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Despite his skill at keeping Zaïre united, Mobutu is one of Africa's less savory leaders, and his country is virtually bankrupt. Corruption at all levels of government is endemic; only $120 million of an anticipated $450 million from coffee sales last year ended up in treasury coffers. Inflation gallops at the rate of over 75% a year, unemployment is on the rise, and there are periodic shortages of food and other essential commodities. Largely because of a worldwide decline in copper prices, the country's G.N.P. has declined about 5% annually since 1976, and every year Zaïre defaults on about $100 million worth of its international debts. Foreign experts were banished in Mobutu's sweeping "Zaïrianization" program of 1973-74. Since then a country with some of the world's richest agricultural farming areas has had to import about $300 million worth of food —much of it from Rhodesia and South Africa. Yet even Mobutu has admitted that despite efforts to reform agricultural distribution, "90% of all imports remain in Kinshasa and do not reach the interior."
Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that opposition groups are active in Zaïre. Even before last week's invasion, Mobutu had to send troops to Shaba to pacify the region. Last March, after a mass trial in Kinshasa, 13 army officers were executed and 70 imprisoned for "high treason and conspiracy." The grim verdict of one Kinshasa resident: "We are plunged in despair."
There are no lingering illusions in Washington, Paris or Brussels about the quality of Mobutu's regime. But the Zaïrian leader is a staunch anti-Communist and a proven friend of the West, while the Cuban-backed insurgents apparently have Marxist goals. Beyond that, the three Western governments faced the humanitarian obligation to evacuate the estimated 3,000 foreigners who were threatened by the fighting in the Shaba region. There was little hesitation in the three capitals in responding to Mobutu's call for help.
Since about two-thirds of the Europeans were Belgian, Brussels was first to announce that it was mounting a military rescue operation. Hercules C-130 transports and Boeing 707s, with about 1,500 paratroopers aboard, took off Thursday from Melsbroek airbase in Belgium for Zaïre. That morning, after French President Giscard held an emergency meeting with his military and political advisers, France announced it too would help Europeans trapped in Kolwezi. (Some Foreign Legionnaires had already been flown to Zaïre from Calvi airbase in Corsica.)