Rising of the Kats

When he came to power eight months ago, Congolese President Joseph Mobutu faced a tricky military problem. The Simba rebellion had been crushed, but the armies that had done the job were still in business--and dangerous tensions existed among them.

First there were the white mercenaries hired by Mobutu's predecessor and enemy, Moise Tshombe, a tough gang of Belgians, Frenchmen, anti-Castro Cubans and English colonials, all with ties of loyalty to Tshombe. Then there were the 2,500 Katangese "gendarmes," whose fiery red-and-yellow scarves and flashing bush knives had figured in every Congolese conflict since the Tshombe secession of 1960. Finally there was ex-General Mobutu's own Armee Nationale Congolaise, inefficient as fighters but at least loyal to his government. Fearful of disarming or disbanding the "Kats," who might stir up trouble back at home in Katanga, Mobutu stationed them alongside A.N.C. units in Stanleyville, 400 miles away, where a hostile population could not easily be aroused.

Over the months, the Katangese and the A.N.C. troops grew to hate each other largely because the Mobutu men lorded it over the Kats and took all the cold beer and prettiest girls. Two months ago, the gendarmes went "on strike," nabbed A.N.C. Colonel Joseph Damien Tshatshi (known in the Congo as "Tshatshi the Terrible"), sent him back to headquarters in his underwear. Angry and alarmed, A.N.C. Commander Louis Bobozo decided that the time had come to disarm the Kats. When he tried to implement his decision two weeks ago, all hell broke loose in Stanleyville (now called Kisangani).

Tracers lit the night sky over the airport, the power plant and the army camp; the A.N.C. resorted to its time-tested tactic of shedding clothes, shoes and weapons and fleeing to safety. Still, 50 men died in the fighting, and the Kats quickly gained control of downtown Kisangani, where last week they claimed that their rebellion had been triggered by A.N.C. discrimination and the fact that many of them had not been paid in three months.

In Kinshasa (formerly Leopoldville), President Mobutu believed otherwise. Charging that some of the white mercenaries--principally Belgians of the 6th Commando--were behind the mutiny, he fired off angry charges to Brussels and sent Premier Leonard Mulamba to Stanleyville to calm the mutineers. At week's end, Mulamba reported from the rebellious city that the mercenaries were not involved in the mutiny. But 6th Commando Boss Robert Denard, a magnificently mustachioed Frenchman who served Tshombe in the secession, was on the scene, and no one could say for certain that Mulamba's disclaimer had not been uttered at mercenary gun point. Tshombe, who Mobutu believes is behind the uprising, was keeping ominously quiet in his exile refuge somewhere in Southern Europe.

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