Insurgency in Zaire

I have been watching the rebel takeover in Zaire on television. I am sick to my stomach watching young boys cruelly beating and executing other boys without benefit of trial or proper inquiry.

What an abysmal thing it is to be shown once again what a terribly flawed species humankind is--all over the planet--to be able to create for ourselves a mind-set which allows us to kill for spite and sport. And to realize what an underachiever God is.

SHELDON KELLER

Los Angeles

* The front-page photo of a Zairian execution (May 19) marked yet another low for The Times. I understand your need to compete with blood-and-guts tabloid television, but prefer a little more news analysis and a little less visual drama in a major publication. While I’m sure I have a “right to know” that one of Mobutu’s henchmen met his maker in Kinshasa, I can do without the picture.

MIKE O’SULLIVAN

Studio City

* In “Zaire Rebel Leader Resists Pressure to Keep His Word” (May 15) Laurent Kabila is portrayed--without balance--as a kind of obstreperous primitive who does not have the higher interest of humanity at heart. But why should he not be suspicious of the U.S. State Department, the U.N. and the Organization of African Unity? They all conspired to keep Mobutu Sese Seko in power all these years.

The U.S. gave tacit approval to Mobutu’s taking power 32 years ago; it kept him in power. The paramount American interest has never been the people of Congo/Zaire, but first to prevent the Congo and its resources from falling under Soviet influence and latterly--so it must seem to Kabila--to guarantee American control over the country’s resources.

And why should Kabila commit himself wholeheartedly to quick elections? In developing countries, characterized by ethnic fragmentation and weak institutions of national identity, elections are a highly divisive enterprise. Why should Kabila and his people overthrow Mobutu only to surrender their prize to a process that has worked badly in Africa?

FREDERIC HUNTER

Santa Barbara

* I had the occasion to meet Mobutu Sese Seko (then Joseph Mobutu) in Kinshasa in 1971. At dinner, I was seated with one of his ministers--of culture, I believe--and asked her how she would prefer to be addressed.

“Citoyenne,” she said. “We are all just ‘Citizen’ now. Nobody is better than anyone else.”

Later at dinner, the minister fell to talking about her boys at home. “How many do you have?” I asked politely. “Oh, 12 or 13.”

“Really?” I said, genuinely surprised. “You don’t look nearly that old!”

“Oh, no,” she laughed. “They’re not my children. They’re my boys, my servants.”

“But didn’t you say that everyone was now ‘Citizen?’ ”

“Well, yes, of course. But surely not ‘boys.’ ”

DICK RORABACK

Woodland Hills

* If anything could ever serve as a catalyst for a taxpayer revolt in this country, it would be the outrage that should be engendered by the revelation of the extent of the private fortune of Mobutu. To think that the average taxpayer has to work from three to four months of each year just to meet his taxes that are then used in part to subsidize the rapacious greed of monsters like this is maddening.

The bankruptcy of our foreign policy has been self-evident for many years; our government has turned a blind eye to known corruption of the leaders in various countries who are being supported by us for a variety of reasons, none good enough to justify robbing the American taxpayer to line the pockets of the power elite in nearly all of these countries.

We profess to feel such concern for the human rights of people in many areas of the world while these gross miscarriages of justice continue to exist. What hypocrisy!

COLLEEN KIRST

Santa Barbara