The Sound of Chaos

The Congo, 18 months after winning its independence, was still in a state of limbo--but certainly not calmly.

Fortnight ago, Premier Cyrille Adoula decided on still another attempt to force the secessionist province of Katanga back under the authority of the central government, ordered his army under General Joseph Mobutu on "a police action." It was a typical Congolese offensive: vowing to "fight to the last man," the invading Congolese army wound up fleeing Katanga's well-disciplined troops, hightailed it back across the border--where they began to fight among themselves over defenseless white women.

"Blacker than We." Mobutu's 2,500 troops never penetrated more than ten miles into Katanga. Swedish "Flying Barrel" jets, assigned by the U.N. to guard the frontier against Katangese air strikes, were unable to offer the invaders air cover because the Congo government had jailed the employees of the oil company that supplied fuel to the U.N. planes. One invading column was routed by a single, dilapidated De Havilland Dove. Another deserting troop commandeered a train and lit out for home. When the train's engine was bombed, the soldiers clambered aboard rail hand cars and highballed into Luluabourg, full of excuses about waves of Katangese bombers, masses of enemy tanks and white paratroopers. On the Katanga side, a few soldiers also tried to desert, but they were brutally beaten and shot on the spot by officers enforcing rigid discipline. Trying to explain away his army's debacle, Mobutu charged Katangese Leader Moise Tshombe with using African Rhodesian, as well as white, troops. "We know that they were Rhodesians," he said, "because they were blacker than we were."

In Luluabourg local troops, unpaid and surly with drink, placed their garrison commander under arrest because they thought that he was pro-Tshombe. Sure that Belgian mining interests supported Tshombe, the troops blamed Belgian spies for the army's collapse. The mutinous soldiers began a house-to-house search in the European colony for a hidden radio transmitter they believed was broadcasting secret information to Tshombe's Katangese. All white males without U.N. identity papers were rounded up and herded into a local hotel; left alone, at least 16 white women were raped by the drunken troops, one as many as ten times. The 500-man U.N. contingent reacted slowly. "The roundup came as a surprise." Luluabourg's U.N. chief explained lamely. "The disorderly elements began to make trouble, but in the dark it was impossible to know this."

Good Propaganda. Only after looting, rape and violence had subsided did the U.N. manage to confine the Congolese to barracks and to take Luluabourg's 400 Europeans under protective custody. Most of the Europeans demanded to be evacuated. "This is enough." said one raped woman. "We've stuck it out for 18 months, but we can't go on living on top of a volcano." Into Luluabourg to head off the exit of the Europeans flew Premier Adoula, fearful that a mass exodus of white technicians would bring the Congo's already sputtering economy to a halt. Promising public executions of the mutinous rebels. Adoula managed to convince a few male European teachers to stay on provided that their women and children be shipped to safety and that they themselves be given open air tickets enabling them to break their contract at any time.

The Luluabourg incident hurt Adoula's central government just as it was beginning to curry favorable world opinion for its efforts to bring secessionist Katanga back into the fold. The violence, said one U.N. official, "was the best Tshombe propaganda imaginable--troops who rape instead of fight." In his own backyard Tshombe had to contend with rioting Baluba tribesmen and there were reports of another strike by central government troops at Albertville. But the Katangese leader held a handful of aces in his dealings with the government. Last week he declared that he was still willing to negotiate with the Adoula regime for an economic and customs union as well as a unified army. His terms remained the same: recognition by Leopoldville of Katanga's autonomy.

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