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Post by TheRomanSlayer on May 16, 2021 21:13:55 GMT
Chapter Sixty: The African Odyssey
"Donatien Mahele Lieko Bokungu rose to prominence as one of Zaire's top generals, and also one of Mobutu Sese Seko's biggest critics. His decision to exile himself, and several of his followers from Zaire, would prove to be a smart decision, as he wanted to distance himself from Mobutu. The Bokungu faction of the Zairian military eventually stayed in France, before the outbreak of the Second Russian Civil War had catapulted the Zairian exiles to fight for the Russian rebel side that was fighting against the Soviet loyalist government. However, pervasive anti-African racism from among the more nationalistic Russian rebel soldiers had prompted Alexander Lebed to assign Bokungu and his loyal fighters to the East German volunteers who were also fighting on the rebel side. It was largely thanks to his connections with the East German volunteers that Bokungu would later call for their assistance in helping Zaire retrain its military, and indeed, the same volunteers who fought alongside Bokungu and his followers would go on to staff several so-called Private Military Academies, among which the infamous Clausewitz Defense Consultants was one of them. The premature death of Mobutu Sese Seko in June 18, 1994, from a prolonged stroke, had resulted in Bokungu and his followers being recalled from the battlefields of the western regions of the former Soviet Union, and to return to Zaire. In the emerging power struggle that erupted, there were several competing players that are vying for the top leadership in Zaire. In July of 1994, Kengo Wa Dondo emerged as the new President of Zaire, but his plans for a free market reform and the imposition of austerity measures had become unpopular with many of Zaire's population, many of whom had suffered from the economic hardships sustained during the Mobutu dictatorship. Waiting in the wings however, is Bokungu himself, and the fighters who accompanied him to the former Soviet Union. Bokungu had distrusted the new President, to the point where he started to blame him for the growing economic decline, as a result of President Dondo's implementation of austerity measures. Furthermore, while General Bokungu waited for the right moment, until he could launch his own coup, the events surrounding the Rwandan Genocide had forced the Zairian government to intervene in the potential mass murder of Hutu refugees who stayed in eastern Zaire by Tutsi vigilantes. Furthermore, the assassinations of both former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira, by extremists tied to the Rwandan Patriotic Front, had resulted in greater instability within eastern Zaire, as President Dondo's government struggled to handle the incoming Hutu refugees fleeing from Tutsi violence. While the assassinations had provided Hutu extremists to carry out the purges against both moderate Hutu and Tutsi politicians, General Bokungu was able to warn one of the moderates, a certain Faustin Twagiramungu, of the assassination plot, and as a result, he emerged as one of the most prominent non-extremist Hutu figurehead in Zaire. Although the Rwandan government had by that time, had gone through several interim Presidents, as well as multiple additional purges, none of them were willing to halt the genocide. Indeed, Rwanda had barely struggled to recover from their civil war, and the mutual genocide had threatened the stability of the Central Africa region. Angered at the apparent unwillingness of the Zairian government to deal with the growing instability at their eastern border, General Bokungu launched a coup against the Zairian government on September 21, 1995. As soon as Bokungu seized power, he immediately ordered the executions of politicians who were connected to the interim President, Kengo Wa Dondo, as well as Dondo himself. The brutal purges conducted by General Bokungu were carried out for a whole week, in which as many as 54,000 pro-Dondo Zairians were killed by the emerging Zairian junta. Inside eastern Zaire, the Hutu refugees rallied around Twagiramungu and a Rwandan military defector named Augustin Bizimungu, calling for other Hutus to focus instead on driving out the Rwandan Patriotic Front from Rwanda instead of carrying on with the genocide. Bokungu saw an ally in Bizimungu, and backed his efforts to retake Rwanda from Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front, only to end in Paul Kagame being driven out of Rwanda, and Bizimungu betraying Bokungu by attempting to assassinate Twagiramungu. However, the assassination attempt failed, but it did provide the necessary pretext for the later 2001 second invasion of Rwanda, this time in cooperation with Paul Kagame's RPF that had now been bolstered by the recruitment from among the Hutu refugees who remained loyal to Twagiramungu. Twagiramungu and Kagame would provide the unity that Rwanda needed, but eventually in 2004, both men had a falling out when the former had learned about the latter's role in the assassinations of Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira. The Rwandan Patriotic Front would also receive another high profile Hutu defector in Marcel Gatsinzi, who was installed by both Twagiramungu and Bokungu. However, While Bokungu's other intended diplomatic target had by now, chosen to isolate his nation diplomatically, General Bokungu would outdo even his own controversial decision to hire the ex-East Germans as mercenaries, by reaching out to Artemio Tadiar's regime in the Philippines. In response, the Tadiar regime had to scramble for a military attache who could work in Zaire, and they have already struggled to find a suitable candidate. In the end, it was Colonel Gerardo Gambala who was sent to Zaire as a military attache to General Bokungu." PBS Documentary "Bokungu: The Man Behind the Nation", released on January 18, 2018.
