ABSTRACT
In a coordinated effort to clearly evaluate Zaire's economic state and create a modicum of financial order, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Paris Club organized a team of senior financial experts to replace local officials in key economic posts in Kinshasa. The Blumenthal team intended to carry out its mission of restoring Zaire's fiscal and financial viability by allowing the small number of competent Zairian technocrats to do their job without political interference. Mobutu has remained in power in Zaire and has recently made political life more open, but the economy remains in a state of crisis. Some radical critics of the bund have assumed that it was the United States that propped up the Zairian economy in the mid-1970s so that it could use Zaire's territory for covert attacks against Marxist rebels in neighboring Angola. The IMF intervened in each case in part due to pressure from the Paris Club to instill greater financial discipline in Zaire.
