Mobutu Dies: Press Roundup Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit via congo-news@thor.cmp.ilstu.edu Mon Sep 8 02:44:31 1997 Ousted Mobutu of Zaire Dies in Exile=20 11:48 p.m. Sep 07, 1997 Eastern=20 By John Baggaley=20 RABAT (Reuter) - Mobutu Sese Seko, ousted as president of Zaire in May after three decades of near absolute power, has died in exile in Morocco after losing a long battle with prostate cancer.=20 The official Moroccan news agency MAP said the 66-year-old ex-president died at 9.30 p.m. (2130 GMT) on Sunday at Mohamed V military hospital in Rabat ``after a long illness.''=20 A diplomatic source said that Mobutu, a Roman Catholic, was expected to be buried in Rabat's Christian cemetery.=20 However, a minister in President Laurent Kabila's government in Kinshasa, capital of what is now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo, did not rule out burial for Mobutu in his home country.=20 ``Why shouldn't the body be repatriated?'' asked Information Minister Raphael Ghenda, adding: ``While he was alive we said we were happy for him to return.''=20 A source close to the Mobutu family in Rabat said all of his relatives had gone to the hospital from their new home in a residential area of the Moroccan capital.=20 Access to the military hospital is carefully controlled and a news blackout has been imposed since Mobutu was moved there on July 1.=20 Just days earlier he had undergone an operation for ``serious bleeding complications'' in the civilian Avicennes hospital in Agdal suburb of Rabat.= =20 King Hassan allowed him into Morocco on humanitarian grounds after Mobutu had rapidly found after his overthrow that an ex-president with a dictator's reputation rapidly loses friends.=20 Following the ex-president arrival in Morocco on May 23, diplomatic sources said several attempts were made to find him another host country.=20 A change of government in France, where Mobutu has property and where he had earlier convalesced from treatment in Switzerland for his cancer, saw the door there close against him.=20 Diplomatic sources spoke of his going possibly to Portugal or South Africa but as his illness worsened it became increasingly clear he would not leave Morocco.=20 As cancer and a growing rebellion took hold in Zaire, Mobutu lost his grip on power which he had held virtually unchallenged for three decades.=20 Mobutu was one of Africa's longest-serving strongmen who used the Cold War to cement his hold on power, as the West and Soviet Union vied for influence in Africa and control of Zaire's uranium and other minerals.=20 He enjoyed virtually absolute power since a 1965 coup, riding the tidal wave of popular support for multi-party democracy that swept around the world with the collapse of Soviet-style communism in the late 1980s.=20 He consistently put off, and then accepted for 1997, multi-party presidential and parliamentary elections.=20 ``I am perhaps the only dictator in the world who is calling for such elections,'' he once told a television interviewer.=20 But his cancer and a Tutsi-dominated revolt backed by neighbouring Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Angola combined against him and his rapacious, demoralised and divided armed forces crumbled before a determined rebel advance.=20 On May 16, 1997, he fled his capital Kinshasa, one day before Kabila's Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo marched in to claim victory after a seven-month civil war.=20 He went first to Togo and then arrived in Morocco where initially he stayed in a hotel south of the capital before moving to a resort near Tangier in June.=20 He was taken to the Moroccan capital at the end of that month, admitted to Avicennes civilian hospital and underwent an operation for ``serious bleeding complications,'' doctors said.=20 He was then moved to the military hospital on July 1 where he died on Sunday night. The brief official announcement gave no details of any funeral arrangements.=20 Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Zaire's Mobutu - quintessential African strongman=20 08:19 p.m Sep 07, 1997 Eastern=20 RABAT, Sept 7 (Reuter) - Ousted Zaire dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, one of Africa's longest-serving strongmen, was among a handful of Third World leaders who turned the Cold War to their advantage to cement their hold on power.=20 The word ``kleptocracy'' -- meaning government by thieves -- was coined with Zaire in mind while Mobutu, who died in exile in a Moroccan hospital on Sunday, held power.=20 A contemporary of Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Augusto Pinochet in Chile and the late Shah of Iran, the man in the leopard-skin cap gave Africa's third largest country a badly needed focus in the turbulent aftermath of independence from Belgium in 1960.=20 But, courted by Western powers anxious to retain control of Zaire's uranium and other minerals, he exploited the West's strategic fears to build support for his highly personalised, repressive and corrupt rule.