Word: mobutu
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...circle had been painted in the middle of its collapsible wooden platform. A strong, rough rope hung down from the crossbar above. A row of open coffins, trimmed with gold and lined with white sheets, lay waiting on the ground below. Four enemies of Army Strongman Joseph Mobutu were about to be hanged, and to celebrate the occasion Mobutu had declared a holiday, and invited all of Leopoldville to attend...
Frustrated General. Horrifying as the scene was, it only documented the accelerating deterioration of Mobutu and his military regime, which seized power last November, supposedly to reform the Congo. Frustrated at every turn, Mobutu has in recent months been lashing out wildly at everyone who seemed to stand in his way, and his list of assorted traitors and plotters has grown to include foreign embassies as a group, the Belgians in particular, ex-Premier Moise Tshombe and the entire Congolese Parliament. The four hanged last week had supposedly been foiled in a plot to kill Mobutu...
...after a Belgian queen, and Stanleyville after the American journalist who presumed it was Dr. Livingstone. Such names could only remind the Congolese of their colonial past and so, when independence came, it was just a matter of time before they were changed. The time has arrived. President Joseph Mobutu last week decreed that, as of July 1, Elisabethville will be called Lubumbashi (because it is on the Lubumba River), Stanleyville will revert to its pre-Belgian name Kisangani, and Leopoldville, the capital, will become Kinshasa-a corruption of the Bafununga phrase for "Why do you ask?" The result...
...Burundi's Premier Leopold Biha kept well clear of the Rwanda delegation: Watutsi warriors are still massed on the Rwanda side of his border, threatening invasion. The Sudan's Mohammed Mahgoub has reason to resent Uganda's Milton Obote, who harbors Sudanese rebels. Congo Strongman Joseph Mobutu is no friend of Tanzania's Julius Nyerere, who helped funnel arms to the Simba rebels. Since Tanzania is currently a base for the enemies of Malawi's Premier Kamuzu Banda, the crotchety autocrat stayed away from the Nairobi summit, although he unbent enough to send his Commerce...
What most annoyed Mobutu, though, was something much more direct: "It has been said that Parliament will annul the ordinances that I have decreed since November. Therefore I am forced to take the decision not to permit Parliament to discuss either the laws I have passed or the laws I shall pass in the future." Last week, as good as his word, Mobutu stripped the legislators of everything but their salaries-and the occasional right of rubber-stamping his constitutional amendments. And, as he had warned, unless they stopped their political intrigues, he could close Parliament altogether. "This," said Mobutu...