Abstract

Editorials

The article focuses on several issues related to politics from the world. For the first time in the century of chaos that began when Belgium's King Leopold brutally invaded central Africa, Zaire, the former Belgian Congo, may be on the brink of peace. Editorialists are cranking out tired old nostrums about the threat of chaos and the need for dialogue to end the current rebellion against Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. They ignore the fact that Mobutu's kleptocracy, a rule by theft created with U.S. connivance more than three decades ago and sustained by military repression, has been nothing less than an instrument of constant war against his own people. In April 1992, a week after being elected Albania's first post-Communist president, Sali Berisha and some close friends explored the new presidential office in Tirana, Albania like eager children. Almost five years later, hope for democracy has been flushed away and the country is in ruins. The prisons are empty, schools are burned and half the navy has defected to Italy.