Word: shaba
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...weekend U.S. transport planes began flying French troops out of Zaïre 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 Zaïrian forces are capable of controlling the situation. If the European troops go, they...
...Mobutu and Zaïre, that would mean disaster. The copper and cobalt mines of Shaba are responsible for two-thirds of the nation's foreign exchange earnings, and Zaïre 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...
...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 Zaïrian army to ward off another rebel attack...
...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 Zaïre. 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 Zaïre 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...