Middle East in Miniature - The flow of oil goes steadily onward in Nigeria despite the present secession crisis and the threat of war. The oil companies are caught in the eye of the trouble, for two-thirds of Nigeria's oil production comes from the east, the region that seceded from Nigeria last week and proclaimed itself the independent republic of Biafra. But so far neither Biafra nor the federal government has interfered with the production and export of oil. Under new federal rules, all tankers must now call at the federal port of Lagos before shipping to the east. The tankers stop outside the mouth of the harbor. A federal patrol boat pulls alongside. A naval officer climbs aboard the tankers. After a brief inspection, the officer gives it permission to move on to the east...

Trade Pact Aims to Draw Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania Closer by Splitting Them a Bit - The new East African treaty of economic cooperation may bring Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania closer together someday by letting them split a little apart now. Stripped of all its flowery optimism, that is the significance of the treaty, which was signed by Presidents Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Milton Obote of Uganda and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania at a recent conference in Kampala, Uganda. In many ways, the treaty is a remarkable achievement, for it salvages the most it can from the old East African common market and lays down a realistic groundwork for a future market. East Africa has had a common market since British colonial days. But the market always helped Kenya more than the other two countries...

Peace Efforts of Outsiders Like Britain, Zambia Held Unlikely to Bar Civil War - A few outsiders like Britain and Zambia are trying to prevent civil war in Nigeria by diplomatic persuasion and maneuvering, but the odds seem against them. The federal military government of Nigeria seems determined to crush the secession of Eastern Nigeria by force if need be. But this does not stop the talk about peace. Almost a month has gone by since the Eastern Region seceded on May 30 and proclaimed itself the independent Republic of Biafra. Without war, there is always hope of peace. So the outsiders try - in a hesitant, uncertain way. Britain, for example, has sent Eric Norris, assistant secretary of state in the commonwealth office, to Nigeria this week, hoping he might discover some way to end the crisis without bloodshed...

Ojukwu Tells Secessionist Nation Attack by Federal Troops Will Mean 'Total War' - Lt. Col. C. Odumegwu Ojukwu, military governor of secessionist Eastern Nigeria, told his people Friday night, "We have come to zero hour" and are about to be attacked by troops of the federal government of Nigeria. In a voice that seemed to quaver in anger, he warned that any federal invasion into the East will provoke him into "total war against Nigeria." Ojukwu's emotional words, broadcast from the Eastern capital of Enugu and monitored here, came exactly one month after the East seceded from the federation of Nigeria and proclaimed itself the independent republic of Biafra. Ojukwu told Biafrans he has conclusive proof that Maj. Gen. Yakubu Gowon, the federal military ruler, "and his northern bandits have now finalized their plans to attack us in our home..."

Nigeria stripped secessionist leader Lt. Col. C. Odumegwu Ojukwu of all titles, then kicked him out of the federal army, Saturday, crushing hope of a quick settlement between the federal government and the breakaway state of Biafra. "Rapprochement with Ojukwu is not possible," a government spokesman said. The latest action changed the actual state of affairs in Nigeria very little, for all reports from Biafra indicate that Ojukwu is in firm control of the region, with a federal title or without. The move impressed outsiders, however, as another sign of the mounting tension in Nigeria. The country has seemed close to civil war since the old Eastern Region seceded to become the independent republic of Biafra in May. Oil companies caught in this warlike tugging remained silent...

Tanzania's Guide For Africa - African leaders often fancy exalted titles, like "The Conquering Lion of Judah" or "Osegeyfo, the Redeemer," but Julius Nyerere, the president of Tanzania, allows his followers to call him only "Mwalimu," a simple Swahili word that means teacher. In a way, this illustrates Nyerere's penchant - perhaps his affectation - for simplicity, but it also reveals a good deal about his image of himself as leader. Nyerere sees himself as the teacher guiding, encouraging, gently pushing his impoverished, unskilled, hesitant people to a better life. The success of Tanzania depends at the moment on how well Nyerere does as a teacher, for he is in a sense his country's greatest resource. His brilliant reason and firm but gentle leadership put him several levels above his well-meaning though inexperienced and sometimes bumbling associates and lieutenants. He stands out clean and sharp and bright, like a Bix Beiderbecke solo on an old, routine record. The direction and mood of Tanzania these days is the direction and mood of Nyerere...

Grim and curious, thousands of Nigerians stood in the rain Monday under incongruous, carnival-colored African umbrellas and stared at the debris of the night of terror in downtown Lagos near police headquarters. The emotions of these bystanders were obviously the real target of the terrorists who set off two explosions on Sunday night, killing four persons and injuring 14. It seemed a classic case of terrorists trying to make the population shudder or even panic in fear. They had a measure of success. Though Nigerians in Lagos did not seem panicky and fearful, they did look quiet and uneasy, worried, even fretful. The explosions came a little more than a month after the old Eastern Region seceded from Nigeria and proclaimed itself the independent Republic of Biafra, which the federal military ruler, Maj. Gen. Yakubu Gowon, has pledged to crush by force...

