Word: mobutu
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...look a lot less tall. Not that the Congolese army is cutting them down to size; the swaggering "meres" could probably hang on for a while at Bukavu, the old resort town on the Congo's eastern frontier where they holed up three weeks ago. President Joseph Mobutu's regulars are bothering them so little that the only raiding that the mercenaries have been doing has been in Bukavu's abandoned wine cellars...
...time is all on the side of the Congolese troops-however reluctant they are to attack. Only two weeks ago, Schramme proclaimed that his mission was to bring down Mobutu's "dictatorial and tribal" regime, and restore Moise Tshombe to his rightful place in a "democratic" Congo. Now Schramme has abandoned that ambitious task and an nounced his willingness to call off the two-month-old revolt in exchange for an amnesty and a safe conduct for his men, including an estimated 1,000 Katangese gendarmes...
Party Ultimatum. In Brussels, the reaction was angry and immediate. Fearful that another anti-white bloodletting was imminent, Foreign Minister Pierre Harmel flew home from a vacation in southern France to appear on radio and television and demand that Mobutu guarantee the safety of the 40,000 Belgians who live in the Congo. Otherwise, Harmel implied, Belgium would cut off its $70 million-a-year aid program and order its citizens home, a move that could mean the virtual col lapse of all the Congo's industries, communications and civil service...
Despite the economic ruin that would follow a massive Belgian withdrawal, Mobutu was anything but contrite. He denied personal responsibility for the rioting, insisted that all well-meaning whites were perfectly safe in his country. If there was any anti-Belgian hysteria, he said, it was all to be blamed on the mercenaries sitting boldly in Bukavu and issuing ultimatums calling for the return of Moise Tshombe...
Even more unsettling, though, was an ultimatum issued by Mobutu's own party headquarters, presumably with presidential approval. Unless the mercenaries evacuated Bukavu within ten days, it said, "all those supporting them will be spectacularly punished." In Congolese terms, that could be taken to mean death to all whites...