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The Katangese are led by Nathaniel Mbumba, 49, a onetime police commissioner in Katanga. In 1968 he founded the F.N.L.C. with a nucleus of Tshombe's gendarmes who had fled to Angola after Mobutu came to power in Leopoldville in 1965. At first the group cooperated with the Portuguese, but later switched allegiance to the guerrillas of the Popular Movement faction, who took over the Angolan government in 1975. The government has given them considerable autonomy in their region of northeastern Angola. The Katangese own several large farms and even diamond mines; they have about 5,000 men under arms. In return, the Katangese have helped the government stave off its two principal enemies, the Zaire-supported guerrillas of the faltering National Front and those of Savimbi's more formidable UNITA.
The Katangese invaders came close to winning big this time. But thanks to Western assistance, Mobutu and his government scraped through again. The real question, as in 1960, is whether Zaïre, that helpless mass of central Africa, can survive in one piece. A corollary issue is whether the flamboyant President Mobutu is the man to head Zaire. U.S. policy in the early 1960s was to support the central government against dissolution, on the notion that unity is better than chaos. That is still U.S. policy, and it is still probably the correct one. "We support the territorial integrity of Zaïre," a State Department spokesman said last week, "and obviously we recognize Mobutu." He is a grandiose spender who has led Zaire to bankruptcy, and his regime is quite blatantly corrupt; but he has somehow managed to hold the country together. "People say Mobutu is not an efficient manager," argues a French official on his behalf, "but he's ruling a huge country that doesn't even have a national highway. If Mobutu falls and there is chaos, who wins? I'll tell you: those who specialize in fishing for trouble."
African political problems have a curious way of disappearing noiselessly into the bush, like the Katangese guerrillas who last week were slipping back across the border to Angola. Zaïre was saved, for the moment at least, except that its mines would be out of commission for months. Although the rebels are unlikely to abandon their goals, the Western powers may yet find a way to bolster Mobutu's armed forces to help make Shaba secure. Ethiopia has suddenly not only expelled Cuba's ambassador, but advised Washington that it would welcome the return of an American ambassador—an apparent sign that Addis Ababa is not inextricably linked to Moscow. Last week the Somalis informed Secretary of State Vance that they would no longer seek to change their borders by the use of force, as they did in the Ogaden, thereby opening the way for U.S. military aid and, more important, for a reduction of tensions in the Horn.