The blockade of the secessionist Republic of Biafra took a dramatic, dangerous turn Tuesday when the Nigerian navy announced it had fired a shell into the empty hold of a small Panamanian freighter found in forbidden waters. The shell was fired by a Nigerian patrol boat trying to prevent goods from entering and leaving the secessionist state of Biafra. The patrol boat fired into the 2,500-ton Rigel, which is registered by the Mara Bierta Shipping Line of Panama City, after the ship ignored four warning shots across its bow. No one was hurt. By the time the final shell struck, the Rigel had cut its engines but still had not stopped. It was reported that the captain, an Italian, was not on the bridge at the time. Naval officials said they fired at the Rigel because they found it leaving the Biafran port of Bonny Monday...

Informed sources revealed Wednesday that oil producers have defied the federal military government of Nigeria and paid royalties to the secessionist state of Biafra. The act provoked immediate retaliation. The sources said the federal government has imposed a total blockade on all oil shipments coming out of Biafra, which was the Eastern Region of Nigeria until it seceded May 30. The payment of the royalties - even though made under the threat of Biafra's military pressure - was a blow to the federal government. The move implied some form of international commercial recognition that the East was under the control of secessionist leader C. Odumegwu Ojukwu and not the federal government. But the blockade was a sharp blow to the oil producers who lose their markets in this period of a worldwide oil shortage caused by the Middle East crisis...

Federal troops have attacked the old Eastern Region in an effort to bring down the Biafran government of Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu. According to an announcement by Radio Nigeria Friday night, Maj. Gen. Yakubu Gowon, the federal military ruler, issued his orders for an invasion only after Eastern troops fired at federal troops along the northern border of Biafra. The federal announcement confirmed an earlier broadcast by Radio Biafra that a federal offensive had begun. The Biafrans claimed they had driven the federal troops back across the border. But the federal government, in turn, claimed its troops had penetrated Biafra and inflicted heavy casualties on the secessionist troops. Ironically, the fighting erupted on the eve of two major attempts to bring a peaceful settlement to the Nigerian crisis...

Americans were evacuated from the battle zones of Biafra Saturday as two tiny African armies fought in the rain in the Nigerian civil war. Unconfirmed reports indicated that federal troops had continued their advance into the secessionist state of Biafra, which had been the old Eastern Region of Nigeria before it seceded six weeks ago. The reports said that Ogaja, a key town in the northeastern corner of Biafra, had been captured and that the big university town of Nsukka in the northwest had been surrounded. Nsukka, by road, is 41 miles from Enugu, the capital of Biafra. The obvious federal plan is to capture Enugu and bring down its ruler, Lt. Col. C. Odumegwu Ojukwu. "Our orders are to get Ojukwu," a federal military spokesman said Saturday. "If we get him today, that's it..."

The best indications Sunday were that federal troops continued to move slowly into secessionist Eastern Nigeria, pushing ahead steadily step by step but without any dramatic rout of the eastern forces. But best indications may not be very good in this civil war that is rending Africa's most populous country. The federal government refuses to allow any foreign correspondent anywhere near the battle lines or even the command headquarters. Diplomats say they have received only the sketchiest and vaguest of reports. And there is some hint of less than brisk, communication even between the federal government and its own troops on the remote bushland of the northern border of Biafra - the name that the Eastern Region has taken since its secession. So outsiders can only sift through the rare war communiques of the federal government, the claims made by Biafra Radio and the whispered gossip around town...

Feelings between the United States and Nigeria turned awkward and cold Tuesday as Nigerian officials showed their annoyance over the American refusal to sell them arms for the present civil war. Their displeasure was intensified by what they considered discrimination. They saw the United States sending giant transport planes to the Congo for its military use at the same time that Nigeria was rebuffed on its request for arms. "Apparently," a government spokesman said, "they have one rule for the Congo, and one rule for Nigeria." The sudden displeasure was ironic for, in the past, the United States has been considered one of the staunchest supporters of the federal government in its attempt to crush the secession of the Eastern Region, which now calls itself the Republic of Biafra...

The Congolese army took control Thursday of Kisangani, the last rebel stronghold. Immediately after rebel mercenaries fled the big city of the eastern Congo, two International Red Cross planes flew in and picked up about 100 persons who had been stranded there. It was a desolate scene at the airport here when the refugees arrived. One plane carried about 50 Congolese wounded, the great majority of them Congolese army soldiers. In the other plane there were about 50 Europeans and Americans, most of them women and children, who had lived in Kisangani, formerly Stanleyville. The whites were tired, but not injured. One American woman told newsmen that the mercenaries were gentlemen. She said she did not know of a single white person who was held hostage by the mercenaries during the last week. But she added that perhaps the mercenaries had taken two or three hostages with them when they left Kisangani Wednesday night...

