had yet to receive a dime...
Despite the discouraging reports, mercenary recruitment continues in full swing in Johannesburg, which will probably become the new staging center for the war if Mobutu makes good on his threat to halt mercenaries passing through Kinshasa. In New York, Roy Innis, head of the Congress of Racial Equality, said that his organization will send 300 black American "combat medics" to help the faltering U.S.-backed forces-the vanguard of a contingent of 1,000 men who will go to Angola "to establish military parity...
...loss of the Benguela-Lobito outlet for its copper and other exports. Should the F.N.L.A-held city of Santo Antonio do Zaire, at the mouth of the Congo River, fall to the M.P.L.A., the Luanda regime would have control over Zaire's only major outlet to the sea. Mobutu is due to meet sometime this month with his cross-river neighbor, Congo President Marien Ngouabi, a past Mobutu foe who strongly supports the M.P.L.A. The betting is that Mobutu will approach Ngouabi for some sort of deal with Neto to protect his Atlantic access...
...poor fighting record of Mobutu's 60,000-man army may also have something to do with his about-face. The 2,000 troops Mobutu committed to helping the F.N.L.A. were pushed back repeatedly. An abortive attempt by Zaire-backed forces to seize oil-rich Cabinda last November was quickly routed by the M.P.L.A. with the aid of Cuban-operated Soviet tanks and rocket fire. At least 100,000 Angolan refugees have recently fled into Zaire, seeking protection from the Zaire-F.N.L.A. force, which, they charged, frequently faked attacks in order to loot their homes...
...troubles, Mobutu seems politically safe for the moment. Signs of open discontent are quickly stifled. A ubiquitous network of informers tips off security police to complainers, who simply disappear. Mobutu regularly rotates military commanders to prevent coup-prone cliques from developing in the ranks. But falling standards of living (inflation is running around 50% a year)-which contrast with Mobutu's own conspicuously opulent tastes-could threaten his rule in the long...