Word: mobutu
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...field were going all out. But back home, people gradually got timid." When the agency finally decided to pull out, it sent a final payment of $1,376,700 in conscience money to Roberto and Savimbi through Kinshasa. The cash, Stockwell claims, was pocketed by Zaire President Mobutu Sese Seko...
...Kissinger's globe-trotting great power diplomacy, and there was no room there for the Third World. Even if the policy-makers had been watching, though, the result wouldn't have been much different. The CIA was paying attention, just enough to take care of its clients, President Mobutu of Zaire and Holden Roberto of the FNLA. The CIA's involvement was the determining factor in U.S. policy in southern Africa, and the CIA fiasco in Angola was yet another in a long string of CIA faulty evaluations, illicit propping-up of clients, violent undercover operations, and massive deception...
...month ago, Mobutu's well-equipped but poorly motivated soldiers were in disgraceful retreat, refusing to fight and often simply running away from a ragtag band of Angola-based Katangese rebels. Now the rebels were on the run. The secret ingredient in the turn-around was mostly psychological: the presence of 1,500 elite Moroccan troops who had been airlifted in at Mobutu's desperate request. The Moroccans shamed Zaïre's 4,000 troops in the fighting area into showing a little backbone. This persuaded the 2,000 or so rebels and, presumably, their Angolan and Cuban supporters...
Nonetheless, Mobutu was making the most of his moment of victory. Once the rebel retreat had begun, he flew to the region, where he was dutifully hailed by cheering crowds as the "savior of Shaba." As drum majorettes danced before le Guide, the well-coached crowds belted out songs of praise. Sample: "We are not afraid of the menace of mercenaries, for we have Mobutu, our guide and our faith...
...will not leave until I set foot in Mutshatsha," Mobutu declared grandly, referring to the town in western Shaba that had been hastily abandoned without a fight in late March. Sure enough, it fell the next morning, and he was soon off in his leopard-skin-carpeted helicopter to inspect it. He found Mutshatsha deserted of civilians but little damaged. Producing some Soviet-made weapons abandoned by the rebels, Mobutu declared: "What you have seen proves that the Russians are the real enemy...