Zaire

Zaire and Somalia have notable differences. Zaire has five times as many people and three times the land area. Zaire is much richer in resources, and therefore matters more to the outside world. Zaire's society is breaking down, while Somalia's has broken down. And what happens to Zaire is more Washington's responsibility than Somalia is.Last weekend's mutiny of troops paid in new currency they consider worthless, the death of some 1,000 people in riots, the murder of the French ambassador and the rescue of Europeans in Kinshasa by French troops crossing the Congo River from the Republic of Congo are part of the death agony of President Mobutu Sese Seko's regime.

Robert W. "Bob" Roche, a former Peace Corps volunteer who later worked in Africa with Catholic Relief Services, died Jan. 12 of undetermined causes at Sanctuary at Holy Cross, a Burtonsville senior living community. The Columbia resident was 61. "We are awaiting the results of an autopsy as to the cause of death," said his son, Robert L. Roche, who lives in Washington. Robert Winslow "Bob" Roche was born and raised in Monroeville, Pa., where he graduated in 1968 from Gateway Senior High School.

The Ebola virus, named for a river by which the first identification of it was made, is bad enough. Based on (admittedly slight) experience, 90 percent of people who get it die a horrible death from uncontrollable bleeding. It is not (based on that same experience) easy to catch. Contact with blood or bodily fluids is needed. That includes shared needles. It makes underfunded Third World hospitals reusing hypodermic needles dangerous.The first identified outbreak of Ebola virus hemorrhagic fever occurred in Zaire in 1976, and the next two in Zaire and southern Sudan three years later.

On September 5, 2009, ZAIRE S. GROSS; loving son of Darney and Kenneth; dearest brother of Jasmine, Tony and Kai. He is also survived by a host of relatives and friends. Zaire attended St. Ambrose Catholic School, Wild Lake High School and Howard Community College. Friends may visit the FAMILY OWNED MARCH FUNERAL HOME WEST, INC., 4300 Wabash Avenue, on Friday after 8:30 AM where the family will receive friends from 6 to 7 PM. the family will also receive friends on Saturday at Touch of Love Bible Church, 13503 Baltimore Avenue, Laurel, MD 20707 at 10 AM followed by funeral services at 11 AM. Interment King Memorial Park.

London -- AND NOW, from remote Africa, more bad news. In Zaire, there is an outbreak of Ebola, a killer virus without an antidote. But our world is wracked with disasters: Must we care about this one?One reason why we must is that Zaire is a very big country -- about one-third the size of the United States. Another reason is that Zaire borders on other big countries. Its rivers flow into many neighboring lands. Though World Health Organization spokesmen say transmission of the virus has been greatly reduced, if not completely halted, it will be difficult to isolate Zaire or its epidemics.

THE HOMECOMING of President Mobutu Sese Seku after four months in Europe was the best thing that could happen to troubled Zaire in the short term. He was running his regime by phone, diplomats attest. Even his enemies give him some credit for holding the country together. The best use he could possibly make of this probably brief presence, however, would be to prepare an orderly departure.After international agencies and donor nations suspended Zaire's aid, the dictator who seized power with U.S. support in 1965 pledged to hold nationwide elections next June.

KINSHASA, Zaire -- From his plush 15th-floor hotel suite, far above the broad Congo River, Mukalay Msungu Banza juggled three cellular phones, taking calls from an ambassador, a government minister and party loyalists.All wanted the news. When will Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire's dictator since 1965, come home from the French Riviera, where he has been recuperating after his treatment for prostate cancer August?This week. Definitely. Maybe."The population can feel the void, the absence of the president," said Banza, a top Mobutu aide.

THE UNITED STATES will not soon live down its long support of one of the world's more brutal and venal dictators, Mobutu Sese Seko, who died Sunday, at age 66, while in exile in Morocco.None of the countries that propped up his brutal reign over the years would provide medical treatment for him in his final months. It marked a symbolic end of the era of the Big Man in Africa, though a few still remain.Abandoned by the United States at Cold War's end, befriended by France seeking influence in a former Belgian colony, Mr. Mobutu had looted gigantic Zaire with an iron hand for 31 years.

ALL THE REASONS the U.S. has for not rushing headstrong into Zaire, Canada has as well. While 18 American troops died as a result of mission creep in Somalia in 1993, Canadian troops were accused of torture and murder, leading to scandal and the resignation of a chief of staff.In the latest African disaster -- Zaire -- the underlying political problems have not been faced. The one million Hutus fleeing their camps in eastern Zaire were held there by militia who had perpetrated the 1994 Rwanda genocide, who used the camps for raids on Rwanda and who provoked the attacks that dispersed the refugees.

KISANGANI, Zaire -- The three guerrillas looked menacing amid the market stalls. Two held shiny assault rifles. Their leader, a huge man with a bushy beard, wore a pistol at his side. Suddenly, they stopped and gruffly ordered Marie Lifaefi to fill a bottle with cooking oil from the vat at her feet.When she finished, the leader slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out money. He smiled, paid for the palm oil, and the rebels wandered on.Behind them, Lifaefi, 40, seemed stunned. "Before, soldiers took everything by force," she explained.

