Mobutu Sese Seko

Mobutu Sese Seko, the African despot who became fantastically wealthy while his country descended deeper into poverty, died yesterday after a prolonged bout with prostate cancer. Mobutu, 66, governed Zaire for three decades before he was overthrown last May and his country was renamed Congo. Barred from visiting his European mansions and castles, he died in a military hospital in Rabat, Morocco. He had been living in a hotel in the Moroccan capital. Mobutu ranked alongside Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti as an enduring dictator who looted his nation's treasury and eventually was driven into exile.

KINSHASA, Congo - Congo's opposition leader held a private ceremony inaugurating himself president Friday after police prevented him and his supporters from gathering publicly, a spokesman said, a move that comes three days after President Joseph Kabila was sworn in for a second term. Police fired tear gas at supporters of Etienne Tshisekedi as they tried to reach Kinshasa's Martyrs' Stadium. Police also gathered near the home of Tshisekedi, 79, prompting him to hold the ceremony Friday afternoon in the company of about a dozen colleagues, said party spokesman Jean Marie Vianey Kabukanyi.

KINSHASA, Congo - Voting materials arrived late or sometimes not at all in precincts Monday throughout Democratic Republic of Congo, but elections went ahead, raising doubts about the legitimacy of a poll that already has seen at least nine people killed and could drag this enormous nation in the heart of Africa back into conflict. Country experts and opposition leaders had urged the government to delay the vote because of massive logistical problems. Some districts of Congo, which has endured decades of dictatorship and two civil wars, are so remote that ballot boxes had to be transported across muddy trails on porters' heads, and by dugout canoe across churning rivers.

Four months ago the Pied Piper of the Congo, Laurent-Desire Kabila, led his youth brigade in a take-over of Kinshasa. It was no great victory. The rag-tag forces defending the city took aim at each other instead of the invaders. Mobutu Sese Seko fled with millions of dollars of mad money stuffed in his pockets. Cancer-riddled and abandoned by his Western benefactors, he was treated like the plague. He roamed Africa and Europe begging a place to hang his leopard-spotted hat. Finally, Morocco took him in. Even in his sorry condition Mobutu remained dressed for success: a cravat to match the hat, a winged-collared tunic, and Buddy-Holly-style horn-rimmed spectacles.

As Zaire tumbles into anarchy, its ailing and absentee president is setting off a scandal in Europe with his extravagant spending habits. Mobutu Sese Seko, who has looted his nation of billions of dollars since seizing power in 1965, left this lakeside city yesterday for the south of France amid growing criticism by the Swiss that he should be home minding the affairs of his troubled nation. But it is wealthy Switzerland, not destitute Zaire, where Mobutu stores his assets. Mobutu, 66, landed in a private DC-8 jet at Nice Airport and was whisked by police-escorted motorcade to his nearby chateau in Cap Martin.

"When We Were Kings" is a ringing endorsement of slow, methodical work. Filmmaker Leon Gast shot the footage for this documentary in 1974, and has spent the last 22 years assembling, shaping and polishing the finished product. His efforts have paid off spectacularly. "When We Were Kings" is a fascinating documentary - an entertaining account of the heavyweight fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire, and a moving tribute to Ali, whose transcendent character and personality are captured in full flower.

KINSHASA, Zaire State Department: It's 'Zaire' no more After 26 years, the U.S. State Department banished he word "Zaire" from its official lexicon yesterday and adopted the name used by the new leader in Kinshasa: the Democratic Republic of Congo. "Zaire went away on Friday afternoon," said department spokesman Nicholas Burns, alluding to the day when the deposed president, Mobutu Sese Seko, fled the capital. "That country has vanished. " The country was born as the Democratic Republic of Congo at independence in 1960, but Mobutu changed the name in 1971 in an "Africanization" plan.

Zairean rebels who overran Kisangani did not punch their way into Zaire's third-largest city as much as they simply walked in unmolested, according to initial reports emerging from the city. Rebels and reporters who flew into Kisangani Saturday night said the city was calm, and there were few indications that a pitched battle had taken place for the strategic prize in northeastern Zaire. Witnesses said most of the gunfire Friday and Saturday was related to last-minute looting by Zaire's notoriously undisciplined army troops before they fled the city in boats and minivans.

In the Kivu region of eastern Zaire, 1 million refugees are fleeing warfare and rebellion. It is one of the worst humanitarian emergencies in modern history. The vast centerpiece of Africa is falling apart. The catastrophe of Zaire, a country of 45 million people, has been long in the making, beginning in the era of colonial greed and ending after decades of Cold War strategizing, during which the United States used Zaire as a giant pawn. The troubles on its eastern border with Rwanda and Burundi are but symptoms of the greater malaise that has come to a head under the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko.

When it comes to freedom, Nelson Mandela takes no tea for the fever. In his blunt, candid style, he walked up and down Secretary of State James Baker's back for meeting with South African President F.W. de Klerk. More and more, Mandela is strengthening his position as South Africa's prince of peace in much the same way that Mobutu Sese Seko had set himself up as Zaire's national pimp. For the last 26 years, the prince sacrificed his own freedom in prison that others might be free.