--- Portions from the Interview with Former Zairian Prime Minister Likulia Bolongo
CBC Live, broadcasted on July 6, 2016
Discussing the Rise of the Bokungu Pseudo-Dictatorship
Interviewer: As we commemorate the fall of the Mobutu Sese Seko dictatorship, we have witnessed the rise of an even worse authoritarian dictatorship under former Zairian General Donatien Mahele Lieko Bokungu. The scenario for Zaire was eerily similar to the rise of Artemio Tadiar as military dictator of the Philippines, but the one key difference is that Zaire also had to deal with a humanitarian crisis on its hands in the form of the Rwandan Genocide. Sitting with us today is the former Prime Minister of Zaire, Likulia Bolongo. How are you today, sir?
Bolongo: Good.
Interviewer: So what was your response to the rise of General Bokungu?
Bolongo: To be honest, it was a relief for me to hear of the late President Mobutu's unexpected death. I knew before 1994 that he suffered from a series of health problems, but the signs of a potential coup was often ignored, mostly because we were focused more on rebuilding our country after the disastrous Mobutu dictatorship.
Interviewer: Aren't you at least frightened that General Bokungu was fast becoming another military dictator on the same mold as his predecessor, or worse, General Tadiar?
Bolongo: I have personally met Artemio Tadiar when I traveled to the Philippines in June of 2007, a few weeks after they lifted the travel ban. When I arrived in the Philippines, I felt like I was in a different world. I knew the sanctions had forced the Tadiar regime to resort to unorthodox methods of economic recovery, but to see the country at least recover to levels seen before the regime of Tadiar's predecessor, I knew I'm seeing something truly different. As for how I felt about General Bokungu, he was initially a moderate figure, until external events forced him to behave in the same manner as Tadiar.
Interviewer: You are of course, referring to the controversial Zairian invasion of Rwanda in August of 1997, where General Bokungu gave the order for the Zairian military to drive out Paul Kagame's RPF, in conjunction with Augustin Bizimungo, correct?
Bolongo: Yes, and needless to say, the invasion was anything but successful. For one thing, we lost more equipment to enemy attacks than we could replace, and the Zairian military was next to useless. Bizimungu did succeed in the end, but not before attempting to kill Faustin Twagiramungu. That is, before General Bokungu would pull a Tadiar, and hire foreign military officers to help retrain his army.
Interviewer: Although it is widely known that Chilean graduates of the infamous School of the Americas were instrumental in shaping the Philippine military to what it is now, General Bokungu's choice of foreign instructors was rather....strange. What drove him to ask a bunch of unemployed former East German soldiers and officers to help train the Zairian Army?
Bolongo: Around the same time that we've seen the rise of Private Military Contractors emerging in the African continent, the rise of the so-called Clausewitz Academies was traced to the former East German officers and soldiers who were unable to join the Bundeswehr. Heinz Kessler eventually founded the Clausewitz Academy, under the name Clausewitz Defense Consultants, which was originally operating out of Tanzania and India before expanding its operations to Zaire. Although CDC was built along the lines of Sandline, and Executive Outcomes, it also functioned as a corporate fusion of a military academy and an international university.
Interviewer: Former General Kessler's presence in Africa must have been controversial back in Germany. In addition, Kessler founded Clausewitz Academy only after he was finished overhauling the Indian Armed Forces. What was your reaction to the presence of the former Nationale Volksarmee soldiers in Zaire?
Bolongo: To be honest, I heard of their reputation. However, I did not know if they were that good in battle, mainly because the NVA was never used in any missions authorized by the former Warsaw Pact.
Interviewer: How was the presence of the former East German soldiers in Zaire affected the rest of the country? Given that these guys who are now working for what is essentially a private military academy that could easily train new soldiers and officers for cheap, there might have been controversies surrounding them. Was there any problem at all?
Bolongo: Well, their training regimen was tough and strict. There were over 35% of the new recruits who dropped out of basic training supervised by the Clausewitz Academy's Kinshasa branch, but once the more dedicated recruits were graduated from these 'academies', their popularity grew. However, there were strict criteria that each recruit had to meet.
