The Congo: The Cops Protest

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The Congo's latest mutiny began on payday. Opening up their pay envelopes last week, Leopoldville's 3,000-man police force discovered that their demand for a 25% wage hike had not been met. At dawn the next morning, the angry cops overpowered their own officers, then raided Leopoldville's city hall, where they took some two dozen hostages, including two deputy mayors and the mayor's pregnant wife. Barricading themselves in their police barracks, the well-armed cops waited for the government to ante up more money.

Instead, Premier Cyrille Adoula's government dispatched the Congolese army commander, General Joseph Mobutu, and units of red-bereted paracommandos to the police compound. Ordering his men not to shoot, Mobutu opened the camp's gate and strode in alone and unarmed to face the mutineers. Roughly he yanked the ringleaders out of the mob one by one, and demanded that they give up. With that the revolt collapsed, and Mobutu—his well-creased trousers stained with a spot of blood—ordered the mutiny's leaders stripped to their underwear and driven off to jail through the jeering crowd at the camp's gate.