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The U.S. last week sent $13 million in "nonlethal" equipment (including a C-130 transport, radio equipment and aircraft parts) but turned down Mobutu's request for arms and ammunition. During last year's presidential campaign, Jimmy Carter had opposed the Ford Administration's arms sales to Zaire, saying they were "fueling the East-West arms race in Africa." While watching the developments in Zaire closely, the new Administration remains hopeful that Nigeria's mediating efforts may still succeed. Behind the scenes, Washington may have played a part in soliciting aid for Mobutu from Morocco, France and Egypt, but officially it remained aloof. Said a White House spokesman: "We do not see the situation as an East-West confrontation."
Maybe not, but the Communists were certainly acting as if they did. As aid for Mobutu poured in, Angola charged that the war in Zaire was being "internationalized"—an odd complaint for a regime that owes its existence to Cuba and the Soviet Union. In Moscow, Tass declared that "external forces" were interfering in "the internal struggle in Zaire." Even as the Western powers were afraid that the fighting would topple Mobutu, the Soviets were apparently worried that a strong Zaire counterattack might weaken the shaky government of President Agostin-ho Neto in Angola, which still faces resistance from the UNITA forces of Jonas Savimbi (TIME, Jan. 17). For that matter, Mobutu was also eager to describe the war in East-West terms. After neighboring Zambia complained that a mission hospital near the border had been hit by Zairian planes, Mobutu accused the Soviets of bombing the hospital to stir up trouble between friends.
What are Mobutu's chances for survival? A career soldier with a gigantic ego and a preposterous life-style (he has built palaces for himself in each of the country's nine regions), "le Guide," as Mobutu likes to call himself, has brought Zaire to the verge of economic collapse. Nonetheless, with so much Western aid on the way, there seems a fair chance that the "invasion" of Shaba may eventually be reduced to the kind of low-level guerrilla warfare that has smoldered on, in parts of southern and eastern Zaire, for much of the past 17 years.
During the week at least 1,000 Moroccan soldiers joined the 4,000 Zairian troops at Kolwezi, center of Shaba's copper-mining district. Implying that the tide of battle was turning, Kinshasa claimed that 30-40 rebel soldiers had been killed by week's end. But nobody could be quite sure since the government had taken the precaution of ordering all foreign journalists out of the fighting area. Stated reason: some of the previous news reports had contained "military secrets" and thus were "tantamount to espionage."