Interviewer: Such as?
Bolongo: The new recruit must not have a criminal record of any kind, including outstanding arrest warrants issued by any government, even including the UN. The UN part is huge, because Clausewitz Academy did not want to be associated with any potential war criminal that might have gained access to their training regimen.
Interviewer: But the training regimen set forth by these ex-NVA personnel were pretty much out of date, once the Cold War was over. Now, modern militaries have emphasized on professionalism and battle tactics. How can Clausewitz Academy be able to compete with the likes of the US military, or for that matter, the militaries of the other member states within NATO?
Bolongo: Clausewitz Academy's management had always emphasized the necessity of the human factor in managing a military. Even the American military officer, Paul Van Riper, had emphasized on development of the human soldier, and to never rely too much on technology to win wars.
Interviewer: All right, moving on. (pauses) The Zairian invasion of Rwanda was notable for the extensive use of the so-called 'technicals', which are basically pick-up trucks that could be mounted with any heavy weaponry, such as machine guns, automatic cannons, and even rocket launchers. When the ex-NVA personnel saw the technicals in action, they were rather impressed at how easily the personnel in charge of the technicals have managed to utilize their strengths in battle. The technicals had also impressed the Filipino military attache to the point where he suggested to General Tadiar to adopt the technicals, or infantry fighting vehicle system, as their mainstay of the Philippine military. Tadiar of course, accepted, but for practical reasons, they could not adopt it for the Philippine Marine Corps, because they are using amphibious boats to carry out their missions. How was it that the usages of the technicals had radically changed the face of warfare?
Bolongo: Well, the usage of the technicals have been integrated into what we call the combined arms tactical theory. I don't understand this at all, you may have to ask a military officer about this. I do know, from what I have seen in the Zairian invasion of Rwanda, is that the technicals are used most effectively in hit and run tactics. Unlike tanks, which could get bogged down in muddy roads, technicals are fast, cheap, and easy to maintain.
Interviewer: OK. The technicals became a backbone of the Bokungu regime, and in fact, Bokungu had also dreamt of restoring order to Zaire. In his first years in power, in addition to the 1997 invasion of Rwanda, there was also an attempt by Zaire to rebuild its shattered economy. However, given that Zaire's economy was primarily a resource extraction based one, it proved to be difficult. Did Bokungu had any help whatsoever from the international community?
Bolongo: I don't think he did, and in fact, Bokungu was determined to prevent any more foreign meddling in his country. However, that proved to be impossible, since there were several neighboring states which had a stake in re-igniting the Hutu-Tutsi conflict, most notably Rwanda. Despite all that, Rwanda was in a terrible condition to be fighting Zaire.
Interviewer: At what point did General Bolongo demonstrated to the world that he was not going to be an African carbon copy of Artemio Tadiar?
Bolongo: It was in the late 2000s when the CIA started to intervene in Zaire. By then, Bokungu had apparently built a working relationship with a Rwandan former rebel fighter named Paul Kagame, only after General Bizimungu's betrayal, and the defection of Marcel Gatsinzi. In fact, the second time that General Bokungu invaded Rwanda in 2001, he was actually helping Kagame arm and train the Rwandan Patriotic Front, as well as help integrate the Hutus and Tutsis within the PRF. Most important of all, Kagame signed a deal with Clausewitz Academy to help train the RPF guerrilla fighters, into a modern army. Bokungu saw the necessity of moderating some of his autocratic stances by sponsoring the development of Zaire’s private sector, which was non-existent during the Mobutu years.
Interviewer: Kagame’s influence on Bokungu was so intense that both men eventually signed the Rwanda-Zaire Free Trade Treaty in 2003, paving the way for a similar economic free trade zones in Central Africa a few years down the road. While South Africa was still economically ahead by 2004, Zaire and Rwanda eventually caught up to South Africa. In a way, Bokungu was both a carbon copy of Artemio Tadiar, and an original version. Some say that he was Africa’s Fabian Ver, but I think he was more like the African Alexander Lebed.