Since modern war is fought and fraught with images as well as guns, the federal government of Nigeria, attempting to put down the secession of Biafra, is busy these days polishing up its own image for the world. The federal government, at least in theory, has entered a new era of public relations, in which it is trying to woo foreign newsmen, instead of harassing them. For months, the old eastern region of Nigeria, which seceded May 30 to become the independent Republic of Biafra, always seemed to have the edge on press play. British and American news stories about Nigeria were filled with interviews with C. Odumegwu Ojukwu, the 33-year-old, bearded, brilliant, witty, Oxford educated leader of Biafra. The stories documented the great grievance of his Ibo people who were massacred in northern Nigeria last year, and described at great length the tenacity, skill and intelligence of the Ibos, who make up two-thirds of Biafra's population. On the other hand, there was hardly ever a descriptive phrase about Maj. Gen. Yakubu Gowon, the federal military ruler, or a good analysis of why he believed Ojukwu must be crushed...

Transport, Sent in After Reports of Looting and Shooting, Returns With 9 Evacuees - The United States rushed a C-130 transport plane to the crisis-ridden city of Kisangani Friday after widespread reports of looting and shooting by the Congolese army which took over the city after rebel mercenaries fled. But the plane returned here with only nine evacuees, including two U.S. Army sergeants, one of them wounded. Two C-46 planes chartered by the International Red Cross brought in an other 100 refugees, most of them Congolese, including injured women and children. The wounded soldier, Sgt. John Degele of Dallas, a mechanic, and the other, Sgt. Robert Mack of Seattle, a radio operator, made up the U.S. Army Congo Mission team in Kisangani. Degele and Mack were believed captured by the mercenaries who took over the city at the start of the rebellion in the early hours of July 5...

Congolese army officers tried valiantly and sometimes vainly in the past few days to hold back their own troops from beating whites, looting homes and firing wildly in Kisangani. This report came from several of the more than 300 refugees who arrived in Kinshasa Saturday aboard two Red Cross planes and a U.S. Air Force C-130 transport plane. Friedrich Engel, a German journalist stranded in Kisangani since July 5, told newsmen he believed 10 Europeans had been killed in the rampage of Congolese soldiers who entered the city after mercenaries fled Wednesday night. Engel said the officers made every effort to keep their men under control, but the men broke out from under the discipline and rushed through town from time to time in what has become a typical Congolese army victory celebration...

Almost 200 White Mercenaries Believed Hiding in Heavily Forested Lands of East - The Congolese army is reportedly ready to begin pursuit of almost 200 rebellious white mercenaries hiding in the thick forest land of the Eastern Congo. The army, according to reliable sources, is satisfied that it knows the general area where the mercenaries have taken refuge. In a sense, the mercenaries have come home - to the fiefdom of their leader, Maj. Jean Schramm. With the help of three U.S. C-130 transport planes and a squadron of Ethiopian jet fighters, the Congolese hope to move into the Schramm area and defeat the soldiers of fortune, whose bloody rebellion in Kisangani almost two weeks ago engulfed the Congo in yet another crisis and provoked a bitter reaction. In their anger and excitement, Congolese soldiers have beaten and killed innocent white residents and looted their homes and shops...

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...

Lost rootless men sometimes fashion schemes of power and of glory out of their faded memory and their braggadocio. That may lie at the source of the latest crisis in the Congo. The restless men were: the exiled Moise Tshombe, a Congolese living like a suave continental businessman in Madrid, reaching for his memories of lost power, smug in his dreams; the white mercenaries of the Congolese army, self-exiled Europeans living like tribal lords, feeling their power and past slipping away, arrogant in their self-confidence. Their plots and schemes, foiled and then recharged, bloodied the Congo in the past two weeks. The best evidence, both factual and circumstantial, from all sources - diplomatic, Congolese government, academic, private - sketches a strange tale of intrigue and counterintrigue...

Congo Trouble Spot - Kisangani, the town they once called Stanleyville is quiet and hot and tranquil. It is stirring feebly and helplessly, like most towns do in the calm and light that follow a hurricane. But no natural disaster wracked this town. The bullet holes that pock the stucco buildings make the difference clear. For eight days after July 5, white mercenaries of the Congolese army controlled the town. The way to control was bloody. Even after they had the town, the mercenaries could not keep peace. After the mercenaries left on July 12, Kisangani was engulfed by anti-white hysteria, and the stores and apartments of whites were smashed for several days. Finally, Red Cross planes and U.S. Air Force C-130s evacuated 290 of the 350 non-Africans in town and law and order was restored...

