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Published 20th June 1997

Vol 38 No 13

Congo-Kinshasa

Paid fighters – and their paymasters

We reveal new facts about the Mobutu regime's final, failed attempts to hire a mercenary army

As the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko tottered to its end, his generals were negotiating a rescue package with former South African military men. The President approved the plan, made by his last Premier and Defence Minister, General Likulia Bolongo, and the then army Chief of Staff, Gen. Kpama Baramoto Kata. Their counter-offensive would have involved over 500 heavily armed South African airmen and soldiers, many of whom had previously worked for the Pretoria- based Executive Outcomes (EO) in Angola and Sierra Leone.

And across the river

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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Within weeks of Mobutu's fall, Brazzaville erupts on the other side of the Congo River

None of the protagonists emerge with any credit from the murderous struggle for power in Brazzaville. The fighting precedes the presidential election, which President Pascal Lissouba still insists...

In between the killers

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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Democracy, as well as thousands of lives, is being lost as the army fights the Islamists

The battered opposition, Western governments and the international media reacted warily to the declared results of Algeria's general elections on 5 June. The pro-regime Rassemblement National Démocratique (RND),...

Not Charlie's aunt

Banker Johnson-Sirleaf squares up to warlord Taylor in a tough election next month

Two frontrunners dominate the election campaign which started on 16 June: ex-Finance Minister and former United Nations Development Programme Africa Director Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and ex-warlord Charles Taylor. Taylor...

Biya election

The President's team arranged his Assembly majority; next comes his own election

President Paul Biya and his Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais (RDPC) look likely to get away with another flawed election. The RDPC claims to have won 109 of...

Pointers

A brigadier calls

Washington officials are talking of a major review on Sudan policy and a harder line against the National Islamic Front government as opposition forces in southern and eastern...

Addis and Al Itahad

Ethiopia has won another round in its war against Islamists. Somalia's main Islamist movement, Al Itahad al Islami, lost its last major bases to an Ethiopian assault on...

Mouldy money

Somalia's banknotes are falling apart but attempts to replace them are causing new problems. Ali Mahdi, self-proclaimed President in North Mogadishu, tried to bring in new notes five...

Face to face

The first official face-to-face talks between Polisario and Morocco, on the United Nations' referendum plan in Lisbon on 23-25 June, are being hailed as a breakthrough. Morocco had...

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