JEWELS FOR JESUS

WHAT DO TELEVANGELIST PAT ROBERTSON AND A RUTHLESS DICTATOR HAVE IN COMMON? DIAMONDS, FOR ONE THING

Who would expect to find diamonds on the souls of evangelical American missionaries in Zaire? Situated in the bull's-eye of Africa, Zaire has 43 million citizens scratching out a living on roughly $500 a year apiece. Zaire's cruel, old-style dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, however, does not subsist on $500 a year--he has many millions stashed away, and right now he makes a decent income off his country's roughly $300 million-a-year diamond trade. Now, with Mobutu's permission, Zaire's diamond business has a new entrant--Pat Robertson, the American televangelist and ex-presidential candidate.

Backed by the CIA, army general Joseph-Desire Mobutu took over the...

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