KINSHASA, Congo - Congo's opposition leader held a private ceremony inaugurating himself president Friday after police prevented him and his supporters from gathering publicly, a spokesman said, a move that comes three days after President Joseph Kabila was sworn in for a second term. Police fired tear gas at supporters of Etienne Tshisekedi as they tried to reach Kinshasa's Martyrs' Stadium. Police also gathered near the home of Tshisekedi, 79, prompting him to hold the ceremony Friday afternoon in the company of about a dozen colleagues, said party spokesman Jean Marie Vianey Kabukanyi.

KINSHASA, Congo - Voting materials arrived late or sometimes not at all in precincts Monday throughout Democratic Republic of Congo, but elections went ahead, raising doubts about the legitimacy of a poll that already has seen at least nine people killed and could drag this enormous nation in the heart of Africa back into conflict. Country experts and opposition leaders had urged the government to delay the vote because of massive logistical problems. Some districts of Congo, which has endured decades of dictatorship and two civil wars, are so remote that ballot boxes had to be transported across muddy trails on porters' heads, and by dugout canoe across churning rivers.

It's taken 35 years for the music-drenched documentary "Soul Power" to make its way to the screen. But in this age of Obama, a belated look back at a time when some noted African-Americans first got to connect with their African roots and flex their "I'm Black and I'm Proud" soul power muscles at a big festival in Zaire (now Congo) seems somehow appropriate and fitting. Starring the likes of James Brown, B.B King, Bill Withers and Celia Cruz & The Fania All-Stars, the Zaire '74 festival in Kinshasa was planned to coincide with the Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman "Rumble in the Jungle" - a championship boxing match immortalized in a separate documentary "When We Were Kings.

Four months ago the Pied Piper of the Congo, Laurent-Desire Kabila, led his youth brigade in a take-over of Kinshasa. It was no great victory. The rag-tag forces defending the city took aim at each other instead of the invaders. Mobutu Sese Seko fled with millions of dollars of mad money stuffed in his pockets. Cancer-riddled and abandoned by his Western benefactors, he was treated like the plague. He roamed Africa and Europe begging a place to hang his leopard-spotted hat. Finally, Morocco took him in. Even in his sorry condition Mobutu remained dressed for success: a cravat to match the hat, a winged-collared tunic, and Buddy-Holly-style horn-rimmed spectacles.

What to say about Mobutu Sese Seko, the 66-year-old kleptocrat who died? Good riddance. Africa's possibilities look more hopeful as the monster who ruled the former Zaire for 32 years until May passes from the scene. He paid himself 17 percent of the budget and looted maybe $5 billion in a country one-fourth the size of America, with per-capita gross domestic product of about $400 a year. For such enduring contributions to human misery, he merits an exception to speaking no ill of the dead.

Mobutu Sese Seko, the African despot who became fantastically wealthy while his country descended deeper into poverty, died yesterday after a prolonged bout with prostate cancer. Mobutu, 66, governed Zaire for three decades before he was overthrown last May and his country was renamed Congo. Barred from visiting his European mansions and castles, he died in a military hospital in Rabat, Morocco. He had been living in a hotel in the Moroccan capital. Mobutu ranked alongside Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti as an enduring dictator who looted his nation's treasury and eventually was driven into exile.

KINSHASA, Zaire State Department: It's 'Zaire' no more After 26 years, the U.S. State Department banished he word "Zaire" from its official lexicon yesterday and adopted the name used by the new leader in Kinshasa: the Democratic Republic of Congo. "Zaire went away on Friday afternoon," said department spokesman Nicholas Burns, alluding to the day when the deposed president, Mobutu Sese Seko, fled the capital. "That country has vanished. " The country was born as the Democratic Republic of Congo at independence in 1960, but Mobutu changed the name in 1971 in an "Africanization" plan.

It was the final chapter to Mobutu Sese Seko's 32-year-old dictatorship: The remnants of his corrupt regime fled the Zairean capital yesterday as Laurent Kabila's rebel army marched into Kinshasa, triumphant. Everything was gone, perhaps even Zaire, as Kabila has pledged to rename the country the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a variation on its Belgian colonial name. Kinshasa residents lined the streets to welcome the rebels as they entered the city of five million people.

Zairean rebels who overran Kisangani did not punch their way into Zaire's third-largest city as much as they simply walked in unmolested, according to initial reports emerging from the city. Rebels and reporters who flew into Kisangani Saturday night said the city was calm, and there were few indications that a pitched battle had taken place for the strategic prize in northeastern Zaire. Witnesses said most of the gunfire Friday and Saturday was related to last-minute looting by Zaire's notoriously undisciplined army troops before they fled the city in boats and minivans.

"When We Were Kings" is a ringing endorsement of slow, methodical work. Filmmaker Leon Gast shot the footage for this documentary in 1974, and has spent the last 22 years assembling, shaping and polishing the finished product. His efforts have paid off spectacularly. "When We Were Kings" is a fascinating documentary - an entertaining account of the heavyweight fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire, and a moving tribute to Ali, whose transcendent character and personality are captured in full flower.