=20 As time went on, he siphoned away the wealth of one of the continent's potentially richest countries to maintain his lavish lifestyle and power base, buying the loyalty of would-be rivals and allowing supporters to amass huge personal fortunes.=20 Having enjoyed virtually absolute power since a 1965 coup, he successfully rode the tidal wave of popular support for multi-party democracy that swept around the world with the collapse of Soviet-style communism in the late 1980s.=20 A master of the power game and a reluctant convert to democracy, he still entertained hopes of winning legitimacy through the ballot box in long-delayed multi-party presidential and parliamentary elections in 1997.= =20 ``I am perhaps the only dictator in the world who is calling for such elections,'' he once told a television interviewer.=20 But prostate cancer and a Tutsi-dominated revolt backed by neighbouring Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Angola combined against him and his rapacious, demoralised and divided armed forces crumbled before a determined rebel advance.=20 On May 16, 1997, he fled his capital Kinshasa, one day before Laurent Kabila's Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo marched in to claim victory after a seven-month civil war.=20 Denounced as everything from a dictator to a thief, critics accused Mobutu of ruining a nation rich in minerals and farmland and leaving its more than 40 million people impoverished.=20 The son of a cook and a hotel maid, Mobutu, who stood six feet (1.8 metres) tall, was born in Lisala in Equateur province on October 14, 1930.=20 A journalist turned soldier, he seized power in 1965 after the old Belgian Congo descended into chaos after independence.=20 Adopting a leopard-skin cap and bird-handled ebony cane as his trademarks, he towered over the Central African nation and its people. His deep, booming voice commanded respect, even fear.=20 Identifying the state with himself, Mobutu changed his country's name from Congo to Zaire -- although Kabila later renamed it the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- and decreed what his people could wear and what they could name their children.=20 He held on to power by keeping rivals in disarray or buying off enemies.=20 But despite human rights abuses and self-enrichment, Mobutu became the darling of the United States and others in the West as a buffer against Soviet Communist expansion.=20 Washington relied on Zaire as a supply route for U.S.- backed rebels fighting neighbouring Angola's Marxist government.=20 Mobutu's usefulness faded as Soviet influence declined in Africa and Soviet communism finally collapsed. His erstwhile friends looked more closely at his human rights record.=20 Under pressure to make reforms, he opened a Pandora's box when he permitted multi-party politics in 1990 after more than two decades of single-party rule.=20 At the same time, the mineral-based economy collapsed as production from vital copper mines in the south plummeted.=20 Mobutu angered his Western backers, particularly Belgium, when soldiers attacked a student hostel in 1990, killing dozens of students. Belgium cut aid in response.=20 Mass opposition to Mobutu grew through 1991.=20 Surrounded by his Israeli-trained presidential guard, he retreated to his opulent northern palace in Gbadolite, dubbed ``Versailles in the Jungle,'' hurling defiance at his opponents.=20 Soldiers angry at not receiving a pay rise ran amok in Kinshasa in 1991. France and Belgium sent in troops to protect foreign nationals. Looters killed at least 250 people. Similar protests followed in 1993.=20 His sacking of reformist prime minister and fierce opponent Etienne Tshisekedi and intimidation by soldiers of the pro-democracy parliament earned further rebukes and sanctions.=20 Shrewd political manoeuvring neutralised public sympathy for Tshisekedi and Mobutu, a pragmatist, began a process of making up with key donors -- France, Belgium and the United States.=20 The 1994 exodus from Rwanda of over a million Hutus fearing reprisals for the genocide of minority Tutsis there, worked in his favour. His co-operation helped ease a humanitarian nightmare and enabled a French force to halt the Rwanda killings.=20 A thaw with France and other Western nations followed but in 1996 cancer took hold. In August that year, Mobutu had prostate cancer surgery in Switzerland. While he convalesced in Europe, Tutsi rebels took up arms in October.=20 The end of three decades of rule was just seven months away.=20 In February 1997, Mobutu made brief visit to Morocco on his way back to Zaire from convalescence in France.=20 After the fall of Kinshasa some three months later, he and his family returned to Morocco on May 23 and moved into the heavily guarded Amphitrite Hotel near King Hassan's palace at Skhirat, 20 km (12 miles) south of Rabat.