Mobutu's 'Victory'

Ever since Moroccan troops arrived last month and the U.S., France and Belgium offered a little help, the fortunes of Zaire's strange little war have turned sharply in favor of the central government. As the threat declined, President Mobutu Sese Seko flew to the supposedly embattled Shaba region--the former Katanga province--to inspect some recaptured villages. TIME Nairobi Bureau Chief Lee Griggs, who accompanied Mobutu on the trip, sent this report:

A month ago, Mobutu's well-equipped but poorly motivated soldiers were in disgraceful retreat, refusing to fight and often simply running away from a ragtag band of Angola-based Katangese rebels. Now the rebels were on the run. The secret ingredient in the turn-around was mostly psychological: the presence of 1,500 elite Moroccan troops who had been airlifted in at Mobutu's desperate request. The Moroccans shamed Zaire's 4,000 troops in the fighting area into showing a little backbone. This persuaded the 2,000 or so rebels and, presumably, their Angolan and Cuban supporters as well that the cost of winning a war against Zaire would be too high.

The rebel retreat, from within 20 miles of the copper-mining center of Kolwezi, had started even before the government "offensive." As they probed slowly westward, with Moroccans providing back-up support and removing antipersonnel mines from the dirt tracks en route, Zairian forces encountered practically no resistance. There was not a single major firefight and hardly a contact of any kind. "This isn't a war," one bored Moroccan officer confided. "It is a matter of making armed reconnaissance and then retaking ground without a fight. To call it a war is a joke."

Nonetheless, Mobutu was making the most of his moment of victory. Once the rebel retreat had begun, he flew to the region, where he was dutifully hailed by cheering crowds as the "savior of Shaba." As drum majorettes danced before le Guide, the well-coached crowds belted out songs of praise. Sample: "We are not afraid of the menace of mercenaries, for we have Mobutu, our guide and our faith."

Next day, the President flew to the recently liberated village of Kayembe. The men admitted somewhat sheepishly to him that they had covered only 20 miles in the previous eight days and had not made a single contact, but he seemed satisfied. After his departure, discipline collapsed. When a kettle of soup was produced for the soldiers' lunch, a wild scramble broke out among the troops. Finally, amid much shouting and cursing, a stick-wielding officer beat his men back into an orderly food line. Apparently, the army is still underfed.

"I will not leave until I set foot in Mutshatsha," Mobutu declared grandly, referring to the town in western Shaba that had been hastily abandoned without a fight in late March. Sure enough, it fell the next morning, and he was soon off in his leopard-skin-carpeted helicopter to inspect it. He found Mutshatsha deserted of civilians but little damaged. Producing some Soviet-made weapons abandoned by the rebels, Mobutu declared: "What you have seen proves that the Russians are the real enemy."

It appeared that the war, if indeed there ever was one in a true sense of the word, was about over. The two-week offensive had cost Zaire only about a dozen military dead. The government claimed many enemy casualties but produced not a single rebel body. No reporters had seen or heard a shot fired in anger. It is likely that most of the rebels had simply melted away into the bush, buried their uniforms and weapons and disappeared. "I think they have simply given it up this time as a bad job," concluded one Western military attache in Kinshasa. "But over the long term. I don't think this is the end of it. They will probably be back again some day, in one form or another, to cause Mobutu trouble."

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