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Zaire Creation of the Zairian Armed Forces
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mobutu inaugurated
his
authenticity
(see Glossary) campaign, which was intended
to reject
European values and develop a Zairian identity
(see The
Quest for Legitimacy
, ch. 1). As part of this initiative, Mobutu
changed the
name of the country to Zaire, dropped his Christian name
and
ordered his countrymen to do the same, and changed the
name of the
military to the Zairian Armed Forces (Forces Armées
Zaïroises--
FAZ).
During the mid-1970s, the FAZ experienced extensive
turmoil.
The army was shaken in mid-1975 when several generals,
colonels,
and lower-ranking officers were arrested and accused of
plotting to
overthrow the government. In August forty-one alleged
plotters,
including nine civilians, were tried in secret by a
military court
that handed down death sentences to three generals and
four other
army officers. One of the generals, Fallu Sumbu, was
considered one
of the brightest young officers in the military. Again in
1978, the
government executed eight officers and five civilians
alleged to
have plotted against Mobutu. Although it is uncertain
whether or
not these plots ever existed, according to Zaire
specialist Thomas
Turner, what is certain, "is that the purges reflected
both
generational and ethnoregional cleavages. Those eliminated
in 1975
were mainly Tetela and others from Kasai-Oriental and Kivu
regions,
while those eliminated in 1978 were mainly Luba from
KasaiOriental ." These purges also had a significant negative
impact on
a military whose performance was characterized by gross
incompetence during this period. In an interesting
sidenote that
reflects the sometimes bizarre policies of the Mobutu
regime, a
decree issued following the coup forbade marriage between
officers
and foreign women and ordered officers already married to
foreigners to give up either their wives or their
commissions.
Data as of December 1993
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