Word: sese
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...things considered, it was not a bad week for Zaïre's beleaguered President, Mobutu Sese Seko. After all, he had been struggling for a month to combat, both politically and militarily, the invasion of his country's Shaba region by exiles who had fled the former secessionist province of Katanga in the mid-1960s. Finally, last week, Mobutu got some important signs of support from his friends...
...autocratic ruler Mobutu Sese Seko soon to be a President in exile? That was one possibility being considered by Western diplomats in Kinshasa last week as the 2,000 to 5,000 Katangese exiles invading Zaire's Shaba region continued to gain ground easily. In a strange war without battles, the exiles seemed to be conquering sizable swatches of what was once called Katanga province without effective opposition from Mobutu's forces there...
...mineral-rich Shaba region (formerly Katanga province) into a knee-deep quagmire last week. The downpour further obscured the mysterious war being waged between about 2,000 invaders from neighboring Angola (TIME, March 28) and the forces of Zaïre's autocratic President Mobutu Sese Seko. After launching a few pinprick air raids, Mobutu's Army Chief of Staff Bumba Moaso Djogi claimed that the intruders were in retreat, "abandoning thousands of corpses" behind them...
...Congo. After the central government crushed that movement (with U.N. and U.S. help) in 1963, many Katangese soldiers fled across the border to Angola. Eventually they joined forces with the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (M.P.L.A.), largely because their old enemy, Zaïrian President Mobutu Sese Seko, was supporting a rival Angolan guerrilla group, Holden Roberto's National Front for the Liberation of Angola (F.N.L.A.). Now, apparently, Agostinho Neto's M.P.L.A. government is helping the Katangese to even an old score with Mobutu...
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance has justified America's emergency aid to Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire's president, on the grounds that the Katangese rebels now threatening Zaire's stability are actually fighting for Angola, but he has offered no evidence of such outside interest. Certainly the Katangese have long found a haven in Angola, but the Katangese secessionist movement is a longstanding internal struggle in Zaire. In that context, the aid to Mobutu seems to be simply giving support to a corrupt regime that was installed in a U.S.-inspired military takeover and has little support in the countryside...