Word: mobutu
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...more than a decade, Mobutu Sese Seko, 45, has ruled Zaïre with style and forcefulness-a fact that his countrymen are seldom allowed to forget. Commonly referred to by his own government and press as Le Guide, Mobutu restored stability to the former Belgian Congo and unified its 100 tribes into a true nation after the bloody civil war of the 1960s. Since then, the shy, scholarly army commander has become a flamboyant, African cult figure whose rule sometimes seems akin to that of a god-chief. Mobutu's portrait, capped by the leopard-skin hat that...
...Mobutu personally ordained everything from the country's total nationalization program two years ago to such personal touches as dictating that Zaïreans drop their Christian names for African ones, address one another as "citizen" and "citizeness," and wear a form of national dress-batik sarongs for women, tunic suits for men. Absolute wealth has tended to follow absolute power; Mobutu-whose personal interests include property in Spain and Switzerland -has been widely described as one of the wealthiest...
...serious economic trouble; its fortunes rise and fall on the world price of copper-the country's principal export -which has dropped from $1.41 to 68? per lb. over the past two years. Zaïre has recently begun to pay the price for Mobutu's grandiose development schemes, including a national airline, a $1 billion hydroelectric project and a new $800 million copper complex. The government was forced to devalue the currency by 42% this spring and has defaulted on $400 million in foreign loans. The inflation rate has shot up to 120% over the past three...
Despite an abortive coup last year, Mobutu remains unchallenged in his control over both the Popular Movement of the Revolution (MPR), Zaïre's only legal political party, and the country. In a rare interview, Mobutu spoke with TIME Correspondent William McWhirter at his spacious villa, which looks out over the rapids of the Zaïre River and across to the border of Brazzaville. "For all his dashing flamboyance in public," reported McWhirter, "Mobutu was surprisingly low-keyed and serious. He was nevertheless lively, outspoken and outwardly untroubled about the future of his country and the continent...
Despite the discouraging reports, mercenary recruitment continues in full swing in Johannesburg, which will probably become the new staging center for the war if Mobutu makes good on his threat to halt mercenaries passing through Kinshasa. In New York, Roy Innis, head of the Congress of Racial Equality, said that his organization will send 300 black American "combat medics" to help the faltering U.S.-backed forces-the vanguard of a contingent of 1,000 men who will go to Angola "to establish military parity...