Heart Specialist

"The Congo is the heart of Africa," Joseph Mobutu likes to boast. "When the heart is ailing, the rest of the body suffers. But the heart has resumed its normal beat." By any standard, the Congo's President has reason to be proud of his country's recent progress. When the Belgian Congo received its independence ten years ago this week, it was woefully ill prepared for self-rule; of its 14 million citizens, only 13 were university graduates. On the fifth day of independence, the army rose in mutiny. In the ensuing seven years, the mineral-rich land was ravaged again and again by secession, guerrilla uprisings and plundering by its own soldiers.

Now, as it celebrates the anniversary of its freedom, the country is at peace. The copper mines of Katanga are working at full capacity. At Inga Rapids, a project to begin damming the Congo River is under way at last. Its first stage, a 150-megawatt dam, will be finished by 1972. Even the interior city of Kisangani, formerly Stanleyville, which suffered terrible damage during the Simba rebellion of 1964-65, is returning to life. The town glitters with a coat of fresh paint in honor of a visit by Belgium's King Baudouin, who arrived in the Congo for the anniversary.

Much of the credit for the Congo's survival belongs to Mobutu, 39, the former army commander who speaks with passion about his military takeover in 1965. "While we were fighting on all fronts to end the rebellion and unite the country," he told TIME Correspondent James Wilde last week, "others amused themselves by running for President or Premier or Parliament. We thought law-and-order was more important than senseless politicking."

The key to Mobutu's own survival has been the army and, specifically, the 5,000-man paratroop guard made up mostly of kinsmen from his own small Bangala tribe. Even today, Mobutu spends his nights at a luxurious villa in the paratroopers' camp outside Kinshasa. From the beginning, Mobutu has ruled with an iron hand. He dissolved the Parliament, the 44 political parties and seven trade unions, and cracked down hard on student dissidents and potential rivals alike. To charges of dictatorship he replies angrily: "It was the foreigners who taught Africans to boo their chiefs and who introduced the concepts of left and right. When I, as the chief, shout or seize my rod to chastise, I do not do so out of malice, but rather for the happiness of everyone."

Lumumba Monument. Mobutu is very happy in the role of a grand chief. He flies around Kinshasa in an Alouette helicopter piloted by a silver-haired Swede, drives about in Mercedes 600 limousines and sails the Congo River in his yacht the M.S. President Mobutu. Besides his house in the paratroop camp, he maintains a palace on Kinshasa's Mount Stanley and lavish villas in Lausanne and Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. To counteract rumors that he is a neocolonialist at heart, he has sought to identify himself with his old enemy Patrice Lumumba. Currently he is building a $10 million monument to Lumumba near the capital.

More important, however, Mobutu is. credited with restoring the Congolese economy by stabilizing the currency and turning the national treasury's $265 million deficit into a $250 million surplus. Mobutu's one-man rule has worked so well, in fact, that many foreign diplomats, mindful that he suffered a mild heart attack earlier this year, worry about what would happen if he were no longer in command. They know full well that the Congo's new-found tranquillity could disappear quickly in a moment of national crisis. Only three weeks ago, a small band of Simba rebels seized the town of Kalemin, formerly Albertville, on Lake Tanganyika. The Simbas held the town for 24 hours before they were driven back into the bush by Mobutu's army.

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