= =20 The next month, he and his entourage moved to Le Mirage Hotel, at Cap Spartel resort north of Tangier, but on June 27 Mobutu was taken to the capital Rabat and admitted to Avicennes Hospital, where doctors operated on him the following day for ``serious bleeding complications.''=20 On June 30 he was moved to Mohamed V military hospital in Rabat, where he died.=20 Mobutu's first wife, Antoinette, died in 1977. He is survived by his second wife, Bobi Ladawa, who was often at her ailing husband's side and was considered one of his closest advisers.=20 It was unclear how many children he had. The most prominent are Nzanga, his American-educated spokesman, and Kongolo, who served as an officer in the elite presidential guard. ^REUTER@=20 Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited.=20 Zaire ex-President Mobutu Dies in Morocco=20 08:43 p.m Sep 07, 1997 Eastern=20 RABAT, Morocco (Reuter) - Zaire's ousted President Mobutu Sese Seko died in the Moroccan capital Sunday night, the official Moroccan news agency MAP said.=20 The former president of the African country now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo died at 9.30 p.m. (5:30 p.m., EDT) at Mohamed V military hospital in Rabat ``after a long illness,'' it said.=20 Mobutu, 66 and a Catholic, is expected to be buried in Rabat's Christian cemetery, a diplomatic source said.=20 A source close to the family said all of them had gone to the hospital from their new home in a Rabat residential area.=20 Mobutu, suffering from prostate cancer, arrived in Morocco May 23 after being ousted from Zaire which he ruled and looted for three decades.=20 He stayed initially in a hotel south of the capital before moving to a resort near Tangier in June. He was taken to the Moroccan capital at the end of that month, admitted to Avicennes civilian hospital and underwent an operation for ``serious bleeding complications,'' doctors said.=20 He was then moved to the military hospital July 1 and a news blackout was imposed.=20 Mobutu was one of Africa's longest-serving strongmen who used the Cold War to cement his Western-backed hold on power, as the West and Soviet Union vied for influence in Africa and control of Zaire's uranium and other minerals.=20 He enjoyed virtually absolute power after a 1965 coup, riding the tidal wave of popular support for multiparty democracy that swept around the world with the collapse of Soviet-style communism in the late 1980s.=20 He consistently put off, and then accepted for 1997, multiparty presidential and parliamentary elections.=20 ``I am perhaps the only dictator in the world who is calling for such elections,'' he once told a television interviewer.=20 But prostate cancer and a Tutsi-dominated revolt backed by neighboring Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Angola combined against him and his underpaid, rapacious, demoralized and divided armed forces crumbled before a determined rebel advance.=20 He fled his capital Kinshasa, May 16, 1997, one day before Laurent Kabila's Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo marched in to claim victory after a seven-month civil war.=20 The brief official announcement gave no details of funeral arrangements.=20 Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.=20 Snapshots from the life of Zaire's Mobutu=20 08:29 p.m Sep 07, 1997 Eastern=20 KINSHASA, Sept 7 (Reuter) - Veteran dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who died in Morocco on Sunday night, ruled Africa's third largest nation for over three decades.=20 A mixture of cancer and civil war broke his grip on the former Zaire and he fled into exile in May ahead of Laurent Kabila's victorious forces.=20 Here are snapshots of major events in Mobutu's life. 1930 Mobutu is born on October 14, the son of a cook and a=20 hotel maid, in Lisala in Equateur province. He is baptised Joseph-Desire. 1960 Mobutu, a journalist named army chief of staff shortly after independence from Belgium, wrests control of=20 country from squabbling politicians on September 14. 1961 Mobutu restores independence president Joseph Kasavubu=20 in February. A few days later, charismatic independence=20 prime minister Patrice Lumumba is murdered. 1965 Mobutu stages fresh coup on November 24, declares self=20 head of state with full executive powers. 1966 Mobutu sets up one-party state under Popular Revolutionary Movement (MPR); presents Zaire as bulwark against Soviet expansion. 1970 Mobutu, sole candidate, wins presidential election. Reelected in 1977 and 1984, again as sole candidate. 1971 Mobutu renames the Democratic Republic of the Congo=20 Zaire 1972 Mobutu changes his name to Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga as part of a national ``authenticity'' drive. 