Word: mobutu
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...secret that Muhammad Ali is the overwhelming favorite among Zaireans for next week's Ali/Foreman fight in Zaire. But whatever the outcome, the real winner will be President Mobutu Sese Seko. The ballyhoo for "The Fight of the Century" has made the proud President's country an international household word-though a frequently mispronounced one (Zeye...
Carefully orchestrated publicity campaigns are nothing new to Mobutu's 23 million subjects. Every night the television station in the capital city of Kinshasa begins its news with a vision of heavenly clouds slowly dividing. As sonorous music swells, a dark, bespectacled face topped with a leopardskin cap emerges to fill the screen. It is the visage of Mobutu, 44, also known as "le Guide," "le Clairvoyant," "le Redempteur." Without undue modesty, he has also chosen another name for himself that roughly translates as "the all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and will to win, will...
...aura of princely grandeur surrounding Mobutu is further bolstered by a life-style that includes palatial residences in each of Zaire's eight provinces and others in France, Belgium and Switzerland. There is not only a luxurious palace in Kinshasa but a 20-sq.-mi. "presidential domain" at N'sele, 40 miles away, which contains two more residences and a swimming pool billed as Africa's largest. To shuttle between his international chain of palaces, Mobutu uses the national airline, Air Zaire, as a personal transport service. His high-handed habit of commandeering planes at a whim...
Excessive as it seems, this flamboyant life-style and mandatory adulation are not necessarily all an egregious ego trip. By making himself the center of a national personality cult, Mobutu has succeeded in forging an unprecedented degree of unity among the nearly 200 tribes speaking more than 75 different languages that make up the former Belgian Congo's population. In 1965 when Mobutu, then an army commander, led the bloodless coup that deposed President Joseph Kasavubu, the country had endured five disastrous years of anarchy, civil war and bloodshed. Although rich in natural resources, Zaire was totally unequipped...
Anti-Foreman Fetishes. Fight sentiment in Zaïre strongly favors Ali, President Mobutu's friend, and the government-controlled press has been careful to censor such patronizing Ali comments as "We're gonna have a rumble in the jungle." Indeed, loyalty to Ali, America's best-known athlete abroad, is so intense that officials are concerned about Foreman's safety. Many Zairians are expected to carry anti-Foreman fetishes into the stadium. Their passions will hardly be reduced if Foreman floors Ali in the first few rounds...