ZAÏRE
Is Zaïre's autocratic ruler Mobutu Sese Seko soon to be a President in exile? That was one possibility being considered by Western diplomats in Kinshasa last week as the 2,000 to 5,000 Katangese exiles invading Zaire's Shaba region continued to gain ground easily. In a strange war without battles, the exiles seemed to be conquering sizable swatches of what was once called Katanga province without effective opposition from Mobutu's forces there.
At week's end the Angola-backed rebels were less than 50 miles from Kolwezi, where the Belgian-run Gecamines Co. extracts more than half of Zaïre's vital copper. U.S. construction workers on a $500 million power line were airlifted out.* Should Kolwezi fall, Mobutu's government would be hard pressed to survive. French officials are said to have begun talks with anti-Mobutu rebels in Paris—presumably in an effort to reach a compromise.
"Mobutu is a survivor," says one Western diplomat in Kinshasa. "He may pull it off as he has in the past. But things look bad." If Mobutu fails to control the insurgency in Shaba, he will likely face rebellion from dissatisfied factions elsewhere in the country. Although the U.S., Belgium and France have airlifted supplies to Zaïre, it is unlikely that any of Mobutu's traditional allies would try to mount a rescue operation. One reason: his crumbling, corruption-riddled army seems unable to repel the invaders.
The Katangese are skillfully using classic guerrilla tactics—infiltration and surprise, cabled TIME Correspondent Erik Amfitheatrof from Kinshasa. According to sources, by the time Zaire's barrel-chested General Bumba Moaso Djogi arrayed his 2,000 troops and a small contingent of armor west of Mutshatsha, Katangese vanguards were already slipping past his lines.
By day, the guerrillas hid in dense, 5-ft. jungle grass. At night, they bicycled and walked down narrow dirt paths flanking Bumba's roadblocks. Dozens of Katangese stole into Mutshatsha, hiding in the homes of sympathizers who are outraged by the army's looting. Others perched in trees near the town and dropped grenades into crowded troop trucks as they went by.
Meanwhile, the main body of Katangese circled Bumba's positions to join the infiltrators in a lightning attack that erupted everywhere in Mutshatsha at once. Within an hour, they had seized the army command post, the rail yard and a trainload of U.S.-and Belgian-made arms and ammunition. When Bumba's edgy battalions realized they had been bypassed, they simply streamed away through the jungle. After the loss of Mutshatsha—which the government denied for six days—Mobutu replaced his local commander with General Singa Boyenge.
Open Enthusiasm. The Kantan-gese invaders are drawn mainly from the Lunda tribe, traditionally among Central Africa's fiercest warriors. Shaba villagers have received them with open enthusiasm. Government troops, who speak Lingala—the language of the Congo River basin—rather than the local variant of Swahili, are, by contrast, feared and shunned.