Word: mobutu
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...unarmed opposition is precariously united behind Prime Minister Etienne Tshisekedi, a human-rights activist and a bitter personal enemy of the President's. Last week each accused the other of treason as Mobutu tried to dismiss Tshisekedi, who adamantly refuses to step down. "The killings in recent weeks have only made Mobutu stronger," cautions a senior Western diplomat, who notes that the dictator's demise has often been forecast before. "He clearly calculates that the physical elimination of a few of his enemies will have a deterrent effect on the rest of the population...
...nightmarish civil war of the kind that has left tens of thousands dead in Somalia and Liberia. Shortages of food and gasoline are severe; road and rail links between major cities have been virtually swallowed by the encroaching jungle. Even in the capital's Mama Yemo hospital -- named for Mobutu's deceased mother -- children suffer without medication, and hundreds of victims of the AIDS epidemic die untreated. In the trackless bush, where millions of peasants and tribesmen still live, the scourges of leprosy, trypanosomiasis and malaria are again pandemic...
With inflation at 7,000%, banks are closed and people shop clutching sacks full of almost useless paper currency. Zaire's central monetary authority, which Mobutu has in the past treated as a personal piggy bank, is virtually bankrupt. Not long ago, a private German printer, claiming it had not been paid, halted shipments to Kinshasa of thousands of metric tons of new Zairian currency needed to keep up with local inflation...
...Mobutu rose to power in part because of his native ability as a leader and orator and his physical courage in the face of danger, qualities that impressed the CIA and other sponsors. "I was given a number of individuals to spot and assess," recalls Larry Devlin, the CIA agent who guided Mobutu in the early 1960s. "Even though he was only 29 at the time, everyone who saw him recognized his intelligence and personal presence; he acted like an African leader -- understanding his supporters as well as his opponents; he was the best political mind on the scene." Mobutu...
With the CIA's help, Mobutu stepped into the power vacuum that followed the Belgian Congo's chaotic independence in 1960. Staging a bloodless coup, he took power, only to hand it back to a civilian President. The next year, ousted Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, who had turned increasingly to the Soviet Union for support, was assassinated in an operation that benefited both Mobutu and the CIA. "I received instructions to see that Lumumba was removed from the world," recalls Devlin. "I received poison toothpaste, among other devices, but never used them." Mobutu seized control for good in a second...