Word: shaba
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...SMALL BAND of brave whites surrounded by maddened savages on the Dark Continent: it was the sort of story that once gave a romantic veil to the sordid history of Africa's colonization. American newspapers seized on the invasion of Shaba province by Katangan rebels and the subsequent rescue mission by French and Belgian paratroopers, as if they had found a modern version of Stanley and Livingston. The Boston Herald-American screamed out "Whites Massacred in Zaire," while Newsweek, slightly less hysterically racist, went with "Massacre in Zaire." White casualties were carefully tabulated and lamented, but the death toll...
...shaky because he has never represented nationalist aspirations for an independent Zaire. Mobutu came to power in the early '60s as a result of foreign intervention, and he has stayed in power propped up with U.S. aid, CIA backing and revenues from the foreign-run copper mines in Shaba province. He has consistently looked out for his personal interests, rather than the welfare of the impoverished majority of Zaire's peoples--reputed to be the wealthiest person in Africa, Mobutu owns the largest hotel in Dakar, Senegal, as well as a number of hotels and a large Swiss bank account...
...political repression: the colony's economy was structured to benefit the Belgians, and the Belgians alone. When the Congo gained independence, social security payments in Belgium dropped 40 per cent--an indication of the importance of the huge African country for its colonial masters. The rich copper mines in Shaba, then Katanga, were owned by a Belgian state monopoly. The Belgians had hoped to continue their economic control even when political power had passed into African hands...
Outside the mines the Shaba economy is stagnant. The only development in the area is the investment by OTRAG, a huge West German company, in a rocket-testing site near Lubumbashi. Mobutu gave the site, covering hundreds of kilometers, to OTRAG in much the same way colonies were assigned to European monopolies in the 19th century. OTRAG may remove the inhabitants and establish its own laws; its personnel are not subject to Zaire laws. The site borders on Zambia and Tanzania, and is only a few hundred kilometers from Angola--a fact that has made these independent countries understandably nervous...
...trouble in Zaïre broke out at a time when the White House was preparing to ask Congress to ease restrictions on U.S. support for friendly governments endangered by insurgencies. The invasion of Shaba turned out to be a good example of why President Carter wants some changes made. But even with present restrictions the Administration found a way to help Mobutu under terms of the International Security Assistance Act of 1977, which allows the President to provide certain aid to a foreign country-without congressional approval-if it is deemed "in the national security interests of the United...