Washington Has Kept Reds Out Without a Vietnam - Here in the Congo, it seems natural for U.S. Air Force C-130 transport planes to roar across Congolese skies with Congolese soldiers, ammunition and food. The C-130s may be controversial with some congressmen back home who fear the mission will lead toward entanglement of the United States in Congolese affairs. But the truth of the matter is that, even without C-130s, the United States is entangled in the Congo and has been for almost seven years. The sudden dispatch of three fat planes has not changed a thing. The United States probably has more influence in the Congo than in any other African state. That influence comes from years of involvement. Of course, in Africa, words like entanglement, influence and involvement must be put in perspective...

Newsmen Discover - The book charge was simple: "Admiring the light of the moon." Three of us had browsed along the bank of the Congo River at 1:30 a.m. The moon was whole and almost yellow, but no reflection seemed to light upon the river, a vast expanse of brown shadows rushing in the darkness. Some lights from Brazzaville across the river speckled the view on the right, and the lights on top of Mt. Stanley, the home of the president, did the same on the left. The air was cool and quiet. We turned, and a man approached us in the dark. He stopped 30 feet away. He wore a long overcoat that made him seem shapeless. A rifle jutted out from one side of him. He asked us what we were doing, and we told him we had come to admire this beautiful view of the Congo River in the moonlight, and he called out nervously, "Sergeant. Sergeant." Congo lore is full of tales of Congolese soldiers who, fearful and distrustful, suddenly panic and fire away...

Rebellious Whites Take Full Control of Congo City, Show Power by Marching to Rwanda to Release Civilians - Rebellious white mercenary units took full control of the important eastern Congo city of Bukavu and served notice they would keep control until kidnaped Moise Tshombe, former Congo premier, is released and returned to Congo political life. The column of mercenaries demonstrated their control by marching to the Rwanda border and releasing the first of the more than 100 white civilians who had lived with them in the Congolese bush for the last month. The Congolese government radio had called these civilians hostages, but the civilians, as soon as they reached Rwanda, insisted that they had joined the mercenaries for their own protection. No one standing here on Rwanda border could doubt the control and power of the 150 mercenaries and their 700 to 800 allies, the former African gendarmes of the Congo's secessionist Katanga province...

Irritability Increases With Accusations by New Vice President; Break May Come - Kenya officials are so annoyed with the Chinese Communist Embassy these days that they flare up at any minor move the Chinese make. The irritation of the Kenyans developed after a series of offensive pronouncements by the Chinese during the last few months. Now, relations between the two governments are tenuous; they might even break. The Chinese offended the Kenya government so much that some Western diplomats believe it was done by design. No diplomat, in their view, could really be as gauche as the Chinese have seemed. An example of the Kenyan irritation came a few days ago when Vice President Daniel Arap Moi accused the Chinese Embassy of interference in domestic affairs because it had mailed some Mao Tse-tung buttons and some copies of his "Selected Works" and "Quotations" to a secondary schoolteacher in a small country town. Moi's angry accusation was surprising since the Chinese mailing differed little from what other embassies, including the American, try to do...

Belgian Says Congo Rebellion Has Roots in Need for Representative Government - Col. Jean Schramme, who has shattered the Congo's fragile political stability by leading white mercenaries to a rout of the Congolese army, is a slight, diffident-seeming Belgian who talks in the idealistic tones of a peace-loving missionary. Here, in the eastern Congo city that he rules, he told a few newsmen, who had walked across the bridge Thursday from neighboring Rwanda, that his five-week rebellion had its roots in the need of the Congo for representative government and economic development. He seemed to want to play down reports that the main aim of his mercenaries was the release of their grand patron, Moise Tshombe, who is in prison in Algiers. Instead, he talked about the place that Tshombe should have in a representative government. "I think Tshombe is the representative of the Katangese people," he said. "But that's just my opinion." Then Schramme had his one truculent moment in the interview...

Nigeria's Civil War - Africans are dying in Nigeria these days because powerful white men, in an almost playful mood, sat down to draw a few straight lines on a vague map more than half century ago. That is the root cause of the Nigerian civil war. The federal military government of Nigeria is trying to crush the secession of the old eastern region, which calls itself Biafra now, to preserve the territorial integrity of the nation. But what does the territorial integrity of Nigeria mean? At the turn of the century, the British, French and Germans decided to avoid any warring by sharing their colonial spoils in an amicable way. They did it by carving up a map. "In those days we just took a blue pencil and a rule and we put it down at old Calabar and drew that line up to Yola," said a British negotiator who helped set the boundary between eastern Nigeria and the old German Cameroon at that time. While dividing northern Nigeria from French Niger, according to another British official, the British and French "have been giving away mountains and rivers and lakes to each other, only hindered by the small impediment that we never knew exactly where the mountains and rivers and lakes were..."

