MORE emotional overtones were attached to the word "mercenaries" than to almost any other factor in the Katanga war. To the newly independent Afro-Asian nations (and to many U.S. liberals) who still regard imperialism as the paramount issue in world affairs, Katanga's white officers and soldiers were hired killers, sinister remnants of colonialism. This line, of course, has been happily aided by the Communists. Supporters of Moise Tshombe. however, insist that "mercenary" is merely an inflammatory term; all underdeveloped nations need foreign assistance (the U.S. sends thousands of officers and men abroad in its military aid missions), and besides many of the white troops in Katanga are only unpaid irregulars. The true mercenaries, complain the Tshombe supporters, are the U.N. troops in the Congo, fighting in a war in which they have no interest.
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Both sides are right. Some of Katanga's mercenaries are adventurers; some are extremist former French army officers, disillusioned with De Gaulle's Algerian policy; and some are white Katangese, appalled by the U.N. shelling their homes and businesses.
The toughest of the breed can now be seen sipping beer nightly in a seedy, side-street club in Brussels known as Les Amities Katangaises, which has become a refuge for former Belgian mercenaries deported from the Congo. Hardened professionals, they are called les affreux—the horrible ones. Under a two-year contract to Tshombe. they were paid an average salary of $300 a month, were given a month's holiday in Europe after a year's service. Two-thirds of their monthly salary was deposited in Belgian francs in a Brussels bank. Their reasons for joining Tshombe's forces varied. "I was somebody; all those people looked up to me." said one status-conscious hireling. "Even a Katangese major always tried to salute me." Added a middle-aged former mercenary: "The Katangese didn't try to rape our wives." Some are more pro-Katanga than Tshombe himself: "The rest of the Congo can go to hell. We lived like brothers with our Katangese friends."
But most had gone for the adventure. "Plenty of lolly [money] and plenty of fun," said a South African masseur who had joined Katanga's army. One adventurer nostalgically recalled a successful campaign against a U.N. supply depot. "We lived like kings on the loot we found there," he says. "A pile of corned beef and 150,000 bottles of beer."
Violently anti-U.N., the Belgian mercenaries scorn the caliber of U.N. troops. "The Irish and the Swedes make a lot of noise about being wonderful soldiers." says one Belgian with characteristicbitterness." But they're not worth a damn. All the Ethiopians are former criminals. The Gurkhas aren't human. They're not black and they're not white. They're macaques [apes]." The U.S. support of the U.N. causes rage: "Kennedy is a doubly filthy macaque. He's not only American; he's Irish too."