:27:11
(Mailer) 'Mobutu was everywhere.
:27:14
'He was the equivalent of Stalin.'
:27:16
'You saw his picture everywhere.'
:27:18
Part of the vanity of dictators,
with the exception of Mussolini,
:27:22
who was half ugly
and half attractive,
:27:25
most dictators are unbelievably ugly
or plain - Franco, Hitler...
:27:34
'Mobutu looked the archetype,
the epitome of a closet sadist.
:27:38
'Sort of guy, if you meet him
in a bar, you think, "Oh, my God!
:27:42
'"Who are the poor women
who are associated with this fella?"
:27:51
'And since Mobutu was
an extraordinarily practical man,
:27:55
'down under the stadium,
which seated 100,000 people,
:27:59
'were detention pens
and rooms and chambers
:28:02
'where you could imprison as many
as a couple of thousand people.
:28:07
'Before the fight came, the criminal
rate in Zaire began to go up.'
:28:11
A few white foreigners
had been killed, driving their cars.
:28:16
And Mobutu decided that this would be
a disaster in terms of publicity,
:28:21
so on a given day he had a thousand
of the leading criminals in Kinshasa
:28:28
rounded up and put in this stadium,
down in the detention pens.
:28:34
'And then the legend has it, and I
suspect the legend may even be true,
:28:38
'that he had 100
taken at random and killed them.
:28:42
'And the reason was
a particularly simple one
:28:44
'from Mobutu's point of view.'
:28:46
Career criminals have connections who
protect them when they're in trouble,
:28:51
and by making this kill
of 100 out of 1,000 arbitrarily,
:28:54
Mobutu was saying "Your connections
are worth nothing. I am Jehovah.
:28:59
'"I will blast you out of existence
if you fool around with me."'