(2 of 2)
It seemed doubtful that elections could take place until the nation's northeast was rid of the barbarous rebels who continued to plague the government last week. A column of French-speaking mercenaries led by Major Siegfried Müller, an ex-Wehrmacht sergeant who wears a German Iron Cross, was neatly ambushed at Bafwasende by Simbas, who used an electrically detonated gasoline bomb in the middle of a jungle track. A third of the column's 40 vehicles was destroyed, three mercenaries and eight Congolese soldiers were killed, and the column remained pinned down for five days. Clearly the Simbas are better armed and trained than ever before. It will take more than a black attaché case to stop them.