1977 French and Moroccan troops help Mobutu crush=20 secession bid in Shaba 1990 Mobutu announces end of one-party rule under intense foreign and domestic pressure. Transition drags 1996 Aug=20 Mobutu has prostate cancer surgery in Switzerland Oct Ethnic Tutsis launch revolt against Mobutu. Laurent=20 Kabila takes leadership of the revolt Dec Mobutu returns home for first time since revolt Fresh trips for treatment in Europe follow 1997 May 16 Mobutu flees Kinshasa for Gbadolite, his jungle palace. May 17 Kabila forces take Kinshasa May 23 Mobutu and family arrive in Morocco after leaving Zaire=20 for good and failing to secure exile in Togo. June 27 Mobutu admitted to Avicennes Hospital in Rabat. June 28 Doctors operate on Mobutu after ``serious bleeding.'' ^REUTER@=20 Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.=20 Zaire's ex-President Mobutu Dies in Rabat=20 07:59 p.m Sep 07, 1997 Eastern=20 RABAT, Morocco (Reuter) - Zaire's ousted President Mobutu Sese Seko died in the Moroccan capital Sunday night, the official Moroccan news agency MAP said.=20 The former president of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo died at 9.30 p.m. at Mohamed V military hospital in Rabat ``after a long illness,'' it said.=20 Mobutu, 66 and a Catholic, is expected to be buried in Rabat's Christian cemetery, a diplomatic source said.=20 A source close to the family said all of the members had gone to the hospital from their new home in a Rabat residential area.=20 Mobutu, suffering from prostate cancer, arrived in Morocco May 23 after being ousted from Zaire which he had ruled for three decades.=20 He stayed initially in a hotel south of the capital before moving to a resort near Tangier in June.=20 He was taken to the Moroccan capital at the end of that month, admitted to Avicennes civilian hospital and underwent an operation for ``serious bleeding complications,'' doctors said.=20 He was then moved to the military hospital July 1 and a news blackout was imposed.=20 Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Zaire's ex-president Mobutu dies in Rabat-official=20 07:30 p.m Sep 07, 1997 Eastern=20 RABAT, Sept 7 (Reuter) - Zaire's ousted president Mobutu Sese Seko died in the Moroccan capital on Sunday night, the official Moroccan news agency MAP said.=20 The former president died at 9.30 p.m. (2130 GMT) at Mohamed V military hospital in Rabat ``after a long illness,'' it said. MORE=20 Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Mobutu to be buried in Moroccan capital-diplomats=20 10:17 p.m. Sep 07, 1997 Eastern=20 By Ali Bouzerda=20 RABAT, Sept 8 (Reuter) - Zaire's former president Mobutu Sese Seko, who died of prostate cancer on Sunday, will probably be buried in the Moroccan capital Rabat after several European countries refused to grant him asylum, a Western diplomat said.=20 ``Morocco seems to be the final destination of Zaire's former dictator Mobutu...He will probably be buried in the Christian cemetery of Rabat,'' a Western diplomat who declined to be named told Reuters.=20 He said a group of Moroccan workers had been discreetly preparing a nine metres (yard) square tomb in the heart of the cemetery since last Tuesday.= =20 In Kinshasa on Monday morning however, Information Minister Raphael Ghenda said he did not rule out Mobutu being buried in his home country.=20 The Rabat cemetery is located on the outskirts of the capital on the main road to Morocco's financial centre of Casablanca. More than 1,000 tombs lie in two hectares (five acres) of land, most of them French who died in the country since World War Two.=20 The cemetery is carefully tended, softened by pine trees, and with ranks of simple white crosses and elaborate burial chambers. It is close to Rabat's Jewish cemetery.=20 The official Moroccan news agency MAP said the ex-president died at 9.30 p.m. (2130 GMT) at Mohamed V military hospital in Rabat ``after a long illness.''=20 It did not say when or where Mobutu would be buried and Moroccan officials were not immediately available for comment.=20 Another diplomat said Mobutu, who arrived in Morocco in May, had sought entry to several other countries, including France, Portugal and Spain. But none granted him entry, the change of government in France undermining apparent agreement by President Jacques Chirac to accept Mobutu.=20 Earlier, Mobutu had convalesced in France at his property in the south after treatment in Switzerland for his cancer.=20 King Hassan allowed Mobutu and his family into Morocco on humanitarian grounds. On his arrival, the official MAP agency said in a brief statement: ``President Mobutu had asked permission to spend a few days in Morocco for health reasons before going to his permanent place of residence.''=20 That had been expected to be France, according to sources close to Togo President Ghassingbe Eyadema to whose country he first fled. ^REUTER@=20 Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Former Zairian leader Mobutu Sese Seko dies 11.41 p.m. EDT (341 GMT) September 7, 1997 RABAT, Morocco (AP) =97 Mobutu Sese Seko, the Zairian leader toppled in May after nearly 32 years of autocratic rule that left his country in shambles, died Sunday. He was 66.=20 Mobutu, who for decades was a strong anti-communist ally of the United States in Africa, died of prostate cancer at the Mohamed V military hospital in Rabat, said two hospital workers who spoke on condition of anonymity.