Word: za
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...ZA...
...Zaïre's autocratic ruler Mobutu Sese Seko soon to be a President in exile? That was one possibility being considered by Western diplomats in Kinshasa last week as the 2,000 to 5,000 Katangese exiles invading Zaire's Shaba region continued to gain ground easily. In a strange war without battles, the exiles seemed to be conquering sizable swatches of what was once called Katanga province without effective opposition from Mobutu's forces there...
...week's end the Angola-backed rebels were less than 50 miles from Kolwezi, where the Belgian-run Gecamines Co. extracts more than half of Zaïre's vital copper. U.S. construction workers on a $500 million power line were airlifted out.* Should Kolwezi fall, Mobutu's government would be hard pressed to survive. French officials are said to have begun talks with anti-Mobutu rebels in Paris-presumably in an effort to reach a compromise...
...diplomat in Kinshasa. "He may pull it off as he has in the past. But things look bad." If Mobutu fails to control the insurgency in Shaba, he will likely face rebellion from dissatisfied factions elsewhere in the country. Although the U.S., Belgium and France have airlifted supplies to Zaïre, it is unlikely that any of Mobutu's traditional allies would try to mount a rescue operation. One reason: his crumbling, corruption-riddled army seems unable to repel the invaders...
Last-week Zaïre officials claimed that the invaders were fighting under new bosses-leftist Portuguese mercenaries-and were armed with Soviet-made mortars and missiles. Meanwhile, the pro-Moscow National Liberation Front of the Congo, a Paris-based exile group, took responsibility for the invasion. Its aim, F.N.L.C. spokesmen said, was to overthrow Mobutu's "neocolonialist tyranny...