Across the River & into the Mess

After six weeks as Premier of the Congo, Moise Tshombe was hanging on by the skin of his big white teeth.

Only the U.S. seemed interested in helping him hang on. It gave him a few renovated B-26s to help him against the advancing Congolese rebels. Assistant Secretary of State G. Mennen Williams spent five days with Tshombe in Leopoldville, left only after the Premier agreed to swallow his pride and ask five selected African nations to send troops. Whether they will remains doubtful.

Last Warning. Meanwhile, Tshombe hurled himself into a little cold war with leftist President Alphonse Massamba-Debat of the Brazzaville (ex-French) Congo across the river. The opening volleys came when each Congo charged that the other was plotting a coup. Issuing a "last warning," Tshombe put his press aide on the air with the message: "If Moise Tshombe wants to take Brazzaville, it would only be a question of two hours." From across the river came a shriek of rage addressed to "The Hitler of Africa."

Whereupon Tshombe announced that unless Massamba-Debat immediately stopped supporting the Congolese rebels, some 50,000 Brazzaville citizens who live in Leopoldville would be deported. Tshombe's object: to overload Brazza ville's shaky economy, fan enough dis content to overthrow Massamba-Debat's already strife-torn government.

It was a harsh and clumsy plan,* and Tshombe knew it. "It will be said," he remarked, "that I am punishing innocent people. Nonetheless, I have no choice." Half of Tshombe's Cabinet and his secret-police chief, plus the U.S. and French ambassadors urged him to give up the plan, to no avail. The exodus began. Thousands of weeping Brazzavillians--many of whom had lived in Leopoldville all their lives--were shoved in groups of 150 aboard chartered ferries and shuttled across the two miles of muddy brown river to Brazzaville. With them were all the possessions they could carry or drag.

Bukavu Battle. Tshombe's action all but obscured the Congolese army's finest hour since he came to power. On the hilly shore of Lake Kivu, a truck-borne column of rebels, well armed and reportedly loaded with dope, crashed through the defenses of the European resort city of Bukavu, the government's last major toehold in the eastern Congo. Promptly the rebels set up headquarters in the Hotel Royal Residence, took over the post office, and began rampaging through the center of town. Always before in such circumstances, the government defenders had fled in panic and confusion. This time, bolstered by 150 of Tshombe's tough ex-gendarmes from Katanga, they stood and fought. After three days of battles, it was the rebels who broke and ran. Behind them, 300 dead of both sides lay in the streets.

* Although African nations have been shunting one another's citizens about for years. Recent examples: Gabon expelled 2,000 Braz-zavillians after a 1962 soccer riot; Niger deported 16,000 Dahoman civil servants last year.

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