White Troops, Buoyed by Escapade, Grow Testy From Uncertainty in Congo - The white mercenaries who rule this city in defiance of Congolese President Joseph D. Mobutu and his army are a group of confident and prideful men from many lands who are growing tired these days and testy with each other. Their confidence and pride comes from their extraordinary escapade of the last five weeks in which they have disrupted the eastern Congo and routed the Congolese army. Their fatigue and bickering comes from the pointlessness of it all and the uncertainty of the future. Even mercenaries want to know occasionally where they are going and why. The air of confidence - even cocksureness - strikes you as soon as you walk across the tiny trestle bridge that connects Rwanda with Bukavu, the old Belgian settler city that nestles in the cool green hills along Lake Kivu in the eastern Congo. A Portuguese mercenary, dark, grinning, showing his ice teeth, is waiting. You want to see the commander? He slaps on his bush hat, the wide brims folded up in the dashing way of movie heroes...

Nation Seems Too Unstable for Control by Mobutu, Mercenaries or Americans - Neither President Joseph D. Mobutu, the white mercenaries nor the U.S. government can save the Congo from more turmoil and bloodletting. The mercenary seizure of Bukavu has made that clear. The lumbering, luxuriant Congo is too big, too cruel, too unnerved to be managed by Mobutu, the mercenaries or the Americans. For Mobutu, the mercenary uprising of the last five weeks has undermined his power and prestige. His position seems a little embarrassing, even comical. Almost all the accusations and boasts broadcast by his government radio have been picked apart and exposed as lies. Hordes of foreign parachutists never invaded the Congo. The white civilians protected by the mercenaries never considered themselves hostages. The Congolese army never surrounded the mercenaries. The mercenaries never fled from them. Mobutu might have won a great deal of sympathy throughout the world by telling the truth...

Lack Will to Mold Future - What is a Congo mercenary? In some African lexicons it is the lowest form of humanity - a white man who kills Africans for a dollar. This definition, at least about the dollar, is partly true but it tells us little. A mercenary is a complex, confused, tough man, and no man can be defined, in a lexicon. In some ways, the 160 mercenaries here in Bukavu are surprising. Since July 5, these men and their thousand or so allies from Katanga province have disrupted the eastern Congo, routed the Congolese army and seized this cool picturesque city in the hills alongside Lake Kivu. Yet the first thing that strikes you about them is how passive they seem. They are the kind of men who have been pulled along by events in their past and who lack the will to mold their future. A Rhodesian related the details of his recruitment...

For nearly four years, one of the world's least known rebellions has plagued the northern quarter of Kenya near the border of the Somali Republic. Approximately 2,600 persons have died at the hands of the rebels or government forces. Last week, the Kenya government allowed newsmen into the area for the first time on a supervised tour. With an improbable mixture of guns, grenades, schools and clinics, the Kenya government is trying to put down a guerrilla rebellion here in the semidesert of northern Kenya. The government's targets are the disaffected Somalis who want nearly one quarter of Kenya to secede and become part of the neighboring Somali Republic. Kenya officials have a purpose in combining a social revolution with police action. They are convinced they can triumph over the Shifta, as the rebels are called, only if they can end the nomadic life of the Somalis and get them to settle down with villages, schools, health centers, and water wells...

'Neo-Colonial' Economy Booming - The gross national product of Kenya grew by 10% in 1966, a spectacular rate for developing Africa. It has confounded the country's many critics. Since independence in 1963, Kenya has maintained a western capitalist atmosphere in hopes of attracting foreign capital and keeping many foreigners in technical jobs. Although it is committed to "African socialism" on paper, the government has made it clear that it believes nationalization of foreign enterprises is too costly for a poor country like Kenya. The Kenya way of development seems the most logical one. Because it was an old British settler colony, Kenya had a spirit of pioneering free enterprise, a history of foreign investment and a cadre of non-African managers and technicians. Kenya leaders decided it made more sense to build on this economy than to disrupt or destroy it and start anew. For this, Kenya has been criticized, particularly by Africans in countries that came to independence with economies so weak they could be molded into anything...

Conferees Try to Ignore Col. Schramme's White Mercenaries, Nigerian Civil War - The Organization of African Unity opens the pageantry of its annual summit conference today with the main actors trying to shut their eyes to the two great problems tormenting Africa. The Nigerian civil war and the white mercenaries of Col. Jean Schramme may fill the thoughts and darken the spirits of the African foreign ministers meeting here now to discuss African problems and prepare the agenda for the fourth annual conference. But, so far, the ministers have managed to keep their pronouncements and the agenda free of the two embarrassments. The foreign ministers have faced diplomatic realities and concentrated on safer subjects, like the appointment of a special committee to choose an emblem for the OAU. The federal government of Nigeria insists that the civil war is nobody else's business, and the government of the Congo maintains that the white mercenaries are now of only trifling importance. And the OAU - at least its council of foreign ministers - is too weak to dispute them.

