Word: mobutuism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Ivory Coast and Senegal. His goals: 1) to prevent any more governments from recognizing the M.P.L.A. before the summit and 2) to round up an O.A.U. majority for a resolution opposing all foreign interference in Angola. He had no trouble convincing Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko, who has at least 1,000 army regulars fighting with the F.N.L.A. Felix Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast and Senegal's Leopold Senghor also went along. Washington also persuaded Ethiopia to hold off recognition at least until after the summit, on the ground that as host to the O.A.U., it should...
...parade was in honor of the tenth anniversary in power of Zaïre's ebullient President, Mobutu Sese Seko, 45. Wearing his familiar leopard-skin hat, Mobutu proudly watched the arms roll by from a red-canopied reviewing stand, surrounded by nine fellow African heads of state. Less conspicuous, but equally welcome, were dignitaries representing Zaïre's military suppliers, including U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Edward Mulcahy and China's Education Minister Chou Jung-hsin. In fact, Zaïre, the former Belgian Congo, has good relations with practically everyone...
Since the ousting of President Joseph Kasavubu in 1965, Mobutu has managed to create a genuine nation in Zaïre, even though its 24 million people are fractured into 100 tribes, speak dozens of dialects, and are spread over 895,000 square miles, much of it primitive jungle. That achievement, however, has been bought at the expense of democracy; Zaïreans' are expected to conform strictly to "Mobutisme," an often eccentric notion of nationalism propounded by Le Guide, as the President calls himself. Among other matters, Mobutu in recent years has ordered that all Zaïreans...
...pays $20 million in overdue bills. Meanwhile, Le Guide has been spending neither wisely nor well. He shelled out $11 million to sponsor the Ali-Foreman fight "to put the country on the map," and another $14 million went for Portuguese wine to lubricate last week's festivities. Mobutu has been told by the International Monetary Fund to change his ways if he wants $170 million in new loans, and in an anniversary speech last week, he did promise reform, including committees to supervise spending, and compensation to lure back skilled expatriates...
Third Parties. Zaïre insists that it has no troops in Angola, but Mobutu is openly supplying his longtime friend Holden Roberto, head of the F.N.L.A., with arms. U.S. law forbids foreign arms purchasers to pass them on to third parties, but as Zaïre receives new supplies of American weapons it will be free to send older Chinese and French materiel to Angola. In any case, the U.S. is already involved in the Angolan arms race; Washington is financing non-American arms deliveries to F.N.L.A. and UNITA through third parties...