Word: mobutuism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Once again the West tries to shore up Mobutu's regime...
...planes brought in 100 tons of supplies ranging from ammunition to ambulances. They also carried 1,500 Moroccan troops, who are soon to be joined by another 500 soldiers from Senegal, Gabon and Togo. Replacing French Foreign Legionnaires, the African force will help the faltering government of President Mobutu Sese Seko maintain the peace...
...Mobutu and Zaïre, that would mean disaster. The copper and cobalt mines of Shaba are responsible for two-thirds of the nation's foreign exchange earnings, and Zaïre needs them to survive. Although the region was relatively calm last week, no one precluded the possibility of another rebel attack from across the border, or of a general uprising by a population suffering from severe poverty and the oppression of its country's own plundering army...
...also a little nervous about being caught in Zaïre in the event of another rebel attack. In addition to Morocco, at least two black African states, Senegal and the Ivory Coast, seem prepared to send some troops into Zaïre. Morocco's King Hassan II, helped save Mobutu in 1977 by sending a detachment during a previous rebel assault on Shaba. After a visit by Mobutu, Hassan announced that he would dispatch a contingent to Zaïre that would be "placed at the disposal of the Organization of African Unity along with other African forces...
...several battalions of Cubans have been deployed in Cabinda to protect the offshore oil wells that currently provide most of Angola's revenues. Farther south, surviving units of the F.N.L.A. also harass government forces in occasional skirmishes, even though Holden Roberto, 55, now stays mainly in Zaïre. President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaïre provided much of the F.N.L.A.'s support during the civil war. The Luanda regime may have encouraged the Katangese invasion of Shaba region partly out of vengeance...