President Mobutu Scores Moral Victory Over Mercenaries Ruling Eastern Area - Eighteen African leaders marched past powder blue - uniformed, red-plumed Congolese honor guards to open the annual African summit conference Monday and give President Joseph D. Mobutu a moral victory over the white mercenaries who rule part of his eastern Congo. The 18 chiefs of state and governments represented less than half the membership of the Organization of African Unity, a meager percentage by most diplomatic standards. But the slight figure seems outsize and formidable in the Congo this week because, for two months, there have been doubts that any one at all would ever show up. Since July 5, the white mercenaries of Col. Jean Schramme have been in rebellion, disrupting the eastern Congo, humiliating the Congolese army and ruling the city of Bukavu...

The leaders of Africa tried to push the white mercenaries out of the eastern Congo Wednesday with a demand, an offer and a threat. But all three were cloaked in such vagueness that it is doubtful they changed the situation in the Congo at all. The mercenaries, led by Col. Jean Schramme, still rule the city of Bukavu and still have the potential to disrupt the administration and economy of the eastern Congo just the way they have for more than two months. The African leaders, meeting at the annual summit conference of the Organization of African Unity, passed a resolution demanding that the mercenaries leave Bukavu, if necessary with the help of competent international bodies, presumably the Red Cross. This implied a safe conduct for the mercenaries. The OAU, which called its resolution a generous offer, based it on the assumption that Schramme and his 150 men want to leave and are tired of fighting for little purpose and no pay since their rebellion began July 5...

Much Pomp, Some Progress - There was so much pomp and vanity, even hypocrisy, at the summit conference of the Organization of African Unity last week that it was sometimes hard for an outsider to see the tiny but very real, significant and exciting steps forward. Young and weak, ashamed of its weakness, the OAU often likes to hide its lack of power under the trappings of power, wasting precious time and energy. This hurts the OAU, making it seem comic and pathetic, even when it is progressing. An example came in midweek when the 18 chiefs of state and government stopped work in the afternoon to help the Congolese government dedicate a memorial to Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of The Congo, the first martyr of independent Africa. The tone and meaning of the ceremonies reflected many of the ills that afflict leadership in Africa...

The government of Kenya belongs to its 9.7 million Africans, but the country's shops, factories and banks, its wholesaling, distributing, and importing, its whole private economy, belong, in the main, to the 235,000 Asians and whites who live here. Walk down this city's frenzied, color-splashed side streets where most people do their shopping. For block after block, the signs of the dukas, as the shops are called, evoke the sounds of India and Pakistan: Ganijee Glass Mart, Indian Emporium, Patel & Co., Shah & Sons, Ghela Manek, Hindustan Boot Co., Bombay Sweet Mart. On Kenyatta Ave., Nairobi's main street, named after the country's African president, Jomo Kenyatta, there are 31 businesses and shops run by Asians, 13 by whites, and only one by an African. No independent country, let alone a new, sensitive country, would tolerate an alien monopoly over its economy for long. In a developing country, the monopoly is even more intolerable because it closes off one of the means of developing initiative and incentive in the people...

Congolese artists are helping President Joseph Mobutu rewrite history these days, painting huge canvases that show the grim, young president peering steadfastly ahead with a ghostly Patrice Lumumba at his side. It is all part of a campaign that depicts Mobutu as a great militant African nationalist, the apostle and heir of Lumumba, and as the great enemy of imperialism, neocolonialism, mercenaries, and Moise Tshombe. To maintain this pose requires some glib talk and some artful dodging of facts. Mobutu, a 36-year old former newspaperman, has been successful at both. So successful, in fact, that African leaders at the recent summit conference of the Organization of African Unity here put aside the past and hailed Mobutu for all he claimed to be. In the long run, the Congo may gain from Mobutu's rewriting of the past, but, for the sake of the record, it is worthwhile comparing the claims of the new Mobutu with the facts about the old Mobutu and the histories of Lumumba, Tshombe and the mercenaries...

The Congo is rich in precious metal and fertile land, but its economy may be near ruin these days - too weak to absorb the bitterness and hate provoked by 150 mercenaries in rebellion. Since the mercenaries began their fight more than two months ago, there have been waves of reprisals by Congolese, mostly soldiers, against innocent and defenseless white civilians, the very civilians who keep the economy going. These civilians, almost all Belgians, are frightened and fed up. Many have sent their wives and children back to Belgium and are pondering whether to follow them out. If they do, they may leave economic chaos behind. The mines of Katanga offer a stark example of the problem. Generale Congolaise des Minerais, the Congolese government-controlled company that took over the copper mines of Katanga at the beginning of the year, employed 1,800 Belgian technicians and administrators before the troubles began...

