European-trained ‘elite strike force’ for Zaire

Press, 12 June 1978, Page 8

European-trained ‘elite strike force’ for Zaire

NZPA Kinshasa (Zaire) France and Belgium are to train several new Zairean military units to help combat any new invasion of Zaire’s mineral-rich Shaba province, A.Z.A.P., Zaire’s national news agency, has reported.

A.Z.A.P., quoting an interview w’ith President Mobutu Sese Seko by Belgian journalists, said the elite strike force would number about 15,000 men • and would be comfosed of both infantry and airborne units. General Mobutu also acknowledged that his Army displayed co ardice in the attack and promised to end corruption.. Belgium would train 12.000 foot soldiers, while the training of about 3000 paratroopers was to be France’s responsibility. The new military units are part of a general revamping of Zaire’s military forces in the wake of the invasion of Shaba province last month by about 4000 Katangese insurgents from base camps in neighbouring Angola.

France and Belgium have | ■ provided military instruction ] ;to Zairean forces in the! : past. The training, however. ■ I was mostly among the I 'officer corps and the new! training programme is be- 1 lieved by observers to be a step towards strengthening j the country’s force of en-| listed men, generally be-: I lieved to be lacking dis-' cipline. The Zairean Army is officially about 40,000 men, but diplomatic sources believe 25,000 soldiers is closer to the mark. No definite date for the start of the training course was given, according to A.Z.A.P., but France is said to be already training Zairean paratroop units. Last week, General Mo‘butu reprieved General Tshijyeka, garrison commander in : Kolwezi, after a military tribunal had sentenced him to death for cowardice. General Tshiveka will now go to jail for life.

Meanwhile, the first batch of 93 paratroops from the remaining Belgian soldiers in Zaire have flown home,

NZPA-Reuter reported from Brussels.

The Belgian government this week announced it would progressively withdraw from Zaire the 600 men left there. Belgium sent 1700 troops to help rescue Europeans trapped in Kolwezi.

In another development, the Congo National Liberation Front, whose fighters invaded Shaba, has denied that their leader, General Nathaniel iMbumba, was wounded during the Shaba operations. The Zaire news agency reported from Kinshasa’ that he had been wounded and was being treated by Soviet doctors in Luanda, Angola. In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross has said that some 60.000 people in the Kolwezi region of Zaire urgently need food as a result of the fighting.

An aircraft carrying 30 to 40 tonnes of food and medical supplies is to flv out to Zaire this week as part of a $250,000 aid programme.