--- KIGALI FALLS TO JOINT RPF-ZAIRIAN INVASION FORCE, RWANDAN PRESIDENT BIZIMUNGU FLEES INTO EXILE IN LIBYA
The Sun
May 12, 2001
 
Zairian soldiers ride on a technical, as they advance towards the Rwandan border town of Rubavu.(Kigali, RWANDA) – In contrast to the haphazard first attempt by Zaire to invade Rwanda, that resulted in the rise of Augustin Bizimungu to power and continued the Rwandan Genocide, the second invasion of Rwanda was ruthlessly efficient. Zairian government troops, accompanied by Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front rebel guerrillas (plus Hutu recruits within the RPF, led by former Rwandan military officer Marcel Gatsinzi), had launched an organized, two-pronged attack on the Rwandan border town of Rubavu, and occupied it within just four hours, before proceeding to advance towards the capital of Kigali. Unlike the 1997 invasion of Rwanda, where the Zairian military put up an atrocious performance, leading to Bizimungu's failed assassination attempt on Faustin Twagiramungu, the 2001 invasion was the product of countless preparation and intensive training done to the reformed Zairian military by the famous Clausewitz Defense Consultants, a de facto fusion of a private military consultant company and a university founded by former East German soldiers who were unable to join the Bundeswehr, with Heinz Kessler, the mastermind of the Dresden Mutiny, as its head. Some of the ex-East German officers who staffed the Clausewitz Defense Consultants were posted on the Zairian-Rwandan border as observers, to see how their students in the reformed Zairian military fared. Because of their limited financial resources, the Clausewitz Defense Consultants personnel had to resort to an unconventional adoption of the technicals, or infantry fighting vehicles, as their mainstay mobile weapons of the Zairian military. Yet, the Zairian deployment of their technicals proved to have been more effective than the ones deployed by Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front.
“The lair of the perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide has fallen to our soldiers’ control, and we are here in Rwanda’s capital of Kigali, to stop the mutual conflict between the Hutus and Tutsis, once and for all,” announces General Donatien Mahele Lieko Bokungu, during a briefing in Kinshasa. “With our help, I believe that Paul Kagame will restore order to Rwanda, and he will become a valuable partner in our fight for peace in the sub-Saharan region of Central Africa. Augustin Bizimungu has paid the price for his treachery.”
Meanwhile, troops loyal to ousted President Augustin Bizimungu fought ferociously for the defense of Kigali, but the artillery barrage coming from the Zairian military had proven too much for the loyalist forces, who were forced to surrender to not only Paul Kagame’s RPF troops, but other rebel forces who defected to General Bokungu and the Zairian military. Around 5,000 loyalist fighters were recorded to have surrendered to the victorious rebel forces, who proceeded to interrogate every single one of them, to learn of their real loyalties, and whether or not they have taken part in the Genocide. In addition, governments of other African nations had applauded General Bokungu’s efforts to restore order in Rwanda, and the fall of the Bizimungu administration means that Zaire now has the capability to project power in the wider Central African region.
--- FROM GENOCIDE SURVIVOR TO MULTI-BILLIONAIRE: THE HEART WRENCHING STORY OF ZAIRE’S FIRST FEMALE ENTREPRENEUR
Courtesy of Time Magazine
May 28, 2016
It was a Cinderella story, unlike any other. For 25-year-old Amahoro Tuyishime, her life story would have been seen as something out of a Hollywood script. Yet, her story, like countless other Tutsi survivors’ stories, was rooted in a tragic event that befell them: the Rwandan Genocide. In July 6, Amahoro and her family silently fled across the Rwandan border to Zaire. They were careful to not run into any Hutu militias, who might be zealous enough to murder them. Luckily, luck favored the Tuyishime family, as they reached the border with Zaire, as evident by the presence of Zairian soldiers at the border. However, they were well aware of former Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s alliance with the erstwhile Rwandan government that presided over one of Africa’s worst cases of mass murders in recorded history, so they settled in eastern Zaire, where the refugee camps were erected to protect the Tutsi refugees there. However, upon arrival in the town of Kabare, the Tuyishimes were horrified to discover that the refugee camps there are dominated by their Hutu enemies.
“It was horrifying to see so many Hutus in Kabare. We pleaded with the local refugee commandant to move us to a different camp. Luckily, he agreed, since the presence of other Tutsi refugees converging on Kabare would have made things more volatile,” Amahoro’s mother said as she recalled the incident where her late husband was attacked and butchered to death by Hutu refugees inside the refugee camp. “Well, there was a truck carrying the Tutsi refugees, and we climbed aboard it. We rode for hours, until we arrived at the city of Lubumbashi.”
