Word: mobutu
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...story going around Kinshasa is that one night late last December, Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko was entertaining a roomful of dinner guests when the television broadcast news of Nicolae Ceausescu's precipitate execution in Bucharest. Mobutu had long counted as a friend the Romanian autarch, who came to power in 1965, as he did. At the sight of that familiar face wreathed in blood, Mobutu abruptly left the room, abandoning his visitors without a word...
Finally, late last month, the authoritarian ruler of Zaire for all but five of its 30 years of independence was ready to speak. As his compatriots -- who had taken to calling their President "Mobutu Sese Sescu" -- crowded around radios and TVs set at full volume, Mobutu gave his answer to the stunning events in Eastern Europe. Reversing positions he had tenaciously reavowed only months before, Mobutu announced that he would allow two parties aside from his to compete for power and would turn the day-to-day running of the government over to a new Prime Minister. "Wisdom comes...
...Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire...
Agreed. But to have a group of pro-Palestinian organizations and anti-Israel speakers debate Israeli policy unlikely to accomplish that. It's akin to having a board of Christian fundamentalists discuss the legality of abortion, or having Zairean leader Sese Seko Mobutu speak about peace in Africa, for that matter. Although all views should be heard, treating such a forum as an academic pursuit would make a mockery of the term. To lend Harvard's credibility to a conference so imbalanced in its approach, so determined to push a particular point of view rather than to give...
...reason is parochial but important. Harvard University is located in Cambridge, and the City Council can therefore object to Harvard's actions when objections seem appropriate. The Council passed a resolution condemning Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko when he recently spoke at Harvard, and in the past the Council has questioned Harvard's investment policies and labor relations strategies...