The Congo: The India-Rubber Man

Just after sunup one day last week, Secessionist Moise Tshombe slipped out of his pink palace in Elisabethville, climbed into the back seat of a black Comet sedan, and sped off down the road toward the Northern Rhodesian border. Soon an armored column of 500 United Nations troops was on his tail. For a moment, it looked as if the U.N. were in hot pursuit of its old foe. But no! To the astonishment of bug-eyed natives along the way, Moise was actually leading the blue helmets, urging his own tattered Katangese gendarmes to lay down their arms so the U.N. could re-open vital rail and road links.

Bizarre as it was, the incident was an accurate indicator of the way things actually were going last week in the Congo's copper-rich Katanga province, where the U.N. was waging war with Tshombe's breakaway regime for the third time since September 1961. In two weeks, the tough U.N. troops had seized a steadily lengthening ribbon of rail lines and nearly every major population center in the province. Only the western copper town of Kolwezi remained in Katanga's grip; it was defended by 2,000 boozy gendarmes, 100 of Tshombe's white mercenaries, and a smashing blonde ambulance driver known as "Madame Yvette," who sauntered about in paratroop boots, camouflage uniform, bush hat and shoulder holster. Only 50 miles from Kolwezi, Indian infantrymen probed cautiously forward, waiting only for the signal to head full blast toward the town. But the signal would not be given rashly, for the ragtag mercenaries threatened to blow up a huge dam and industrial installations, leaving the town a blackened shell. They might not be bluffing.

"I Am Back." But with full backing from the U.S. and the Afro-Asian nations, the U.N. was determined to dictate a settlement to Tshombe and make it stick. If it fails, the rest of the Congo, starved of the riches that enable Katanga to account for 65% of the country's exports, could splinter into a score of warring tribal domains. Already a corps of 100 Central Government functionaries was flying into Elisabethville to take charge of Katanga's administration.

The big question mark, as usual, was the slippery Tshombe. As the week began, he was holed up defiantly in Kolwezi with the mercenaries. There were rumors that he might flee to Europe rather than give in to the U.N. But he was not surrendering Katanga's top job. Lo and behold, he was back in Elisabethville. "in spite of all the trouble and bloodshed," he declared with MacArthurian grandeur, "I am back." What policy would he follow? No one could say, for before long he was bouncing wildly from one position to another. "Pure India rubber," marveled a foreign diplomat.

Lump of Sugar. In the space of three days, Tshombe 1) promised to "abstain from making any declarations against the U.N."; 2) immediately broke his promise by threatening "a scorched-earth policy" in Kolwezi (see WORLD BUSINESS) ; 3) was clapped under house arrest by infuriated U.N. officials "to restrain him from further irresponsible acts"; and 4) got his house arrest commuted to a nighttime curfew by leading the U.N. troops to the Rhodesian border. Then, having baffled everybody, he vanished once more from the capital.