Word: mobutu
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...days Patrice Lumumba prowled the balcony of the Premier's residence, staring down at the U.N. troops that guarded it. "Neutralized" by Military Boss Joseph Mobutu and threatened with arrest by President Joseph Kasavubu, Lumumba commanded only the residence he lived in. Last week he decided to venture out to tour the town. Despite the guards, the getaway was simple. Lumumba arranged for friends to send over three American cars, and everybody piled in for an evening of fun and politicking at the Leopoldville bars and nightclubs...
...journalists grabbed for their pencils, Lumumba cried: "I am going out of my house tonight to die like Gandhi ... If I die, it will be because the whites have paid a black man to kill me ... I made Kasavubu head of state; now he is nothing but an outlaw. Mobutu is an imperialist, a fascist." Later he told the newsmen: "You journalists, you can go anywhere. Fetch Kasavubu. Fetch Mobutu. Tell them Lumumba challenges them to a duel!" Then Lumumba's voice fell to a mumble, and he tottered off to bed, muttering: "Tomorrow I will die with...
Sputtering with rage, Colonel Mobutu sent 200 troops next morning to ring Lumumba's "official" residence. "Lumumba has thrown down a challenge to me and I have accepted it," said Mobutu. "Lumumba must be arrested." When the U.N. troops at Lumumba's door refused him entry, Mobutu raced off to have a bitter argument with U.N. Chief Rajeshwar Dayal, who feared the U.N.'s sternly neutral reputation would be jeopardized if he handed Lumumba over to his enemies...
...Congo's political Hydra still had three heads: Colonel Joseph Mobutu, Joseph Kasavubu and Patrice Lumumba. But each now seemed to have lost even the vigor for plotting one another's doom. All had their squads of gun-toting guards, but the most strenuous weapon any dared to use was the press conference; in one day harassed reporters covered five. Now and then, one or the other summoned energy for a daring stroke, then subsided quietly. Colonel Mobutu, complaining of fever and frazzled nerves, seemed mainly content to send occasional squads of his troops through the streets...
Black Colonization. But Welbeck had gone too far. President Kasavubu announced bluntly that Welbeck was a liar ("Lumumba was fired and he stays fired!"), and the enraged Colonel Mobutu replied with a demand that all Ghanaian troops in the U.N. force get out of the Congo and take their Guinean friends with them. From now on, Kasavubu added in a pointed reference to Lumumba, all foreigners should deal only with the new 28-man High Commission Mobutu had installed as temporary rulers of the Congo. The High Commissioners themselves called a press conference to criticize Nkrumah's efforts...