=20 The Maghreb Arab Press agency said only that Mobutu had died at 9:30 p.m. local time "after a long illness.''=20 He had been living in exile in Morocco since May, following his ouster by the rebel forces of Laurent Kabila, who restored the country's old name of Congo.=20 Mobutu spent most of his time at a luxury hotel in Tangier, across the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain. But in late June, he went to the capital, Rabat, to be treated for heavy internal bleeding.=20 Mobutu had an entourage of about 40 people with him in Morocco, but it was not known if his family was with him at his death.=20 Zaire was in ruins when Mobutu was deposed, and while his fortune was estimated in the billions, he died with neither a title nor a country.=20 A family member in Kinshasa, capital of Congo, said Mobutu had informed his family he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered over his old country.=20 In Congo, there was no immediate mention of Mobutu's death on either radio or TV.=20 Mobutu arrived in Morocco on May 23, after searching for a country that would take him. King Hassan II agreed to host him for a "few days,'' but the deposed leader ended up staying over three months.=20 He had wanted to return to his French Riviera villa, but like many other countries, France refused him entry. The French Foreign Ministry said Sunday night it would have no official reaction until Monday.=20 During his rule, Mobutu became a symbol of excess and when he was ousted after an eight-month rebellion in May, his resource-rich country of 45 million was in economic and political shambles.=20 Mobutu was out of Zaire during most of the rebel advance, recovering from cancer surgery in his palatial homes in Switzerland and the south of France.= =20 When he finally gave up power in May, he cited only health reasons, ignoring the growing ranks of opposition that had undermined his rule.=20 Mobutu was the last of Africa's Cold War relics, an autocrat in a leopard-skin hat who lived like a king while leading his potentially magnificent country down a ruinous path.=20 The former Joseph-Desire Mobutu seized power in a military coup on November 24, 1965, five years after the mineral-blessed colossus once known as the Congo of the continent gained independence from Belgium.=20 Then a colonel and the army chief of staff, Mobutu had earned his soldiers' loyalty by building up the military forces and crushing post-independence secessionist revolts.=20 His coup was welcomed by the West, which was vying with the Soviets for influence on the continent, and by Zairians weary of the bickering civilian government that couldn't decide how best to share power in the ethnically diverse new nation.=20 Mobutu promised to preserve democratic institutions and eventually return the country to civilian rule.=20 Instead, he declared himself head of state, founded the Popular Revolutionary Movement party, banned all other political parties, and embarked on a decades-long pursuit of absolute power.=20 To cement his dictatorship and keep potential rivals at bay, senior politicians from the previous government were appointed to overseas diplomatic posts, where most were then accused of anti-Mobutu activities and dismissed or arrested.=20 Powerful opponents who remained in Zaire eventually fled into exile or were imprisoned or publicly executed after sham trials. Those who remained were co-opted by Mobutu, seduced with gifts of limousines and luxurious villas, and kept loyal by entwining them in his net of corruption.=20 Mobutu sought to shake off the remnants of colonial rule with a fierce policy of "Zairianization,'' which included nationalization of mining and other major industries; ordering all government workers and ministers to wear Mao-style jackets; and outlawing Christian names.=20 He changed his own Christian surnames to Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga, which loosely means: "The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake.''=20 In a 1980 speech, Mobutu dashed any hopes of allowing Zaire to become a democracy. "As long as I live, I will not authorize the creation of another party,'' he said.=20 The last presidential elections were held in July 1984, with Mobutu the sole candidate. Amid charges of voter fraud, he was re-elected to a further seven-year term by 99 percent of the vote.=20 Through it all, Mobutu maintained Western support because of the region's strategic importance as a Cold War battlefield. In return for arms and aid, he allowed the United States to use Zaire as a conduit for sending arms to rebels fighting Angola's Soviet-backed government.=20 But as the Cold War waned, so too did Mobutu's glory days.=20 The country's deteriorating economic situation and Mobutu's refusal to respond to the pro-democracy sentiments sweeping the continent fueled civilian protests and military riots in 1991, which Mobutu crushed with the help of France and Belgium. Similar riots in 1993 cost the life of the French ambassador.