Word: simba
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Down a road in the rebel-infested northern Congo rolled a truckload of mercenaries led by three armored Jeeps. Suddenly the underbrush exploded with the fire of automatic weapons. Not a bullet was wasted on the Jeeps, but the Simbas, suddenly battlewise and well armed, riddled the truck, killing one of its nine occupants and wounding six others. Almost overnight, the spear-bearing rebel warriors had become better armed, better trained, and much more dangerous. "Every Simba in the north seems to have a new gun now," said a mercenary sergeant from Paulis. "We're finding their old Mausers...
East & West. The flood of arms has entered the Congo from almost all sides (see map), and in such quantity that some Western intelligence sources say the Simbas cannot possibly absorb any more. Some light equipment was unloaded from Russian and Chinese ships at the Brazzaville Congo port of Pointe Noire, shipped by rail to Gamboma, and smuggled across the Congo River, possibly to secret Simba units in Bolobo -only 180 miles upriver from Leopoldville. Other shipments arrived by sea at Tanzania's capital of Dar es Salaam, were sent in sealed boxcars to the lake port of Kigoma...
...Wine. Another important rebel link to outside aid is Arua (pop. 8,000), an otherwise sleepy town in western Uganda where the Lugbara tribeswomen still go bare-breasted and men hunt monkeys with bows and arrows. Somewhat reluctantly, the Uganda government has allowed Arua to become a haven for Simba warriors, who come in by truck and Jeep from the Congolese town of Aru just across the border, load up on food and liquor, then, after sleeping it off in a tin-roofed "refugee center," truck contentedly back. TIME Correspondent Peter Forbath, who drove to Arua last week, found several...
...rebels get not only guns but instruction as well. The Chinese Communists have long operated a rebel training camp at Gamboma in the Brazzaville Congo, and recent intelligence reports indicate that the Algerian army has sent a top training officer to Brazzaville to open an 800-Simba commando school. Three other camps reportedly have been opened for the Simbas in the southern Sudan, a fourth somewhere in Egypt, and a fifth near Cherchell on Algeria's Mediterranean coast...
...Council, Tshombe charged that in addition to arms, Egypt and Algeria were also sending officers to operate with the rebels "along the entire length of the Congo's northeastern frontier." Though Tshombe could produce no concrete evidence that the outsiders had actually crossed into the Congo to lead Simba troops, intelligence sources several weeks ago identified an Algerian officer in the Burundi capital of Bujumbura, where Congolese rebels long maintained their eastern headquarters. Some 40 "Arabs," who may be Algerian officers, are reported to be standing by at Juba in the southern Sudan...