Predawn Mutiny Killed Hundreds of Sleeping Soldiers - Armored cars and truckloads of white mercenaries drove into an army camp at Kisangani in the blackness before dawn on July 5 and fired their submachine guns at benumbed African soldiers of the Congolese army. This terrible, sudden strike snapped the thin reins of stability in this massive, strange and luxurious country and let it fall into panic and chaos. It was a typical Congolese spell of confusion, or madness. No outsider really knows why it all happened. But with the help of accounts from onlookers, the story of how it happened is falling into place. In a sense, the mutiny of the white mercenaries was their last romantic and gory moment. The Congolese government intended to end its dependence on them by September. The mercenaries might have had to pack their things, collect their money, and slip quietly away then. Instead, their departure has been dramatic and bloody...

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