Word: mobutuism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...reveal General Mobutu of Zaïre to be a corrupt, dishonest dictator, yet the free world came to his aid to drive out the rebels. Why do we have to support such a tyrant, thus giving sustenance to the charge of the socialist world that we are neocolonialists...
...incompetence of the government, stem from the fact that the country was so grossly unprepared for the independence it was suddenly granted by the Belgians in 1960. But other problems, as for example the rampant corruption at every level, have grown worse during the twelve-year rule of President Mobutu. Says a ranking Western diplomat in Kinshasa: "We really question whether we are negotiating with people who are serious. We wonder how many of those around Mobutu are concerned with anything other than filling their pockets and making travel plans out of the country...
Nobody is insisting on the immediate replacement of Mobutu, if only because it is unclear whether anybody else could hold the country together. But this time, in return for saving him once again, the Western powers are determined to insist on a strict price in terms of social and economic reform. Among the proposed demands: a completely rebuilt army, a remodeled central bank, better food distribution, and guarantees that there will be no government reprisals against the civilian population of Shaba, which has never liked Mobutu and made little secret of its sympathy for the invading rebels...
Whether the Zaïrian President would sit still for such conditions is another question. In an interview at week's end, Mobutu declared: "We can accept aid but we cannot accept the involvement of other countries in our internal affairs. I don't want to know how prisoners are treated in Sing Sing. Democracy in Zaïre does not mean what it does hi France or the United States." Chances are, though, that the Western powers at this week's Brussels meeting would make him an offer he could not refuse...
...restless, driving ambition and material success of Roland ("Tiny") Rowland, 60, chief executive of the London-based conglomerate Lonrho, Ltd. Rowland has transformed a small initial stake in Africa into one of the continent's biggest commercial empires. Among his friends are Presidents Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaïre, Hastings Kamuzu Banda of Malawi and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya -not to mention Prime Minister Ian Smith of Rhodesia...