Word: mobutu
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Many other African leaders, even if not directly worried about Soviet ambitions, are sensitive to any tampering with ancient colonial boundaries, since their own frontiers are often equally arbitrary and insecure. As for the Chinese, they automatically supported Mobutu because he was under attack by Soviet-backed forces...
Arbitrary Borders. Initially, Mobutu's Western supporters shied away from getting bogged down in another Congolese war. Belgium, France and the U.S. sent token military supplies last month-and hoped the threat would just go away. It did not. The Katangese occupied much of the copper-rich Shaba area without opposition. Mobutu's big break came a fortnight ago when Morocco's King Hassan II, whose army is still fighting leftist guerrillas in the former colony of Spanish Sahara, decided that the time had come to bail out a friend. Egypt's President Sadat was also...
...subversive activities originating from abroad." In a TV speech, President Valery Giscard d'Estaing said flatly that no French troops would fight in Zaire, but emphasized that France had not wanted its African friends "to feel abandoned when their security is threatened." Answering protests that his support for Mobutu was reckless, Giscard declared that it was absurd to speculate that his action could lead to "another French Viet...
...last week sent $13 million in "nonlethal" equipment (including a C-130 transport, radio equipment and aircraft parts) but turned down Mobutu's request for arms and ammunition. During last year's presidential campaign, Jimmy Carter had opposed the Ford Administration's arms sales to Zaire, saying they were "fueling the East-West arms race in Africa." While watching the developments in Zaire closely, the new Administration remains hopeful that Nigeria's mediating efforts may still succeed. Behind the scenes, Washington may have played a part in soliciting aid for Mobutu from Morocco, France and Egypt...
Maybe not, but the Communists were certainly acting as if they did. As aid for Mobutu poured in, Angola charged that the war in Zaire was being "internationalized"-an odd complaint for a regime that owes its existence to Cuba and the Soviet Union. In Moscow, Tass declared that "external forces" were interfering in "the internal struggle in Zaire." Even as the Western powers were afraid that the fighting would topple Mobutu, the Soviets were apparently worried that a strong Zaire counterattack might weaken the shaky government of President Agostin-ho Neto in Angola, which still faces resistance from...