The Special Presidential Division (DSP, after the original French Division Spéciale Présidentielle) was an elite military force created by Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko in 1985 and charged with his personal security. Called the Special Presidential Brigade before being enlarged in 1986, it was one of several competing forces directly linked to the president, along with the Civil Guard and Service for Action and Military Intelligence. Trained by Israeli advisors, the DSP was among the few units paid adequately and regularly. It was commanded by Mobutu's cousin, General Etienne Nzimbi Ngbale Kongo wa Basa.
After the Rwandan Patriotic Army invaded northern Rwanda at the start of the civil war, Mobutu sent several hundred DSP troops to assist the government of Juvénal Habyarimana. In 1993, the DSP was sent to quell unrest in Masisi, North Kivu but inflamed the situation after it sided with the Hutu residents against the indigenous Bahunde. A 1996 United Nations report noted that Prime Minister Étienne Tshisekedi and his staff were subject to routine surveillance and harassment by DSP soldiers.
Famous quotes containing the words special, presidential and/or division:
“We agree fully that the mother and unborn child demand special consideration. But so does the soldier and the man maimed in industry. Industrial conditions that are suitable for a stalwart, young, unmarried woman are certainly not equally suitable to the pregnant woman or the mother of young children. Yet “welfare” laws apply to all women alike. Such blanket legislation is as absurd as fixing industrial conditions for men on a basis of their all being wounded soldiers would be.”
—National Woman’s Party, quoted in Everyone Was Brave. As, ch. 8, by William L. O’Neill (1969)
“Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“Don’t order any black things. Rejoice in his memory; and be radiant: leave grief to the children. Wear violet and purple.... Be patient with the poor people who will snivel: they don’t know; and they think they will live for ever, which makes death a division instead of a bond.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)