tituting the civil war and placing a drastic predicament of political unrest. Pro-Lumumba soldiers invaded northern Katanga, and the UN Congo Command sent troop there to forestall them. Shortly after this event Lumumba was tortured and put to death; taking his place was Joseph-Desire Mobutu. (Lerner, 36)A fragile coalition organized by Tshombe won the parliamentary elections of early 1965, but shortly thereafter Kasavubu ousted Tshombe from the premiership. In late 1965 Mobutu again intervened, installing himself as president in place of Kasavubu. In1966 Mobutu established a presidential form of government; the change was formalized in a new constitution adopted in 1967. (In his first years as president, Mobutu brought political stability to the country, although there were a number of short-lived regionally based revolts, and students occasionally protested his allegedly dictatorial rule. Some foreign-owned mining firms were nationalized, and in 1966 the European names of several cities were replaced by African names (Lopoldville became Kinshasa, Stanleyville, Kisangani). (Schatzberg, 78) In 1970 Mobutu was elected to a 7-year term as president, and in the early '70s he undertook a major program of Africanization. In1971 the country's name was changed to Zaire; in 1972 the president renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko, at the same time urging other Zairians to drop their non-African names. In 1973 many foreign concerns were taken over by the government. Some economic-development projects were completed, but Zaire remained dependent on income from copper exports. World copper prices fell sharply in the mid-1970s, and largely as a result of the consequent drop in Zaire's export earnings the country's foreign debt had risen to nearly $4 billion by 1980. (Background Notes, 5) At the same time the domestic economy experienced high rates of unemployment and inflation. In 1977, and again in 1978, Zaire (with the help...
