TANZANIAN SUPPORT FOR THE CONGO REBELS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00472A000400040008-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 26, 2013
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: April 7, 1965
• Content Type: MEMO

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TOP SECRE
7 April 1965
Copy No. 2 ~ ~~
INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
TANZANIAN SUPPORT FOR THE CONGO REBELS
DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
Office of Current Intelligence
TOP SECRET
GROUP 1
Excluded from automatic
downgrading and
declassification
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This document contains classified information affecting the national
security of the United States within the meaning of the espionage
laws, US Code Title 18, Sections 793, 794, and 798. The law prohibits
its transmission or the revelation of its contents in any manner to
an unauthorized person, as well as its use in any manner prejudicial
to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any
foreign government to the detriment of the United States.
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Central Intelligence Agency
Office o'f Current Intelligence
7 April 1965
Tanzanian Support For
The Congo Rebels
Summary
1. In retrospect, it is clear that Tanzania
has been actively aiding the Congolese rebels at
least since September of last year--well before
the main radical African effort was organized. Tan-
zania has passed on Chinese and Soviet-supplied
arms, apparently has provided training and facili-
ties for Congolese insurgents, and has given the
rebellion strong political support. Tanzanian min-
isters Kawawa, Kambona,and Lusinde have been the
principal exponents of this policy, but President
Nyerere has known and approved of it. Now that
easy access to the rebels through Uganda and the
Sudan has been cut off, the Dar es'Salaam _ Kigoma
anms route may be the last hope for the rebel
cause.
2. Tanzanians have been associated with the
current rebellion in the eastern Congo at least
since May 1964. It is unclear, however, whether
aid to the rebels had Nyerere's sanction until
July, when Tshomb~ came to power in Leopoldville.
Nyerere and other Tanzanian leaders have long
despised Tshomb~, whom they consider a colonial
puppet. Their sympathies since 1960 have been
with Lumumba and his successors. In April 1961
the Tanganyikan minister of home affairs admitted
publicly that goods were transitting Dar es~Salaam
for the "legitimate" Gizenga government in Stanley-
ville,and that goods for Tshomb~ then in Katanga
were not being allowed through because "he is
not recognized by anybody."
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3. The first known Tanzanian weapons deliver
in 1964 occurred on 23 September
4. When the decision to deliver these arms was
made cannot be precisely determined. It may have been
as early as mid-June, when Vice President and Minister
of Defense Kawawa was in Peiping negotiating an arms
deal. The matter almost certainly was under considera-
tion or review in Tanzania by late August, however, On
27 August,-the foreign minister of Burundi,. an active
supporter of the Congolese rebels, held secret talks
in Dar with Tanzanian authorities.. Two days later,
Foreign Minister Kambona, Interior Minister Lusinde,and
two top security officials went to Kigoma, ostensibly
to oversee the resettlement of some 2,000 refugees.
who had just fled across Lake Tanganyika from Albert-
ville, then threatened by Congolese Government columns.
Reporters who accompanied Kambona's party were sent
back to Dar es Salaam, Since that time, Kigoma, often
reported as a major rebel training area and as the Tan-
zanian end of a smuggling route, has been under tight
security wrapsa
5. Rebel "president" Gbenye in Stanleyville appar-
ently was not informed of the arms deliveries until early
October. A letter written by Gbenye sometime around 8 Oc-
tober (and .picked up by US officials when the city fell)
reveals that Gbenye had been visited by "Foreign Minister"
Kanza, just arrived from Cairo, and Laurent Kabila, a promi-
nent eastern Congolese rebel who had been in Peiping in Au -
gust. Kanza told him that material for the rebels was col-
lecting in Dar, and Kabila--not usually given to hyper-
.bole--said that the insurgents had at their disposal "com-
plete equipment for 2,000 men." Kabila further said that "part
of this is reportedly in the Congo already, where a sup-
posed General Shabani of Fizi wants to get hold of them."
Shabani is in fact a rebel military figure at Fizi, which
is across the lake from KLgomao
6.. 'The arms referred to mazy have arrived in. Dar aboard
the Chinese ship Heping, on 1 September. Most,of its 650??ton
cargo was deliverer-to Tanzanian troops on the mainland and on
Zanzibar, but part of it was earmarked for another destina-
tion. It was speculated that the unaccounted-for arms were
for Mozambique nationalists, but it now seems more likely
they were for Congolese dissidents.
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?. As far as can be determined, Tanzania was
the first African state to facilitate deliveries of
material aid to the Congolese rebels. Other radical
Africans were to follow Tanzania's lead. A co-
ordinated radical program to overthrow Tshombd ap-
parently was initiated in early October during the
conference of nonaligned states held in Cairo, when
a consortium was formed, which was eventually to
include Egypt, Algeria, Mali, Guinea, Ghana, the
Sudan, and Congo (Brazzaville), as well as the three
East African states. On 10 October, Tanzania's
Kawawa together with some Congolese rebels left the
conference for Bujumbura, on Ben Bella's personal
plane. The rebels disembarked and Kawawa returned
to Cairo.
8. Since that time, Tanzania has participated
in several meetings concerning the Congo rebellion.
The first, held at Dar on 16 October, was attended
by Nyerer~, Kenya's President Kenyatta, Uganda's
Prime Minister Obote, Zambia's President Kaunda,
and the radical Burundi Prime Minister Nyamoya, who
arrived in Dar on a Tanzanian plane. The Burundi
foreign minister who had visited Dar in late August
arrived earlier in October.
