Word: mobutu
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That murky little war in Zaire entered a new phase last week. For more than a month, President Mobutu Sese Seko has been begging for outside help to stem an invasion of Zaire's southern Shaba region by Angola-based Katangese rebels (TIME, April 18). All of a sudden, aid for Mobutu's regime was pouring in. Morocco sent 1,500 troops and promised 1,500 more to bolster Zaire's seemingly ineffectual 30,000-man army. France airlifted the Moroccans' equipment, along with a handful of French instructors, to Zaire. China contributed supplies, and Egyptian...
...invaders were a ragtag army of 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers; most of them, apparently, once fought in the forces of Katangese Leader Moise Tshombe and fled to neighboring Angola after Tshombe's secessionist movement was defeated in the mid-1960s. What made the invasion ominous, to Mobutu's allies, was that the Katangese invaders had obviously been trained and armed by the Angolans and their guests, the Cubans, with the support of the Soviet Union. At little cost or risk to themselves, the Cubans and the Soviets seemed to be using the Katangese rebels...
...Mobutu, some observers speculate that the Katangese invaders may be tempted to make a fast push for Kolwezi...
...other hand, as one Western diplomat in Kinshasa put it late last week, the new support from Morocco and the others "is a plus because it shows that Mobutu is not isolated. The Africans respect force. If Mobutu can put forces in the field, even foreign ones, it will inevitably enhance his stature...
Faced with the Katangese invasion-which may be part of larger Soviet designs in Africa-and with rising dissatisfaction among his own people because of high prices and corruption, Mobutu has vented his frustrations on foreign newsmen, who were branded "an irresponsible gang of adventurers" by the government-controlled press. Zaïre even expelled Associated Press Correspondent Michael Goldsmith for reporting-quite accurately -that a major rally, called by Mobutu to demonstrate popular support for his regime, had been marked by "an almost complete lack of enthusiasm." No matter. At week's end the government turned...