=20 As the former Soviet bloc began competing for Western aid, money to Zaire dried up, with the United States, France, Belgium and the European Union suspending military and financial assistance to protest Mobutu's corruption and human rights abuses.=20 After the 1991 riots, France's secretary of state for humanitarian affairs, Bernard Kouchner, referred to Mobutu as a "walking bank account in a leopard-skin hat'' and challenged him to spend some of his personal fortune =97 most of it allegedly stolen from state coffers =97 to feed his people.= =20 Estimates of his wealth ran as high as $8 billion, though he told the authors of the book, "Voices of Zaire,'' in 1988 that he was worth only $5 million. He said he had built many churches, hospitals and schools with his own money.=20 "No, I have a clear conscience. I am an honest man. I have not pocketed one dollar of the people's money,'' he said.=20 As the Cold War-era leaders around him began to fall, Mobutu hung on with empty promises of reform. His vow in 1990 to hold multiparty elections was never fulfilled, and opposition marches were met with military force.=20 Perhaps no event better highlighted Zaire's decline as the May 1995 outbreak of ebola, the virus that began its deadly rampage in an abysmal clinic in the remote city of Kikwit.=20 Word of the mysterious illness, which caused a gruesome, bloody death, was slow to spread due to the complete lack of telephone lines linking Kikwit, a city of more than a half-million people, to the outside world.=20 When the dying despot finally fled his homeland in May with his second wife Bobi Ladawa and many of his nine children, his departure was welcomed by the international community and the Zairian people he left behind, among the poorest in the world.=20 =A9 1997 Associated Press. Mobutu Sese Seko: Last of Africa's Cold War Relics 10.28 p.m. EDT (228 GMT) September 7, 1997 He was the ultimate African despot, a Cold War relic in a leopard-skin hat who lived like a king while leading his potentially magnificent country down a ruinous path.=20 In the end, his excesses ruined him, and former Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko died in exile with neither a title nor a country.=20 The fall from supreme autocrat to displaced dictator was swifter than anyone =97 certainly Mobutu himself =97 could have imagined. After an eight-month sweep that shed harsh light on Mobutu's pathetic army and Zairians' lack of loyalty toward their president, rebel chief Laurent Kabila seized power in May and ended a nearly 32-year reign strewn with broken promises and bloody revolts.=20 Joseph-Desire Mobutu's rule began with a military coup Nov. 24, 1965, five years after the mineral-blessed colossus in the heart of the continent gained independence from Belgium. Then a colonel and the army chief of staff, Mobutu had earned his soldiers' loyalty by building up the military forces and crushing post-independent secessionist revolts that grew to encompass nearly half the country.=20 The coup was welcomed by Zairians weary of their long-bickering civilian government and by the west, always on the lookout for new leaders to counter Soviet influence in Africa. The pro-western Mobutu promised democracy and a quick return to civilian rule.=20 Instead, he declared himself head of state, founded the Popular Revolutionary Movement party, banned all other political parties, and embarked on a pursuit of absolute power.=20 To cement his dictatorship and keep potential rivals at bay, senior politicians from the previous government were appointed to overseas diplomatic posts, where most were then accused of anti-Mobutu activities and dismissed or arrested.=20 Powerful opponents who remained in Zaire eventually fled into exile or were imprisoned or publicly executed after sham trials. Mobutu co-opted those who remained, seducing them with gifts of limousines and luxurious villas and entwining them in his net of corruption.=20 Mobutu sought to shake off the remnants of colonial rule with a fierce policy of "Zairianization,'' which included nationalization of mining and other major industries; ordering all government workers and ministers to wear Mao-style jackets; and outlawing Christian names.=20 Donning his trademark leopard-skin cap, he changed his own Christian surnames to Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga, which loosely means: "The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake.''=20 In a 1980 speech, Mobutu dashed any hopes of allowing Zaire to become a democracy. "As long as I live, I will not authorize the creation of another party,'' he said.=20 The last presidential elections were held in July 1984, with Mobutu the sole candidate. Those who endorsed him voted on green ballots, those against him on red ones; the red forms were unavailable at many polls. He was re-elected to a further seven-year term by 99 percent of the vote.