Word: mobutu
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Three days before Zairian President Mobutu Sese Suko is scheduled to speak at Harvard, the Cambridge City Council last night became the latest group to protest the planned visit...
President Mobutu Sese Seko's country estate, a marble-studded palace set amid flowers and fountains in northern Zaire, is sometimes called "Versailles-in- the-Jungle." The nickname, a reminder of the treaty that ended World War I, seemed especially apt last week as Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, the main antagonists in a 14-year-old civil war, met there for a handshake that might lead to a formal peace agreement...
While few details were known about last week's discussions, the two sides agreed to the establishment of a mediation commission under Mobutu's chairmanship to deal with "technical" issues and to meet again in Zimbabwe in August. Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, who sat in on the talks, said afterward that Savimbi would leave Angola for voluntary exile. Other participants doubted that, however, assuming that Savimbi would want to stay on the scene to keep UNITA alive as a political movement. The biggest obstacle to a final agreement may arise if Dos Santos remains determined to preserve Angola's Marxist...
...major beneficiary of the summit was Mobutu. The Zairian President will be in Washington this week for meetings with President Bush and Secretary of State James Baker. Mobutu's role in bringing the Angolan opponents together may mute criticism of human-rights abuses and government corruption in Zaire. U.S. Congressmen, who are considering an Administration request for extended aid for UNITA, will also be eager to hear Mobutu's assessment of the chances for peace. The Zairian is expected to call on all outsiders, including the U.S., to cut off military aid to the combatants...
...newly independent nations of Africa. The Gold Coast dubbed itself Ghana, in honor of an ancient African empire that was located hundreds of miles from the modern nation. When the Belgian Congo became independent in 1960, it renamed itself the Republic of the Congo. Eleven years later, President Joseph Mobutu rechristened it the Republic of Zaire. A year later, he took his policy of "authenticity" personally, renaming himself Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Nbgendu Wa Za Banga, which means, more or less, "the all-powerful warrior who will go from conquest to conquest trailing fire in his wake...