Post-Mortem on an Invasion

ZAIRE

AImost since the day of its traumatic birth 18 .years ago, people have been predicting that Zaire--the former Belgian Congo--would eventually go up in flames. Despite corruption, misrule and tribal enmities, the country has somehow survived, but seldom has its future looked as grim as it did last week. True, the latest invasion of Zaire's Shaba region by Katangese rebels based in neighboring Angola had been repulsed. But the damage, political and psychological as well as material, would take a long time to repair. As they sifted through the wreckage, French Legionnaires found the bodies of several more victims of the fighting and massacre. At week's end the official death toll stood at 589 Africans and 131 whites, including a few who had been buried in their own gardens by servants or friends.

Officials in Kolwezi, the copper center that had temporarily been held by the rebels, said it would take at least six months to reopen the mines--and longer, no doubt, to lure back the European specialists needed to help run them. Most of the city's 2,250 whites had been airlifted to safety in Belgium as legionnaires liberated the city. A dozen staff members of the huge Gecamines copper complex returned to hold their regular monthly payday for 13,000 African employees, though not much work was being done. At the main cobalt plant in Kolwezi, only two senior white managers were left. Said Director Jean van Pottelsberghe: "Two are enough for a couple of months. But for a year, no."

For the Carter Administration, the most pressing and stormiest question concerning the Shaba invasion was the nature and extent of the role played by the Soviet Union and by Cuba, which now has 20,000 soldiers and 4,000 civilians based in Angola. In addition, the U.S. and its European allies were concerned about how to extend some limited military support to the Zairian government of President Mobutu Sese Seko.

Though Mobutu is as inept as he is ruthless, most Western governments feel there is no real alternative to him in sight as a ruler for a huge country (905,562 sq. mi.) with seemingly insoluble tribal conflicts. The French government is anxious to remove the 700 Foreign Legionnaires who freed Kolwezi and replace them with a peace-keeping force to be furnished by several African states. Last weekend U.S. transport planes began flying French troops out of Zaire and replacing them with Moroccans as the first units of a peace-keeping command. But unless the legionnaires are replaced by a force more stable than Mobutu's army, many of the 12,000 Europeans still in Shaba may well leave. Said a Western diplomat in Lubumbashi: "The expatriates are sitting on their luggage. They do not believe the Zairian forces are capable of controlling the situation. If the European troops go, they go too."

For Mobutu and Zaire, that would mean disaster. The copper and cobalt mines of Shaba are responsible for two-thirds of the nation's foreign exchange earnings, and Zaire needs them to survive. Although the region was relatively calm last week, no one precluded the possibility of another rebel attack from across the border, or of a general uprising by a population suffering from severe poverty and the oppression of its country's own plundering army.

Prices of basic foods went up 100% in the past year. The legal minimum wage is $30 a month, the approximate pay of a laborer or a foot soldier, but it buys only enough meal to feed a family for about two weeks. Social services in Zaire are almost nonexistent, and there is corruption everywhere. At night, after the 6 p.m. curfew, small groups of soldiers appear and begin taking "collections" from the public. For Europeans this practice can be upsetting; for Africans it can be brutalizing. Says a European resident in Lubumbashi: "The army is trying. But the officers simply have no control over their men."

Shaba's newly appointed military governor, Singa Boyenge Mosrmbry, tried to sound a positive note. "I am always an optimist," he said last week. "Next year the situation will be completely changed. The whites will be back by August or September." Perhaps so. But those who have remained are demanding a special payment of $1,000 a month in "danger money," the right to bear private arms, guarantees of evacuation "on demand" and, more significantly, a foreign military garrison. The expatriates have no confidence in the ability of the Zairian army to ward off another rebel attack and no faith in the proposed pan-African force to ward off the marauding Zairian army.

At a meeting of five Western powers in Paris early this week, the French government will offer its plan for a pan-African force. Following that, there will be a previously scheduled meeting in Brussels at which the Western nations will try to find ways to revive Zaire's bankrupt economy. The French have explained to their allies that they are anxious to withdraw the legionnaires because they think the problem should be solved by African and Western countries working together. In fact, they are also a little nervous about being caught in Zaire in the event of another rebel attack. In addition to Morocco, at least two black African states, Senegal and the Ivory Coast, seem prepared to send some troops into Zaire. Morocco's King Hassan II, helped save Mobutu in 1977 by sending a detachment during a previous rebel assault on Shaba. After a visit by Mobutu, Hassan announced that he would dispatch a contingent to Zaire that would be "placed at the disposal of the Organization of African Unity along with other African forces."

