Ten Years of Le Guide

It was the most cosmopolitan display of military hardware ever seen in Africa. Up Kinshasa's Boulevard of June 30 last week marched phalanxes of white-gloved, Belgian-trained units proudly bearing Belgian FN rifles. Next an elite division, trained by North Koreans and sporting Pyongyang-made AK-47 automatic rifles, goose-stepped up the avenue. Then came a parade of American amphibious vehicles, Japanese jeeps, French Panhard armored cars. At the end, to great cheers, 30 Chinese T-62 tanks rumbled by, scarring the broad boulevard, whose floral center strip had been paved over for the day.

The big parade was in honor of the tenth anniversary in power of Zaire's ebullient President, Mobutu Sese Seko, 45. Wearing his familiar leopard-skin hat, Mobutu proudly watched the arms roll by from a red-canopied reviewing stand, surrounded by nine fellow African heads of state. Less conspicuous, but equally welcome, were dignitaries representing Zaire's military suppliers, including U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Edward Mulcahy and China's Education Minister Chou Jung-hsin. In fact, Zaire, the former Belgian Congo, has good relations with practically everyone in the world except the Russians. Mobutu and Moscow are at odds because they back rival regimes in neighboring Angola.

Since the ousting of President Joseph Kasavubu in 1965, Mobutu has managed to create a genuine nation in Zaire, even though its 24 million people are fractured into 100 tribes, speak dozens of dialects, and are spread over 895,000 square miles, much of it primitive jungle. That achievement, however, has been bought at the expense of democracy; Zaireans' are expected to conform strictly to "Mobutisme," an often eccentric notion of nationalism propounded by Le Guide, as the President calls himself. Among other matters, Mobutu in recent years has ordered that all Zaireans adopt African rather than Christian names. Setting a national example, the President in 1971 changed his name from Joseph Mobutu.

Zaire, however, faces some unpleasant economic problems, largely because the price of copper -- which provides 60% of the country's foreign exchange -- has dropped from $1.24 per lb. to 55-c- in the past 18 months. As a result, Zaire has already defaulted on several million dollars in loans, and millions more in obligations are falling due soon. Algeria has threatened to cut off all oil supplies unless Zaire pays $20 million in overdue bills. Meanwhile, Le Guide has been spending neither wisely nor well. He shelled out $11 million to sponsor the Ali-Foreman fight "to put the country on the map," and another $14 million went for Portuguese wine to lubricate last week's festivities. Mobutu has been told by the International Monetary Fund to change his ways if he wants $170 million in new loans, and in an anniversary speech last week, he did promise reform, including committees to supervise spending, and compensation to lure back skilled expatriates.

Reform may also influence the thinking of the U.S. Congress, which is now considering a $60 million Zaire aid bill. An additional Administration request for $19 million in arms aid, however, faces tougher going. Congress is afraid that such aid to Zaire will get the U.S. involved in Angola, where the Soviet-aligned M.P.L.A. regime in Luanda is fighting an F.N.L.A.-UNITA coalition backed by Zaire, Zambia, South Africa, several Western powers and China.

Third Parties. Zaire insists that it has no troops in Angola, but Mobutu is openly supplying his longtime friend Holden Roberto, head of the F.N.L.A., with arms. U.S. law forbids foreign arms purchasers to pass them on to third parties, but as Zaire receives new supplies of American weapons it will be free to send older Chinese and French materiel to Angola. In any case, the U.S. is already involved in the Angolan arms race; Washington is financing non-American arms deliveries to F.N.L.A. and UNITA through third parties.

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