Word: mobutu
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...autocratic ruler Mobutu Sese Seko soon to be a President in exile? That was one possibility being considered by Western diplomats in Kinshasa last week as the 2,000 to 5,000 Katangese exiles invading Zaire's Shaba region continued to gain ground easily. In a strange war without battles, the exiles seemed to be conquering sizable swatches of what was once called Katanga province without effective opposition from Mobutu's forces there...
...week's end the Angola-backed rebels were less than 50 miles from Kolwezi, where the Belgian-run Gecamines Co. extracts more than half of Zaïre's vital copper. U.S. construction workers on a $500 million power line were airlifted out.* Should Kolwezi fall, Mobutu's government would be hard pressed to survive. French officials are said to have begun talks with anti-Mobutu rebels in Paris-presumably in an effort to reach a compromise...
...Mobutu is a survivor," says one Western diplomat in Kinshasa. "He may pull it off as he has in the past. But things look bad." If Mobutu fails to control the insurgency in Shaba, he will likely face rebellion from dissatisfied factions elsewhere in the country. Although the U.S., Belgium and France have airlifted supplies to Zaïre, it is unlikely that any of Mobutu's traditional allies would try to mount a rescue operation. One reason: his crumbling, corruption-riddled army seems unable to repel the invaders...
Washington had already dispatched $1.2 million worth of parachutes, spare aircraft parts and uniforms to Kinshasa. But the Carter Administration postponed action on Mobutu's request in the hope that diplomatic efforts might halt the fighting. After talks with U.S. officials, Nigerian External Affairs Commissioner Joseph Garba pledged that his country would act as go-between. Other black African nations share Nigeria's concern that the fighting could turn into a full-blown...
Hated Dictator. After leading a long, bloody struggle to unify Zaïre in the 1960s, Mobutu is reluctant to make concessions to Shaba's invading exiles. One reason is that income from Shaba's copper mines is vital for his financially shaky country. Another is that any sign of yielding could invite similar demands from other regions of Zaïre, which has some 200 tribes. A corrupt dictator, Mobutu is unpopular-even hated-in much of the country. In the wild northeast, for example, he is accused of being responsible for ordering the murder...