Third Man Up

In the courtyards of the Czech and Soviet embassies in Leopoldville, documents burned by night, and workers nailed covers on big wooden crates. In the Red Chinese mission, clothes were hastily crammed into suitcases. Then Communism's Congo corps of diplomats, "technicians" and correspondents rolled in melancholy procession to the Leopoldville airport and there boarded Ilyushins for home, expelled on orders from the Congo's latest government. Snapped one Russian diplomat: "We'll be back." But at least for the moment, the Russians' chief ally in the Congo, demagogic Premier Patrice Lumumba, had lost his grip on power--and with him had crumbled the Russians' promising foothold.

Unlikely Strongman. The Congo's newest emergent leader is Joseph Desire Mobutu, a 29-year-old lieutenant colonel whom even most Congolese had never heard of until he announced his military coup at midweek. "We are bringing a truce to politics until the end of the year," he declared. "During this revolutionary period, we will try to achieve a political agreement between the factions."

Constitutionally, the Congo was a worse shambles than ever. There were now three governments instead of two--Mobutu's, Lumumba's and moderate President Joseph Kasavubu's. But in the 3,000-man Leopoldville garrison of the Congolese army, Mobutu had at least temporarily enough firepower to make his orders stick. This was a detail that both Lumumba and Kasavubu had overlooked. Both had always been happy when they could line up enough loyal soldiers to form a personal honor guard.

Forlorn Forays. The week began with comic-opera flourishes. First, Lumumba rounded up two truckloads of soldiers and roared off to Radio Congo in the apparent belief that with a microphone in his hand he could conquer the world. But the United Nations had closed the station to inflammatory broadcasts, and Ghanaian soldiers guarded it with fixed bayonets. "If you try to use force," warned the lieutenant in charge, "I'll have to shoot." Then he turned to Lumumba's trusted aide, General Victor Lundula, and added: ''The first shot will be for you." General Lundula advised retreat.

President Kasavubu's counter-interventions were no more effective. Rallying a small troop of loyal soldiers, he sent them off to capture his rival Lumumba. The troop took Lumumba by surprise, bundled him into his own official black Ford and drove him off to a prison cell at Camp Leopold II. But less than two hours later, General Lundula convinced the guards that he had orders to transfer Lumumba to another prison. Once beyond the gates, Lumumba located 40 friendly soldiers and rolled back downtown, with sirens screaming, shouting. "Today victory is mine. Death to the imperialists!" Once again he headed for Radio Congo. Once again his path was barred, this time by Ghana's proper, British-trained Lieut. Colonel Nathan Aferi. Roared Lumumba in impotent rage: "Let me pass, you black, imperialist bushman!"

Rebuffed by the U.N., Lumumba next turned to his Parliament, where the response was weary at best. Said one Senator: "Since the Belgians are supporting Kasavubu and the Russians are backing Lumumba, let's call the whole thing off." The Premier could muster only 93 members for a joint session (minimum quorum: 109), but Lumumba's Speaker of the House solved that problem by arbitrarily declaring that henceforth only 69 members would be required. With that question solved, Lumumba asked for and got "full powers" to run the Congo as he pleased. Only three members abstained, one of them explaining that he thought Lumumba might use his special powers to dissolve Parliament, and "I would lose a good job."

The Coup. Then Colonel Mobutu showed how little the parliamentary maneuvering mattered. A quiet, bowlegged, somewhat plodding young man from Equator province, Mobutu once did a seven-year stretch in the Congo army, where he worked chiefly as a headquarters bookkeeper, and rose to the rank of sergeant. Later he worked as a journalist in Leopoldville and Brussels, struggled to acquire the rudiments of an education, and became Lumumba's Brussels agent. After independence, Lumumba rewarded Mobutu with a commission, made him chief of staff under Lundula. Unlike most of the new army officers, Mobutu worked at his job. Like his soldiers, he grew angry at Lumumba's whimsical use of the military, disgusted at the Lumumba-provoked civil war in the interior. Mobutu became a frequent visitor to the U.S. embassy and held long talks with officials there.

One afternoon last week, Mobutu conferred with officers at Camp Leopold, and got their cheering support. That night he went to Radio Congo and abruptly announced that the army was taking over.

Colonel Mobutu left no doubt about which side of the cold war he had joined. "Russia sent us vehicles, planes and seven technicians who were with me in Camp Leopold," he declared. "Ten days ago I discovered that these technicians were Russian officers disguised as civilians. They had brought with them tons of pamphlets and posters which they had distributed through camp without my or my government's approval. I have expelled them all." An observer from the U.S. embassy whispered: "Well, I'll be damned!"

"Kill Him!" How much of the Congolese army did Mobutu speak for? Lumumba rolled out to Camp Leopold that same night to test this point--and got the shock of his career. He found himself surrounded by screaming soldiers, who also happened to be Baluba tribesmen outraged at the army massacres in the inland Baluba country (TIME, Sept. 19). "Kill him! Kill him!" they cried. Lumumba tried to buy them off. offering them 200 francs ($4) each if they would go to Kasavubu's residence and kill him. The offer only increased the soldiers' rage, and Lumumba ducked to safety in General Lundula's house for the night.

Next morning the rampaging soldiers found Lumumba in an officers' mess. All that saved his life was the protection of the same Ghanaian troops that Lumumba himself had ordered to leave the country only a week before. One Congolese charged the building with a hand grenade, another with a Sten gun. but the Ghanaians turned them back at bayonet point. "Lumumba must die!" the crowd shouted. "He made us kill our brothers!" For nine hours' Lumumba cowered inside, first in a laundry closet and then in a bedroom, while Lundula hid out in a vegetable bin.

After nightfall, Mobutu organized a dependable detachment of military police into a flying wedge and hustled Lumumba through the milling soldiers to an army truck. But along the way, Congolese reached past the guards to kick and spit on Lumumba and rip his flapping white sports shirt to shreds. As Lumumba rode off, General Lundula sneaked out the back way aquiver with fear, and with all insignia of rank carefully removed. At Lumumba's official residence, Ghanaian troops put the Premier under heavy guard. Next day, Mobutu's men raided Lumumba's headquarters, arrested 26 staff members plus a stray Senator, drove them off and locked them up in a hangar at an old airport outside town.

Chaos Ahead. Mobutu's coup seemed to be proceeding smoothly. He closed the cable office to wires by politicians of whatever stripe. He told Parliament to take a vacation for the rest of the year, and when the Deputies tried to meet anyway, his troops barred the doors and turned them away. There was even a good chance that Mobutu could get along with Kasavubu and with Katanga province's Moise Tshombe, an anti-Communist who last week said he had not even "dreamed" of seceding from the Congo until forced to by Lumumba's "dictatorship."

But it was too soon to proclaim an end to chaos. In secessionist Katanga, Baluba tribesmen rose in bloody revolt in the tin-mining town of Manono after police broke up a demonstration by tossing a hand grenade that killed two tribesmen. Anointed by a witch doctor with a potion that supposedly made them immune to bullets, the Balubas fearlessly charged a police barricade, hurling spears, shooting arrows, firing old muzzle-loaders filled with nuts and bolts. Police fire cut down 35 Balubas, while two police were killed.

No one knew the allegiance of the 22.000 Congolese soldiers outside Leopoldville. Many of them were doubtless prepared to rally around Lumumba, and at week's end, despite his Ghanaian guard. Lumumba mysteriously slipped into hiding.

A united--or peacefully federated--Congo seemed as far away as ever. But at least the chief troublemaker had taken a mighty tumble.

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