Benin, Midwest Region Capital, Changed Hands Twice in 12-Week Biafran Struggle - The essence of the Nigerian Civil war is hidden in the story of the battle of Benin, a dusty, shabby, historical town of little strategic value and much symbolic impact. Benin, the capital of the Midwest Region, has changed hands twice in the 12-week-old war. The troops of secessionist Biafra swept through it in a surprise attack Aug. 9 and then abandoned it last Wednesday to counterattacking federal soldiers. The federal government says its soldiers captured the town after a bloody battle, but Nigerians who watched the capture say that all Biafran soldiers had left by the time the federal soldiers arrived. They say that the only men who fell before the federal onslaught were defenseless Ibo civilians, members of the main tribe of Biafra, who maintain they are fighting soldiers who massacred 30,000 of them in northern Nigeria last year and are now bent on annihilating them all...

Nigeria may be rent with tribal hatred and bloodied by war, but optimism still reigns at the top levels of the U.S. Embassy here and governs American policy toward this sick and depressing country. The optimism is less rosy and more cautious than it was in the old days of 1960 to 1965 when the embassy used to describe Nigeria as a showcase of democracy and development, a description that later proved illusory. But, though it is restrained now, the optimism is still strong enough to persuade U.S. Ambassador Elbert G. Mathews and his senior lieutenants that the federal military government's present course of using military force to end the secession of Biafra will lead to a united, prosperous Nigeria. This view is challenged staunchly and, in some cases, bitterly by several junior officers in the embassy here, some influential policy-makers in the State Department and the official American on the scene in Biafra, Robert Barnard, the U.S. consul in Enugu. They believe a military conquest of Biafra will aggravate tribal hatred so much that Nigeria will never have stability...

The battle for Enugu, capital of rebellious Biafra, has begun, with the leader of the besieged secessionist city crying to his people, "Let us be prepared to die." Reliable sources confirmed that federal soldiers started to fire mortar shells into the city Friday night, an act that meant they were just a few miles away in the hills and bush that lead to Enugu. Just after midnight Saturday, Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu, leader of Biafra, underscored the meaning of the shelling in a bitter and foreboding speech that exhorted his people to fight to the end. First Ojukwu reminded them that Friday had been the first anniversary of the massacre that saw the killing of 30,000 Ibo tribesmen who lived in Northern Nigeria. This massacre triggered the bitterness and resentment that led the lbos of the Eastern Region to secede from Nigeria on May 30. Ojukwu said that the same forces were "now making frantic efforts to reach Enugu." "Let us be prepared to die so that our children may live." Ojukwu said...

There is a special irony in civil war. Men on both sides know each other well. Outsiders are caught between their friends. Somehow everyone is a traitor to someone else. The Nigerian civil war is no different. Sam Agbam was a light-skinned Ibo who worked in Nigeria's Ministry of External Affairs as an expert on other African countries. I first met him in 1962 when he and his wife and their first child returned to Nigeria from graduate study in London. Although Agbam was lbo, he had spent very little time in Eastern Nigeria, the traditional home of the Ibos. He left it as a boy to go to secondary school in Warri in the Niger Delta. Then came courses for a degree at the University College of Ibadan, graduate study in London, and government work in Lagos. As a government worker, he always seemed very British, very elite, very diplomatic with his deliberate way of speaking and his meticulous, London-cut suits. His British ways no doubt troubled him. At home, he sometimes slipped off his London suit and changed to a sport shirt and a long Ibo skirt, looking a little out of place and character...

Despite all its strange names and obscure terrain, surprise thrusts and counter-thrusts, wild claims and counter-claims, the Nigerian civil war is simple to follow and understand, for only one battlefield matters, the heartland of the Ibo people. Now that heartland has been penetrated. The federal military government says it has captured Enugu, the coal town of 60,000 that is the capital of Biafra, the name the Eastern Region took when it seceded last May 30, bitter because thousands of lbos, its dominant tribe, had been massacred in Northern Nigeria last year. If the claim about Enugu is true, Biafra may have received a staggering blow. Capitals usually have more than symbolic value in Africa. Since towns are small and communications bad, capitals usually are the center of all modern life. In general, they have the only good airport, the only control for letting telephone calls go from one city to another, the only radio transmitter, the only buildings big enough to house a government...

Two simple posters explain the civil war in Nigeria. The first, a thin strip, was glued to the walls and windows of most public buildings in Enugu, the capital of Eastern Nigeria, a few weeks before the region seceded on May 30 to become the Republic of Biafra. The poster shows four men. Three look alike, obviously Ibos, the dominant tribe of the east. The fourth man is a Hausa from Northern Nigeria. “This Is Your Region,” the poster says, “Report Any Strange Face to the Police.” The second poster, a little larger and more colorful, was slapped all over Lagos, the federal capital of Nigeria, a few weeks before federal troops invaded Biafra on July 6, the beginning of the civil war. This poster shows a monstrous drawing of the severed head of Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu, the ruler of Biafra, lying under the heavy combat boot of a Nigerian soldier. “Crush Rebellion,” the poster says. The first poster reflects the intense tribal feeling of the Ibos of Eastern Nigeria. They are enraged and bitter over the massacre of thousands of Ibos in Northern Nigeria last year. They believe the other tribes of Nigeria would wipe them out if they could. For this reason, the Ibos feel they are fighting for their survival. But in Lagos, just 270 miles from Iboland, the federal military rulers and their civil servants, now mostly from the north, refuse to acknowledge that this emotionalism exists. In their view, as the second poster shows, a gangster named Ojukwu is stirring up the Ibos. Crush them, and all the problems of Nigeria go away...