Meanwhile, the Carter Administration was caught in a shouting match with Cuba over Havana's involvement in the Shaba affair. Two weeks ago, the President accused Cuba of responsibility for training and arming the Katangese rebels based in Angola, although not of participating in the invasion. At the United Nations last week, Cuban Vice President Carlos Rafael Rodriguez called the charge "absolutely false" and said it was "based on impudently repeated lies." Said Rodriguez flatly: "I can reaffirm that Cuba has not participated directly or indirectly in the events in Shaba ... Not only were there no Cubans present in that action but, furthermore, Cuba did not supply the arms for that purpose nor did it train those who attacked."

In reply, Carter insisted: "There is no doubt that the Cubans have a heavy, even dominant, position in Angola, [and] that they were involved in training the Katangans who did invade Zaire ... There is no doubt that the Cubans knew about it, encouraged it and were responsible for their training."

Late last week, the President and CIA Director Stansfield Turner began briefing congressional leaders on the Administration's evidence. The four who attended the first such meeting seemed to come away convinced. Arizona's Republican Congressman John Rhodes said afterward that the information indicated the Cubans had been working with the Katangese "up to and through the day of the invasion." Said Senator Howard Baker, Tennessee Republican: "I think the Congress will be satisfied ... I don't think there is any doubt that the President has good, hard information ... and I think the Cubans are lying."

Many of Washington's European allies in NATO remained skeptical about the degree of Cuban involvement, and there was no hard proof linking the Cubans to the Kolwezi operation. But documents uncovered and radio traffic have led Western intelligence analysts to speculate that the Shaba rebels were trained by Cubans who had been assigned by Havana to reconstruct the Katangese liberation movement. The difference between the organization, equipment and indoctrination of those who invaded Shaba last year and that of this year's rebel troops was said to be noticeable.

If any doubts persist about the extent of the Cuban involvement with the Katangese, it may be in part because the rebels' history is so murky. Escaping from Katanga in the mid-1960s following the collapse of a separatist movement led by the late Moise Tshombe, they initially supported Portugal in its fight against the black Angolan liberation groups. After one of the guerrilla groups, Agostinho Neto's Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, came to power in Luanda, the Katangese switched their allegiance to it. Although the Katangese have helped Neto's government in its continuing struggle with rival liberation groups (see following story), relations between Luanda and the Shaba rebels remain somewhat uneasy. After last year's invasion, the rebels--who call themselves the Congolese National Liberation Front (F.N.L.C.)--began to recruit new members in refugee camps of Zairian-born Lunda tribesmen inside Angola, much to Luanda's annoyance. Understandably alarmed by the growth of this potentially unruly force in a civil war-torn country, Neto's government closed down the F.N.L.C. office in Luanda last January. Apparently with some reluctance, it also allowed some of its Cuban advisers to visit the main Katangese camp at Chicapa in northeastern Angola, prior to the incursion, to provide last-minute tactical advice.

Even without public disclosure of Carter's intelligence material, the limited evidence available strongly suggests that the Cubans did help train and advise the F.N.L.C. and knew in advance about their latest plan to invade Shaba. But as yet there is no proof that the Cubans specifically encouraged the Katangese in this latest effort or trained them for any purpose other than to help the Angolan government. Carter's critics might argue that the President is using the Shaba affair as a political weapon--both to strengthen his position at home and to assert to America's allies the importance of curtailing Communist adventures in Africa. He is certainly trying to give the lie to the Communists' claim that they go only where they are invited and that they assiduously respect the OAU principle of territorial integrity. To this extent, Carter could be said to be exploiting the incident for his own purposes.

But the President is right in his assertion that the growing Communist presence in Africa is creating instability in an already volatile region. And he has ample reason to be suspicious. For at least two years Fidel Castro has been promising that he would start bringing his soldiers home. Today he has more troops in Africa than ever before.

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