Evacuating Mercenaries

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31522, 9 November 1967, Page 15

Evacuating Mercenaries

(N .Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LUSAKA, Nov. 8. Zambia yesterday withdrew its offer to fly white mercenaries out of Africa but said its offer to resettle dissident Katangese gendarmes who fled from the Congo to Rwanda with them still stood. But it was for the Congolese Government to decide whether the 1600 gendarmes were to come to Zambia. President Kenneth Kaunda told a rally at Seyyeke, in Parotse province. He said the situation had changed as a result of the Congolese Army’s action in driving the gendarmes and 130 white mercenaries from the eastern Congo town of Bukavu, which they had held since August Meanwhile, it was reported from Geneva that the International Red Cross appeared close to solving the problem of evacuating the 130 European mercenaries. Sources close to the International Red Cross commit-

tee said the 29 Frenchmen among the mercenaries were thought to be already on the way to Djibouti aboard a French aircraft.

Diplomatic sources in Kigali, Rwanda, said the mercenaries would face almost certain execution if extradited but President Gregoire Kayibanda, of Rwanda, was resisting strong pressure from the Congolese Government to send them back.

The Katangans, with their women and children, and the mercenaries, led by Bel-gian-born Colonel “Black Jack” Schramme, withdrew from Bukavu early on Sunday morning. The town is now in the hands of the Congolese Na tional Army. Bukavu’s shell-pocked streets and defences were still littered yesterday with the corpses of those who died m last week’s heavy fighting, Congolese officials who crossed into Rwanda told reporters. The mercenaries are now in a camp under Rwandan Army guard near Cyangugu, about 10 miles inside the border.

A visitor to the camp, from which reporters have been barred, quoted one mercenary as saying: “We fired a recoilless rifle at one group of atI “Some of them fell but the

others just kept coming, and we shot them down like rabbits. Those A.N.C. (Armee Nationale Congolaise) boys were just doped out of their minds with hashish.” Mercenary casualties during the Congolese onslaught, which started on October 29, were reported to be five dead —three Belgians, a Frenchman and an Italian—and several wounded. The Katangese were said to have lost eight killed and 27 wounded. Defenders estimated that the Congolese Army lost several hundred dead and wounded during massed and often suicidal assaults on Bukavu. The mercenaries were reported to have run out of ammunition at the end of last week and to have fired their last mortar shells a few hours before their withdrawal began before dawn on Sunday The withdrawal took about three hours and was orderly. The wounded were followed by the women and children, with the white mercenaries forming a rearguard. They threw down their arms before crossing the bridge over the Ruzizi river frontier between the Congo and Rwanda and waiting Rwanda troops took them to two camps near Cyangugu, in the hills overlooking Lake Kivu.