The Congo: Imports of Trouble

Down a road in the rebel-infested northern Congo rolled a truckload of mercenaries led by three armored Jeeps. Suddenly the underbrush exploded with the fire of automatic weapons. Not a bullet was wasted on the Jeeps, but the Simbas, suddenly battlewise and well armed, riddled the truck, killing one of its nine occupants and wounding six others. Almost overnight, the spear-bearing rebel warriors had become better armed, better trained, and much more dangerous. “Every Simba in the north seems to have a new gun now,” said a mercenary sergeant from Paulis. “We’re finding their old Mausers where they’ve abandoned them by the roadside.”

Little wonder, for since they were driven out of Stanleyville two months ago, the rebels have become the delighted recipients of a mountain of military equipment, smuggled in at great expense by their friends in Peking, Moscow, and the radical African bloc. “Yes, we’re aiding the Congolese insurgents,” admitted Algeria’s President Ahmed ben Bella last week. “We are doing our duty toward the Congo and Africa.”

East & West. The flood of arms has entered the Congo from almost all sides (see map), and in such quantity that some Western intelligence sources say the Simbas cannot possibly absorb any more. Some light equipment was unloaded from Russian and Chinese ships at the Brazzaville Congo port of Pointe Noire, shipped by rail to Gamboma, and smuggled across the Congo River, possibly to secret Simba units in Bolobo —only 180 miles upriver from Leopoldville. Other shipments arrived by sea at Tanzania’s capital of Dar es Salaam, were sent in sealed boxcars to the lake port of Kigoma, then were shipped either directly across Lake Tanganyika to the rebel-held area of the Congo around Baraka or through the small kingdom of Burundi.

But the main supply line is by air—aboard Russian-built AN-12 turboprop transports from Algeria and Cairo to Khartoum airport for transshipment to the southern Sudanese town of Juba aboard smaller aircraft. Most of the turboprops bear Algerian markings but are flown by Russian pilots. The large part of the equipment was supplied by Ben Bella and Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, but Russia apparently has promised to replace all weapons they send to the Simbas.

Western intelligence sources say that by last-week 18 planeloads—about 300 tons—of Russian-and Czech-made automatic rifles, machine guns, hand grenades and other military hardware have been fed to the Simbas through Juba. In Juba, the arms are hastily unloaded (often the pilots leave the engines running), transferred to the Simbas’ waiting truck convoys, and sped across 150 miles of improved road to the main rebel receiving point at Aba, a small town near Faradje just over the Congo border. There, the rebels’ 18th Battalion supervises the distribution of the arms to rebel units throughout the northern Congo.

Beards & Wine. Another important rebel link to outside aid is Arua (pop. 8,000), an otherwise sleepy town in western Uganda where the Lugbara tribeswomen still go bare-breasted and men hunt monkeys with bows and arrows. Somewhat reluctantly, the Uganda government has allowed Arua to become a haven for Simba warriors, who come in by truck and Jeep from the Congolese town of Aru just across the border, load up on food and liquor, then, after sleeping it off in a tin-roofed “refugee center,” truck contentedly back. TIME Correspondent Peter Forbath, who drove to Arua last week, found several bearded Simbas in monkeyskin caps gulping palm wine in the town marketplace. Local merchants reported that the rebels have been forced to route several Juba arms shipments through Arua instead of straight across the Congo-Sudan border to Aba. Reason: stepped-up activity by the Sudan’s own rebels—who are anti-Arab, pro-Tshombe—has made the Juba-Aba road too dangerous for the Simba convoys.

The rebels get not only guns but instruction as well. The Chinese Communists have long operated a rebel training camp at Gamboma in the Brazzaville Congo, and recent intelligence reports indicate that the Algerian army has sent a top training officer to Brazzaville to open an 800-Simba commando school. Three other camps reportedly have been opened for the Simbas in the southern Sudan, a fourth somewhere in Egypt, and a fifth near Cherchell on Algeria’s Mediterranean coast.

Hostility to Arabs. Even with the most expert training, however, it seems hardly possible that the Simbas can turn the tables by themselves. “What they need are men, particularly trained officers,” says one Western expert. “If a thousand or so Algerians or Egyptians were thrown into the battle, we’d really start sweating.” As of last week there was no firm evidence that foreign officers or troops were fighting with the Simbas. Even Tshombe’s complaint to the U.N. Security Council that “rebel hordes, led by foreign officers, particularly Algerians and Egyptians, are operating all along the Congo’s northeastern frontier” was carefully worded to avoid specifying which side of the frontier he meant.

There is a fair chance that neither the Algerians nor the Egyptians will ever dare to send their own troops to the Congo. For one thing, much of black Africa harbors an ancient hostility toward the Arabs that dates back to the precolonial days of the slave traders. No one is more ready to exploit the Arab-Negro conflict than Moise Tshombe, who can always draw a cheer by calling the Arabs “black Africa’s worst enemies.”

Returning to Leopoldville from a quick inspection tour of rebel-razed Stanleyville last week, Tshombe issued an open challenge to the leading rebel supporters—including Nasser, Ben Bella and Nkrumah—to go to Stanleyville and see the results of their aid. “Come and hear the stories of massacres and torture,” urged the Congolese Premier. “Come and take note of the elimination of educated people.” By week’s end the invitation had no takers.