A peace pact signed in Africa last week generated cheers at a Carroll County-based charity where officials hope to extend their medical aid to areas that have gone years without a doctor's services. Besides enabling volunteers to travel more safely, the agreement between leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo could help Interchurch Medical Assistance raise money for its aid programs, an official at the charity said. "Peace will make a huge difference," said Dan Metzel, grants manager for the group, which is using a $25 million federal grant to re-establish Congo's health care system.

A peace pact signed in Africa last week generated cheers at a Carroll County-based charity where officials hope to extend their medical aid to areas that have gone years without a doctor's services. Besides enabling volunteers to travel more safely, the agreement between leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo could help Interchurch Medical Assistance raise money for its aid programs, an official at the charity said. "Peace will make a huge difference," said Dan Metzel, grants manager for the group, which is using a $25 million federal grant to re-establish Congo's health care system.

Sarah DeLauder Reinecke, who had been a missionary in Zaire and Zambia, died Saturday of pulmonary failure at the Wesley Home in Mount Washington. She was 90. In a career that took her from the corporate world of Manhattan to the plains of Africa, Miss Reinecke began working in 1954 as a home economist and missionary in what was then Lodja, Belgian Congo, later Zaire. The country is now called Congo. Given the name of "Mama Ambatshe," which means "she has done everything," by her African students, Miss Reinecke taught hygiene, child care, nutrition, agriculture, cooking and women's development.

Unlike the passing of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa, that of Mobutu Sese Seko, late of Zaire, will not be mourned around the world. Especially not by me. I spent 10 terrifying days in 1983 detained by the Zairian secret police at the orders of "the guide," as Mobutu called himself.It was a trifle compared to what happened to the average political prisoner there. But the ordeal taught me an appreciation for the U.S. Bill of Rights and skepticism of U.S. foreign policy, which was to support Mobutu until nearly the end.I had just completed an arduous six-week journey up the Congo River and across Zaire, now renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo.

THE UNITED STATES will not soon live down its long support of one of the world's more brutal and venal dictators, Mobutu Sese Seko, who died Sunday, at age 66, while in exile in Morocco.None of the countries that propped up his brutal reign over the years would provide medical treatment for him in his final months. It marked a symbolic end of the era of the Big Man in Africa, though a few still remain.Abandoned by the United States at Cold War's end, befriended by France seeking influence in a former Belgian colony, Mr. Mobutu had looted gigantic Zaire with an iron hand for 31 years.

LUANDA, Angola -- In an important spillover effect of the war in Zaire, government troops in neighboring Angola have attacked territory controlled by their longtime rebel enemies, who lost their most important backer when Mobutu Sese Seko, the Zairian dictator, was defeated.Military officials and diplomats say the Angolan government, which signed a peace treaty with the rebels in 1994, has launched offensives deep in the country's diamond territory.Government officials say they have simply been trying to patrol their border against armed militias and soldiers loyal to Mobutu who are trying to escape the former Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

LUBUMBASHI, Zaire -- Until seven months ago, the man who declared himself president of what he has renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo was an obscure rebel leader with a history of starting quixotic Marxist revolts that fell apart. He had never administered anything larger than a small socialist commune in the mountains of eastern Zaire in the 1970s.Now Laurent Desire Kabila has succeeded in ousting President Mobutu Sese Seko and becoming the next ruler of Zaire, a vast country of more than 40 million people whose tribal and regional conflicts would try the skills of the most masterful statesman.

A new round of tragedy began in Africa as Zairian troops uprooted at least 85,000 refugees from camps near Goma in recent days and pushed them toward borders, most to Rwanda and some to Burundi. Thugs with guns rob, pillage and rape to prod the exodus and to profit from it.The refugees are mostly Hutu civilians who never harmed anyone. Some are families of soldiers. Whether from Rwanda or Burundi, they fled Tutsi armies fearing retaliation for atrocities or genocide perpetrated by other Hutu against other Tutsi, in both countries in the recent and distant past.

TRYING TO ERASE 32 years of misrule, its newest savior has renamed Zaire as the Democratic Republic of Congo and reimposed the flag it took at independence. As a fiery leftist of the 1960s, President Laurent Kabila is trying symbolically to turn the calendar back three decades and redo things right. But in real policy, the only way is forward.Mr. Kabila has no track record in government. Contradictory messages from him told each hearer what he or she wished to hear. A radio broadcast in his name was full of 1960s revolutionary rhetoric.

LUBUMBASHI, Zaire -- Until seven months ago, the man who declared himself president of what he has renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo was an obscure rebel leader with a history of starting quixotic Marxist revolts that fell apart. He had never administered anything larger than a small socialist commune in the mountains of eastern Zaire in the 1970s.Now Laurent Desire Kabila has succeeded in ousting President Mobutu Sese Seko and becoming the next ruler of Zaire, a vast country of more than 40 million people whose tribal and regional conflicts would try the skills of the most masterful statesman.