Resistance Within Congo Collapses

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31520, 7 November 1967, Page 17

Resistance Within Congo Collapses

(N.Z. Press Association-Copyright) KINSHASA (Congo), November 6. All organised resistance against the Congolese Government of President Joseph Mobutu appears to have collapsed, United Press International reported.

The Congolese Foreign Minister, Mr Justin Bomboko, said yesterday that Government troops had reached the Ruzizi bridge linking the Congo with Rwanda, after taking Bukavu. Mercenaries and Katangese former gendarmes led by Belgian-born Major Jean Schramme, who had occupied the east Congo city since early in August, fled across the frontier.

Mr Bomboko said Government troops had also occupied Kasaji in Katanga, 60 miles east of Teixeira de Sousa in Angola. He said a French-born mercenary leader, Bob Denard, who directed an invasion into Katanga from Angola last week, had abandoned the headquarters he established in Kasaji. Denard and his men were now trying to return to Angola, Mr Bomboko said. Bukavu fell to Congolese troops after a week-long siege including heavy shelling and air raids.

military authorities is In flagrant contradiction with assurances given by the Congolese Chief of State personally regarding the safety of foreigners living in Congo,” a Foreign Office spokesman said. Two thousand people, including white mercenaries, who fled from the Congo when government troops recaptured Bukavu were being sent to a special camp in Rwanda, the Red Cross announced last night. The International Committee of the Red Cross said the estimated 130 mercenaries and 900 dissident Katangese gendarmes laid down their arms when they crossed into Rwanda early yesterday. About 100 of them had been wounded, some seriously. They were now being treated. The all-Swiss committee is now faced with the task of getting them out of Rwanda.

Major Schramme and his men finally abandoned their positions after two days of violent street fighting. In Brussels the Belgian Foreign Office disclosed that on November 1, five European civilians, including two missionaries, were arrested and machine-gunned by Congolese Government troops at Kisenge. Three of them, including the Belgians, Rene Stievenart, a mining agent, and Padre Onesime of the Dasaji Mission were killed. The Belgian Ambassador in Kinshasa was instructed to express Belgium’s indignation to the highest Congolese authorities. “This act committed against people well-known by local

Seamen Rescued.—A United States military transport ship reported yesterday that it had rescued 43 crewmen from the British freighter Habib Marikar which ran aground in heavy seas on Lincoln Reef in the South China Sea on Saturday. —Tokyo, November 6.