Lubumbashi, a city in Zaire’s region of Katanga, was an unusual destination for the Tutsi refugees in Zaire, as other Tutsi refugees normally ended up in Uganda. However, as it turned out, Hutu militias had inserted their agents among the Hutu refugees fleeing from the Tutsi reprisal attacks that was inevitable. The threat of expanding the mutual genocides from Rwanda to Zaire, along with the unexpected death of Mobutu back in June 18, 1994, had resulted in a shaky Zairian government that was swarmed with refugees on its eastern border. It was this kind of instability that would lead to the rise of Donatien Mahele Lieko Bokungu as the next dictator of Zaire. However, General Bokungu would not be idle in the potential mass murder unfolding at Zaire’s eastern border.
“In a way, General Bokungu’s rise to power was a heavenly miracle for us. He knew the threat from the genocidaires was real, and he wasted no time in launching an invasion of Rwanda to stop the attacks, but failed to do so.” Amahoro remembered the time when Zairian government troops, many of whom are barely trained and poorly armed, had struggled in the first Zairian invasion of Rwanda. “The first invasion, I think, General Bokungu considered that his personal failure. After that, they came.”
Amahoro also remembers the time she first met a strange group of white Europeans who organized their own PMCs. Like every other European in Africa, they were mercenaries. However, unlike the South African Whites, or even the Brits who worked as mercenaries in Africa, these group of mercenaries came from a country that no longer existed, and the nation that reunified them, would not take them in their new military. In 1996, General Bokungu would hire these strange mercenaries, later turned out to be members of the Clausewitz Defense Consultants, to help retrain the Zairian military. The mercenaries that Amahoro saw, were in fact former members of the East German military. To make things even more astonishing, all of them were the same mutineers who triggered the Dresden Mutiny of 1989. Although she was too young to know the events that unfolded in East Germany, she could remember the military drills that these mercenaries had performed.
“The former Ostdeutsche, as the ex-East Germans called themselves, were talented in their military drills. My mother actually remarried in 1997, and it was to a student officer cadet who joined the Clausewitz Academy, as the students called the Clausewitz Defense Consultants. They were going to university on the cheap, and to make things better, they were given top quality training that the former East German military personnel had given to them.” Amahoro laughed as she remembered saluting the officer cadets marching past during a ceremonial review in June of 1997.
Although the results were not produced right away, the effects on Zairian society from the presence of the ex-East Germans in the Clausewitz Academy was astounding. Before they were hired by General Bokungu, many Zairians had given up on the civil service, which was hopelessly corrupt under the old Mobutu regime. Even as he has implemented the policy of Zairianization, which was basically a call for rediscovering Zaire's precolonial roots, before the advent of Belgian colonialism. Since the establishment of Clausewitz Academy, the ex-East Germans had not only taught their students the basics of military leadership, but also taught the necessity of an efficient civil service. The idea of military service leading to civil service is inherently an old German tradition, going back to the days of the Kingdom of Prussia, before it led the German states to unify and form the German Empire. Although girls were not encouraged to go to the Clausewitz Academy, Heinz Kessler changed the policy in 2001, a month after the successful second Zairian invasion of Rwanda, and the installment of Paul Kagame into power.
"I heard of stories from the famous Ramsey twins, Kimberley and Beatrice, about their time at a similar institution to the one I attended, only it was run by a junior follower of Artemio Tadiar. They too, were subjected to rigid, militaristic life in their boarding schools, but as General Bokungu realized that both genders had to be integrated into the schools, he suggested to Headmaster Kessler to help establish Zaire's first international boarding school," Amahoro told reporters from Time Magazine before the article was published. "Back when I was a teenager, General Bokungu and General Tadiar had started a program, where Filipino students would be given a random pen pal to write letters to, and we would write them back."
The program continued on, long after the success of Zaire's first international boarding school had attracted the attention of other African nations, most notably Rwanda. In an instance, the educational system of Zaire was actually overhauled in the first few years of the Bokungu dictatorship. To ensure of Zaire's integration of its diverse peoples into its system, French was adopted as the language of inter-ethnic communication, although special attention was given to the other four recognized official languages of Zaire: Lingala, Kikongo, Swahili, and Tshiluba. Amahoro, who is fluent in Kinyarwanda and French, found it a bit easier to integrate into Zairian society. As she graduated third in her class in her school, the topic of post-secondary education was brought up.
"Before me, none of my family had advanced past elementary school in our education. The fact that I'm the first one in my family to not only graduate from high school, but to attend college or university, that is a huge step," Amahoro said. She showed her university certificate that she obtained after finishing four years in Strasbourg University.
