More on Zaire (now the Democratic Repbulic on Congo)
I'm curious to hear from others WAISers about whether the situation has changed".
Ronald Hilton - 3/13/02
Has any WAISer been in Zaire (Congo) recently? Stuart Rawlings reports: "I visited Zaire for three months in 1976. I went up
the Zaire (Congo) River from Kinshasa to Kisangani (in Stanley's footsteps), hitch-hiked across the Ituri Forest, lived with
Pygmies for a couple of weeks, and then watched mountain gorillas near Goma and Bukavu (where volcano and refugee
problems now abound). I recall locals calling the national airline "Air Peut-Etre", sentries everywhere acting like bandits, and
the poor Pygmies being persecuted because "President" Mobutu didn't like their "primitive" image. America was pouring
billions into Mobutu's coffers because he claimed to be anti-communist, while he was brutalizing all who stood in his way.
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