Congo: The Parliament Meets; Mobutu Still Rules

For the first time in ten months, the Congo's fledgling Parliament reassembled last week in Lovanium University's handsome modern auditorium. Isolated from outside influences by an electrified barbed-wire fence, patrols of police dogs and Indian machine gunners of the U.N. force, the legislators made a forlorn stab at statesmanship. That it failed was largely the fault of two bedridden absentees: Red lining Antoine Gizenga, boss of Eastern province and heir apparent of Lumumba, and round-faced Moise Tshombe, President of the separatist state of Katanga.

By a narrow vote of 62-58, Gizenga's slate of seven candidates swept every office in the...

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