Mobutu Redux?

In October 1996 a rebellion broke out in eastern Zaire and spread with astonishing rapidity from one end of the country to the other, toppling in the course of seven months the thirty-year dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko. For those with an interest in Zaire—as for Zaireans themselves—the unfolding history of that rebellion has entailed a gradual, painful process of disillusionment. At times, as belated revelations of rebel atrocities appeared in the press, the experience has been like aw...