Battlefield Successes Cause Loyalists to Lose Interest in Negotiations With Biafra - The federal military government of Nigeria, in no mood to talk about compromise and negotiations in the Nigerian civil war, has just about scuttled the peace mission of the Organization of African Unity. Convinced that a resounding military victory will soon be theirs, the federal leaders believe it is pointless to risk losing any of that victory at a conference table. That is why the federal government has twice forced the postponement of the visit of the mission and why it has sent Chief Anthony Enaharo on a tour of African countries to explain the federal case. Enaharo, the civilian commissioner of information in his government, visited Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania last week. The probable brunt of his argument is that the federal government will defeat secessionist Biafra soon with a minimum of bloodshed and that the disaffected Ibo tribesmen of Biafra can be brought back into Nigerian life in just a few years...

Far From Fighting, Lagos Seethes With Troops Harassing Civilians in Petty Ways - Lagos once was a happy city, teeming and jangling. Now, in the midst of civil war, it is depressed and depressing, almost drab, almost quiet. With its population of 650,000 crowded onto three islands and a nub of mainland, Lagos, despite its poverty and squalor, had always seemed an urban symbol of all the best in independent black Africa - brash, confident, aggressive, proud. Then civil war came. The war has not meant battling or much bloodshed for Lagos. Planes of secessionist Biafra have raided the city twice, inflicting little damage. Saboteurs have planted bombs occasionally, killing nine people. But the actual fighting has been far away. The town did get tense and frightened on Aug. 9 when Biafran soldiers shocked the federal government by sweeping through the Midwest state. By morning, the Biafrans had captured the Midwestern capital, Benin, just 150 miles east of Lagos...

Civil war has hurt but failed to shatter the economy of Nigeria. In fact, if fighting ended soon, the recovery might be dramatic. The war has cut the production of oil, frightened away foreign investment, disrupted trade within the country, and reduced holdings of foreign exchange to a dangerous level. But the basic structure of the economy is undamaged. While oil wells, for example, lie dormant, they still are there and could be reactivated quickly. Moreover, despite the war, agricultural crops have done fairly well, and agriculture is the dynamic of the economy, accounting for 60% of the gross domestic product and half the foreign exchange. Little is known about the economy of Biafra, the old eastern region that seceded last May 30. But economists in Lagos believe that, because of the federal blockade of its ports, Biafra has suffered far more than the rest of Nigeria. Oil has been the first victim of the civil war...

Drama of Fighting Obscures Emergence of Minority Tribes With Collective Power - Civil war is realigning the politics of Nigeria, putting new power into the hands of the country's small minority tribes. This emergence of the small tribes has been a little noticed political revolution, obscured by the drama of the fighting. But the new politics in Lagos may have as much impact on the future of Nigeria as the war itself. The federal military government is now controlled by a coalition of the minorities and the Yoruba tribe, with the minorities clearly the senior partner. After the war ends, this coalition might stick. Ironically, this is the coalition that Chief Obafemi Awolowo, leader of the Action Group, the Yoruba political party, tried to form when Nigeria became independent in 1960. He failed then, but is succeeding now, and he may become Nigeria's prime minister if and when the soldiers decide to hand the government back to the politicians. Under the present military government, political parties are banned, but political maneuvering is still rampant. Since Nigerian politics have always been tribal, the new politics can be analyzed by surveying the tribal background of the men who have power...

Col. Schramme Tells Newsmen in Congo 'Nothing Is Arranged,' Asks Better Deal - There seems little likelihood of an early evacuation of the white mercenary troops and their Katangese allies who have held this important eastern Congo town since August. While the Congolese government and Red Cross officials talk loudly of evacuating the mercenaries from the Congo, the mercenaries, in their stronghold, here talk just as loudly of staying put, at least for a while. There have been optimistic announcements in the past few weeks by the government of President Joseph Mobutu in Kinshasa and by Red Cross officials in Geneva, but the mercenaries, talking to newsmen for the first time since negotiations for their withdrawal began, made it clear that their departure may be a long way off, if it ever comes. "Nothing is arranged," Col. Jean Schramme, leader of the mercenaries, told newsmen Sunday. "As long as there are no serious guarantees, we cannot envisage a departure..."