=20 Through it all, Mobutu maintained Western support because of the region's strategic importance as a Cold War battlefield. In return for arms and aid, he allowed the United States to use Zaire as a conduit for sending arms to rebels fighting Angola's Soviet-backed government.=20 But as the Cold War waned, so too did Mobutu's glory days.=20 The country's deteriorating economic situation and Mobutu's refusal to respond to pro-democracy sentiments sweeping the continent fueled civilian protests and military riots in 1991 that required French and Belgian intervention to crush. Another such uprising in 1993 left hundreds of civilians in the capital dead, including the French ambassador.=20 As the former Soviet bloc began competing for Western aid, money to Zaire dried up, with the United States, France, Belgium and the European Union suspending military and financial assistance to protest Mobutu's corruption and human rights abuses.=20 After the 1991 riots, France's secretary of state for humanitarian affairs, Bernard Kouchner, referred to Mobutu as a "walking bank account in a leopard-skin hat'' and challenged him to spend some of his personal fortune =97 most of it allegedly stolen from state coffers =97 to feed his people.= =20 Mobutu denied stealing anything. "No, I have a clear conscience. I am an honest man. I have not pocketed one dollar of the people's money,'' he said, insisting his wealth was no more than $5 million, far less than the $5 billion often estimated.=20 As the countries around his traded one-party rule for democracy, Mobutu hung on with promises of reform. Political opposition and public impatience were growing, however, and they snowballed with Laurent Kabila's bold military incursion into eastern Zaire in September 1996.=20 Mobutu was in the south of France receiving treatment for prostate cancer as cities began falling to the rebels, who quickly trounced Zaire's ill-equipped, ill-trained, and barely paid soldiers.=20 In clearly declining health, Mobutu returned to Kinshasa to a hero's welcome in December and made an emotional speech to the nation, promising to crush the rebellion and rejuvenate the army. But he did little more than name a new army chief before quietly heading back to France and leaving his government and military to fight his losing battle.=20 When he returned again in March, few turned out to greet the longest-ruling dictator in Africa. Kabila's men had taken Kisangani, Mobutu's main eastern stronghold, and set their sights on Kinshasa.=20 By the time he left Kinshasa for the last time, May 16, even Mobutu's own generals had abandoned him, warning him the night before that they had neither the means nor the desire to defend him when Kabila's men reached the capital. Mobutu headed to the solace of his palace in the northern town of Gbadolite, relinquishing power to his government but keeping the title of president.=20 That fell the next day, when Kabila's army marched into Kinshasa virtually unopposed. Mobutu fled Gbadolite days later =97 by some accounts in a cargo plane under fire from rebel forces =97 to begin a lonely search for a countr= y willing to accept him and his entourage of more than 100.=20 Though Mobutu asked to return to France for medical treatment and possibly to spend his final days at his French Riviera villa, France refused him a visa, so he remained in Morocco in one of several lavish homes he had kept while ruling Zaire.=20 =A9 1997 Associated Press. All rights reserved. Congo Maintains Objections To U.N. Investigation Reuter Friday, September 5, 1997; Page A32 The Washington Post=20 KINSHASA, Congo=97A U.N. mission sent to investigate alleged massacres in th= e former Zaire said yesterday that it was told by Kinshasa that the government has not dropped its objections to the probe. The United Nations had indicated Tuesday that the government of President Laurent Kabila had dropped objections it raised in a letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan last week. But Myriam Dessables, a spokeswoman for the U.N. mission, said Kabila reaffirmed his objections and suspension of the mission through ministers who met investigators yesterday. Annan appointed the latest investigative mission after he gave in to Kabila's demands about the composition and mandate of a previous team, led by Chilean Roberto Garreton. The current mission is headed by Atsu-Koffi Amega, a Togolese jurist. Kabila objected to a report by Garreton identifying what the Chilean said were more than 100 sites where thousands of Rwandan refugees were killed and blaming the deaths on Kabila's troops. Aid officials and local human rights groups say thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees were systematically massacred by Kabila's troops and their Rwandan Tutsi backers during their successful military campaign to topple the former Zaire's veteran dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko. --=20 =A9 Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company Scope of U.N. Rights Mission in Congo Still in Dispute By Lynne Duke Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, September 4, 1997; Page A25 The Washington Post=20 JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 3=97U.N. officials say the Congolese government has dropped its objections to a U.N. human rights probe in eastern Congo, but a top Congolese official says it must start with a full accounting of the 1994-97 Rwandan refugee crisis in the region -- a condition that could pose an insurmountable obstacle to investigators. Congolese Foreign Minister Bizima Karaha gave verbal assurances to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday that the human rights probe can go forward, U.N. task force spokeswoman Myriam Dessables said from Kinshasa, the Congolese capital. The probe was initiated in response to allegations that rebels led by Laurent Kabila systematically killed Rwandan Hutu refugees during the seven-month insurrection that ended in May with the ouster of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and Kabila's assumption of power. But before the U.N. human rights mission can try to determine the fate of the roughly 200,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees it says are still unaccounted for in Congo, formerly Zaire, the United Nations must first prove that those refugees once existed, Karaha said in a telephone interview from Kinshasa -- thus raising an issue that has vexed relief agencies and foreign governments since hundreds of thousands of Hutus fled Rwanda for Zaire in 1994. "For me, it's simple mathematical logic," Karaha said. "You can't tell me how many are missing unless you can tell me how many there were before. They should tell us how many were armed and how many were not armed. They should tell us why these people were armed. Why were they not disarmed?" The task of the U.N. mission is to investigate several interrelated episodes of violence in what was then eastern Zaire -- local factional fighting in 1993, the influx of Rwandan Hutu military and civilian refugees in 1994 and the Zairian insurrection that began last fall. The 1994 Rwandan Hutu exodus is the event that spawned the confusion Karaha wants to see cleared up -- and may have led to the purported massacres that the U.N. task force was originally created to investigate. The precipitating event of that year was the slaughter of more than a half-million Rwandan Tutsis by that country's Hutu army and militia groups. A Tutsi-led rebel force then toppled the Hutu-controlled government, and Rwandan Hutus fled by the hundreds of thousands into eastern Zaire in fear of reprisal for the killings of the Tutsis. Among the Hutus who took flight were not only innocent refugees but soldiers, militiamen and others involved in the killings. The United Nations estimated that 1.1 million Hutus left Rwanda; other groups and Rwanda's new Tutsi-dominated government put the figure much lower. When the rebellion against Mobutu erupted -- begun by Tutsis native to Zaire and bolstered by a Kabila-led alliance that included Tutsis from Rwanda -- weeks of fighting broke up the camps in which the Rwandan refugees had settled. Between 700,000 and 800,000 refugees walked back into Rwanda, while others moved deeper into Zaire. The number remaining in Zaire instantly became a matter of dispute. The United Nations estimated there were about 300,000; the United States, based on aerial surveillance, said there were relatively few, an assessment backed by the Rwandan government. The debate took on urgency when reports emerged during Kabila's rebellion that his forces were massacring the Rwandans, some of whom at that point were fighting on the side of Mobutu. Kabila, now president of the country he renamed Congo, denies charges that his forces massacred Hutu refugees and that his new government has not cooperated with the U.N. mission. In defending itself against the massacre accusations, the government now appears to be attempting to place the onus on the United Nations to prove that the allegedly slain refugees ever= existed. The U.N. human rights mission, which has been awaiting a go-ahead from Kinshasa since its arrival there on Aug. 24, has not discussed refugee numbers with the Congolese government, Dessables said. The delay in dispatching the mission to the east to begin its investigation has stemmed from wrangling over its leadership and its security. On Monday, however, Karaha told Annan that the government has withdrawn its objections to the leader of the mission, Atsu-Koffi Amega of Togo, and that U.N. security personnel will be allowed into the country, another U.N. spokesman said from New York.=20 Still, until written confirmation is sent to New York and details of the mission's movements are agreed on, the U.N. investigators cannot begin their work in earnest.=20 =A9 Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytaf-09.12.97-00:56:08-6673