Riots, Anarchy in Zaire Bring Devastation

After four days of riots and violence in Zaire, reports from diplomats and European evacuees from the large, mineral-rich Central African state paint a picture of widespread destruction and anarchy as more shooting incidents were reported Thursday.

French officials in Paris said they have asked Zaire President Mobutu Sese Seko, reportedly safe aboard his yacht in the channel of the broad Zaire River, to make a move toward political reform or face the possibility of sinking his country into a round of violence not seen since the Congo civil wars and rebellions of the 1960s. French Ambassador to Zaire Henri Rethore is reportedly the only Western official in direct contact with Mobutu.

But French authorities, who have sent 950 troops to Zaire, joining 1,000 Belgian soldiers to oversee the evacuation of foreign residents, said they have no intention of using their forces to prop up Mobutu’s 26-year regime.

“We are there to save the French, but we don’t want to give the impression that we are to save Mobutu,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Maurice Gourdault Montagne said pointedly on Thursday.

Mobutu, 61, has admitted holding Swiss bank accounts and is said to have amassed a personal fortune worth several hundred million dollars. His regime is under increasing attack for corruption and failure to share earnings from the country’s vast mineral riches, including cobalt, gold, copper and diamonds, with the mostly impoverished population.

In rioting and looting that began Monday, sparked by mutinous Zairian troops, the capital city of Kinshasa and other cities have been seriously damaged and at least 40 people are reported killed.

Foreign evacuees reaching Brazzaville in neighboring Congo and African and European cities on rescue flights said that most businesses and many private homes have been gutted by looters. Kinshasa’s streets are reportedly strewn with broken glass and emptied grocery refrigerators and freezers.

Reuters news agency, also reporting from Kinshasa, said Zairian troops opened fire Thursday on a crowd chanting for the resignation of Mobutu. Reuters said government sources claimed the protesters were demanding the return of political exile Antoine Gizenga, leader of the leftist Lumumba United Party. He quoted government sources as saying that several people were wounded before the crowd was dispersed.

In Paris, Francois Lumumba, the son of assassinated nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba, called on French Radio for Mobutu’s removal from power. “If Mobutu stays,” Lumumba said, “there is no chance of a peaceful transition in the country.”

One of the first evacuees to arrive in Paris on Thursday morning was Portuguese national Eliane de Souza. “Everything is pillaged and sacked,” she told Agence France-Presse. “They stole everything from light bulbs to sinks. What they didn’t steal, they broke. People took shelter in foreign embassies and communicated by radio. The looters threatened everyone, including children, at the point of a knife.”

But she said other Zairians warned foreigners of approaching rioters and escorted them to safety.

After the arrival of French and Belgian troops Wednesday, the capital city calmed considerably. A Thursday night television report from the private French TF1 network showed hundreds of Zairian children swimming happily in the large pool of a luxury hotel in Kinshasa.

But French officials predicted a resumption of rioting and looting in major cities once French and Belgian troops depart after evacuating 12,000 Westerners, including 3,500 Americans. An estimated 2,000 of the Americans in Zaire are Christian missionaries. To help in the evacuation effort, the United States agreed Wednesday to provide C-141 Starlifter aircraft to French and Belgian forces.

“Things are going to get worse. The total breakdown in supply means there will be more demonstrations in the street when people can’t get food,” said an official with the French Foreign Ministry. “What is at stake may be the stability of Africa as a whole. It could have a centrifugal effect on other African states.”

In Johannesburg, an air charter arranged by the South African Foreign Affairs Ministry returned from Kinshasa Thursday night with 128 expatriates, diplomats and family members. The refugees said they had been robbed and their houses and businesses ransacked earlier this week by Zairian soldiers and civilians who followed in the soldiers’ wake.

Most of the refugees arrived with only a suitcase or two, having abandoned other possessions in their flight. The refugees included South Africans, British, Greeks, Chinese and a few Americans, including Alfred Wells, husband of the U.S. ambassador in Zaire, Melissa Wells.

Herman Hanekom, head of the South African diplomatic mission in Kinshasa, told the South African Press Assn. that all services in Kinshasa had come to a halt and banks were not expected to reopen until Monday.

Rizwan Rawji, a European businessman, showed scratches on his arms caused by soldiers who had assaulted him while ransacking his home. He escaped and hid in a tree. “After 200 civilians stripped my home and a dozen soldiers arrived and took everything else that had been left,” he said.

Mike Hermanson, a South African businessman, told a South African news agency reporter that the airport buildings had been torn apart by looters and the control tower apparatus had been destroyed. “Kinshasa is destroyed,” he said. “Industry has been . . . burnt down. Nothing but name boards remain of businesses. Cars were taken from showrooms, driven till they ran out of petrol and then stripped to their chassis by the roadside.

“Everything is just gone,” he added. “There is nothing. It is hard to conceive.”

In Paris, Le Monde interviewed Catholic priest Paul Vandereedt, who predicted continued rioting after food stocks are exhausted. “In normal times,” he said, “Kinshasa has food supplies for about four days. But with the looting, there’s nothing left. In two or three days, the main part of the population is going to be feeling hunger. Once the French and Belgian troops have left, it will be the beginning of total lawlessness and the beginning of famine. . . . Everybody is afraid, and anyone who says he is not afraid is a liar.”

Tempest reported from Paris and Kraft from Johannesburg, South Africa.