9. On 30 October Lusinde,tw? senior Tanzanian ntel-
ligence officers, and tie Algerian ambassador to Dar met
Kanga_ in Nairobi~.~ . Apparently they: dfstussed tlae ?first con-
sortium-organized arms deliveryy which was then
aboard an Algerian .transport plane. The plane, which
had arrived in Dar on the 29th, was to fly to Arua
in Uganda on 31 October.
10. Other top--level meetings involving Tanzania
and concerning aid to the Congo rebels occurred on
18 November, 23 December, xnd 13 January. Following
the last, which was held in Mbale, Uganda, and was
attended by Gbenye, Nyerere publicly extolled the
rebel leader, saying that Gbenye was "as responsible
as any African leader that I have met...committed to
the same objectives of African freedom and~African
dignity...as everyone else is." (Kenyatta was less
impressed.)
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11. At the secret meetings and in public,
Tanzanian leaders have been in the vanguard of those
urging greater support for the rebels. Kambona re-
cently reaffirmed Tanzanian solidarity with the in-
surgents and intimated that the struggle in the
Congo may take "ten years."
Arms Deliveries and Smuggling Routes
12. Since the Heping visit, two other Chinese
arms-bearing freightersTave docked in Dar: the
Lao Dong on 13 November, and the Xing Hou on 6 Feb-
ruary. The Chinese munitions deliTv?eries probably
total about a thousand tons. Most were used to re-
equip a Tanzanian battalion, but some went to the
rebels.
13. Soviet weapons deliveries to the Tanzanian
mainland have amounted to over 250 tons, carried
aboard the ships Beshtau and Nicolai Burdenko, which
docked in Dar on 3~tober and 7-Fe-bruary respectively,
and on five Soviet planes which landed in Dar in
March. As with the Chinese-supplied arms, the Soviet
shipments probably went to both the Tanzanian Army
and the rebels.
14. Two Egyptian cargo lanes also landed in
Dar in March.
15. Most rebel-bound arms reach Kigoma by rail-
road. There is evidence that some are trucked from
the port at Dar to a loading station at least 100
miles west, apparently to avoid observation. Twenty
trucks, including fifteen of Chinese Communist manu-
facture, have license plates and registrations iden-
tical to twenty Public Works Division vehicles. The
former group run up a great deal of mileage, but the
official records show only the low mileage of the
latter group which never leaves the Dar es-Salaam
area. It appears that the Tanzanians want to conceal
the fact that the vehicles are being used for some
irregular purpose.
16.
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"consigned to Burundi" left Dar for Kigoma on 23 November.
These munitions (perhaps from the Lao Dong) apparently ar-
rived in Kigoma shortly thereafter. Par~of the shipment
was then sent to Burundi, some by truck, and some over
Lake Tanganyika. Heavy arms-laden vehicles were seen ar-
riving in Burundi in mid-December at about the same time
that ten large wooden-boxes were reportedly spotted on a
Burundi-bound lake steamer, One of the boxes, which broke
open, contained three Czech machine guns.
17. In late December, the Burundi Bing impounded 79
tons of arms which
transittin Burundi for the rebels.
packing cases had Chinese
la~iels. They included recoilless rifles, bazookas, and
over 900,000 rounds of ammunition.
18. There have been frequent reports since-Septem-
ber of smuggling across Lake Tanganyika from Kigoma to
the Fizi area.
e fishing oat Grecusa was a n~ use on
route.)
two other vessels, "AB 85/OCB and AB 81 NB as
involved in the arms trade.
the Fizi rebels were receiving
supplies over the lake at a rate of about 80 tons a
month. The estimate seems plausible.
19. For some time Communist-made arms have been
seized around the periphery of the Fizi salient, but de-
tailed descriptions are lacking because of limited US
access to the area. An AP news correspondent, however,
observed in late March that a Congolese battalion south-
west of Fizi was armed with captured Czech rifles and
ammunition. On 23 January, mercenaries north of Fizi
captured a 120-mm. mortar (perhaps one of six off-loaded
from the Beshtau in Dar on 30 October), and several drums
of potass u~m c~iToride and acid (used for making Molotov
cocktails) marked "Tanganyika."
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Training and "Volunteers"
20. Reports of training of Congolese rebels
have come in since last fall, but they are difficult
to substantiate because of the securit restrictions
around Ki oma.
21. Estimates of the number of Congolese in-
surgents trained in Tanzania range as high as 3,000.
On occasion Chinese military advisers have been re-
ported in Kigoma. Last September seven Chinese in-
structors arrived in Dar to give six-month training
to the Tanzanian Army battalion equipped with Chi-
nese arms. The program is reportedly complete, but
as far as is known, these Chinese are still on the
Tanzanian mainland. There are other Chinese military
advisers on Zanzibar.
22. Information concerning Tanzanian "volunteers"
serving with the Congolese rebels is likewise vague.
Tanzanians were reported in the Congo south of Bukavu
last May, but their presence has never been confirmed.
said that some of the rebels
w o occup a from May to October
spoke English--an "therefore" were Tanzanian.
Prospects
23. Now that the rebellion in the northeast
appears to be crumbling, in part because of the
interdiction of the Sudanese and Ugandan arms routes,
pressure to use the Tanzanian route is likely to grow.
Since early March, in fact, the use of the Dar-Kigoma
route appears to have increased. Rail traffic is said
to be heavy, and a restricted air corridor has been
established from Kigoma in the direction of Dar. The
Kigoma airstrip apparently is to be extended.
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24. Tanzanian efforts to supply the rebels
may be frustrated, however. In early Dtarch the
Congolese Government mounted a lake patrol--now
consisting of eight vessels-and several suspect
smuggling boats have been sunk. Also, access
through Burundi continues to be denied and Congo-
lese troops still hold Uvira, astride the main
road between Burundi and the Congo.
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