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Like a Roman emperor at the Colosseum, Zaïre's President Mobutu Sese Seko strutted into Kinshasa's 20th of May Stadium last week to the cheers of 60,000 of his countrymen, many of whom had just snake-danced through the streets of the capital. Waving an elaborately carved cane, he pointed contemptuously at a pair of bedraggled, badly wounded prisoners-the first, apparently, to have been captured by government forces in nearly two months of fighting against invaders in Shaba province (TIME, April 25). Mobutu's gestures brought cries of "Mort, mort," (Death, death...
Nibbling Away. Taking a few prisoners does not quite mean winning a war. Nonetheless, the Zaïrian strongman had good reason to feel buoyant last week. Bolstered by 1,500 crack Moroccan troops, le Guide's forces appeared at last to have won a round in a murky conflict that some Africans have dubbed "the Termite War." Neither side seemed able to do any more than nibble away at the other. But last week government troops not only halted the advance of the ragtag invasion army toward Kolwezi, the center of Zaïre's copper-mining...
Most of the battlefield gains seem to have been made by the Moroccans. In part, though, the lift in Zaïre's fortunes was due to the fact that Mobutu belatedly shipped additional pay, food and weapons to his 4,000 soldiers in Shaba. In the interests of boosting their morale, he made a rather bizarre request of Washington: that some 16,000 cases of canned Coca-Cola be included in the $15 million in "nonlethal" military equipment the U.S. is sending to Zaïre. It seems that potable water for the thirsty soldiers is in short...
...with Moroccan and other foreign troops arriving in Zaïre to support
...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...