Years after she and her family had fled from Rwanda, the memories of the Genocide are still fresh in her mind. Every year, they visit the memorial center in Lumumbashi, which was erected in memory of the victims of the Rwandan Genocide. Tears of grief are often shed whenever the survivors commemorate their lost loved ones.
"We missed him greatly, and some of the other survivors had to get special attention for their trauma. PTSD is sadly common among the Genocide survivors," Amahoro's mother recalled, after placing a bouquet of flowers on the steps of the memorial. "From time to time, we would get into confrontation with genocidaires, and such confrontations were so vicious, vigilante groups were formed to combat these monsters."
In 2009, General Bokungu formally stepped down as the military dictator of Zaire, and the country held its first free elections since the start of the Mobutu dictatorship. The victory of that election would go to Jean Pierre Bemba, a Belgian-educated man who was one of General Bokungu's most trusted followers. Immediately after he rose to power, President Bemba had set on to rebuild Zaire's tattered financial system, which he would later model that on neighboring Rwanda's system. His incentives for budding entrepreneurs like Amahoro would be necessary and crucial, given Zaire's former reliance on humanitarian aid during the Great Lakes Refugee crisis of 1994. It was only three months ago that Amahoro's emerging business had received patronage from the Zairian government, as their priority was set to securing the nation's foodstuffs, to prevent a potential famine from overtaking the country. In addition, the securing of Zaire's foodstuffs also meant that its infrastructure had to be overhauled.
"I suppose like the Philippines, we received a lot of international financial aid for our reconstruction, but we mostly invested that on repairing or building roads that connected the entire country together." Amahoro showed us the newly built highway that was constructed, which connects southern Zaire with Zambia, just close to where her business is located. "In hindsight, the early death of Mobutu had spare Zaire any potential civil wars that might have destroyed the country, and I am forever grateful to General Bokungu for what he has done to stop the genocidaires."
--- ROSS PEROT WINS TEXAN GUBERNATORIAL ELECTION, GOVERNOR BUSH TO CONCEDE ELECTION TO GOVERNOR-ELECT PEROT
Dallas Morning Tribune
November 4, 1998
(Dallas) - Fears of a slowing economy, along with the large political campaign made by Ross Perot and his team, and the potential toxicity of the incumbent Governor of Texas, had resulted in the stunning defeat for George W. Bush. Ross Perot, who narrowly won the 1998 Texas gubernatorial election by 52.4% to George W. Bush's 28.7% votes and Democratic candidate Garry Mauro's 18.9%, had thanked his supporters for their efforts in getting him elected. Moreover, Governor-elect Perot's campaign was handled by prominent political lobbyist Paul Manafort and campaign manager Oliver North, and the growing presence of South African refugees, most of whom were of Afrikaner origin who settled in the United States after they were summarily expelled from South Africa after a civil war had ended in the victory for the African National Congress, had mainly voted for Perot, on the basis of his promise to integrate the refugees into the lone star state.
"We have a lot of work ahead of us, and Texas is not going to rebuild itself. Texans of all kinds, regardless of national origin, gender, or race, are welcome to help build a better Texas," Perot says as he addresses his supporters during a Texas Conservative Party in downtown Dallas. "I don't mean to sound a bit competitive, but we cannot let California overtake us as the most productive state in the Union, so let's roll up our sleeves and get to work!"
Many campaign promises were made by Governor-elect Perot, which were all related to the growing issues facing the Texan economy. For instance, the sudden departure of unemployed Texans who lost their jobs in the oil industry after the demand for Texan oil had gone down, due to former Presidents Bob Dole and Jesse Jackson's growing preference for the revival of the American railway network in the aftermath of the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, which was the worst natural disaster in US and Californian history to date, and the federal ban on all future and current constructions of the double decker viaducts, which many experts have said, were a major contributor to the massive casualties of Californians in the Bay Area. Perot's initiative for the Texans to come back to their home state to help rebuild Texas's crumbling infrastructure would in turn, lure any unemployed persons from out of state to come and settle in Texas, where they can be employed in repairing infrastructure.
"I graduated from high school in Oregon, but all the tuition fees there are insanely expensive. Then, I heard about Governor-elect Perot's ambition to lure any future post-secondary student to study in Texas, and I thought to myself, why not?" says Oregonian high school graduate Terry Hamilton, who received a scholarship from Texas-Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros, in addition to his successful recruitment by the UTRGV Vaqueros Men's Soccer Team. "I wanted to study industrial engineering, and UTRGV is offering one of the best programs there for me."
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