Word: rian
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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While the debate continued, eight Western governments (plus Japan and Iran) met in Brussels and agreed to put up at least $70 million to rescue the Zaïrian government of President Mobutu Sese Seko from bankruptcy during the next three months under a stringent formula that British Foreign Secretary David Owen called "a monitorable plan for economic assistance." After some earlier protest, Mobutu now seemed ready to accept a few restrictive conditions on how he spends Zaïre's money. Mobutu is also expected to seek increased military assistance from the West. At week...
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...
...Perhaps so. But those who have remained are demanding a special payment of $1,000 a month in "danger money," the right to bear private arms, guarantees of evacuation "on demand" and, more significantly, a foreign military garrison. The expatriates have no confidence in the ability of the Zaļrian army to ward off another rebel attack and no faith in the proposed pan-African force to ward off the marauding Zaļrian army...
...government in its continuing struggle with rival liberation groups (see following story), relations between Luanda and the Shaba rebels remain somewhat uneasy. After last year's invasion, the rebels?who call themselves the Congolese National Liberation Front (F.N.L.C.)?began to recruit new members in refugee camps of Zaļrian-born Lunda tribesmen inside Angola, much to Luanda's annoyance. Understandably alarmed by the growth of this potentially unruly force in a civil war-torn country, Neto's government closed down the F.N.L.C. office in Luanda last January. Apparently with some reluctance, it also allowed some of its Cuban advisers...
...UNITA commandos periodically cut the Benguela railroad that formerly carried Zaļrian and Zambian ore to the seaport at Lobito. The sabotage has deprived Angola's government of $100 million a year in rail revenues. UNITA'S guerrilla attacks have also disrupted diamond mining, as well as farming in the Huambo district, which is Angola's main granary. The country's only sizable revenue (about $700 million last year) comes from oil rigs in Cabinda that are operated under Cuban protection by the Gulf Oil Corp...