End date June 1978 | ||
 | ||
Zaire
Military 14 killed, 8 wounded
Civilian 500 killed
France
11 killed, 20 wounded
Belgium
1 killed
European civilians 120 killed
United States
1 aircraft slightly damaged
1 crewman wounded. Katanga
250 killed, 160 captured Result Zairian victory; mutual end of support for other nations' rebel groups Combatants France, Belgium, People's Republic of Angola, Front for Congolese National Similar Shaba I, Battle of Kolwezi, Katanga insurgency, Congo Crisis, 2008 Nord‑Kivu campaign | ||
Shaba II a brief conflict fought in the Zairean province of Shaba (now Katanga) in 1978. The conflict broke out on 11 May 1978 after 6,500 rebels from the Congolese National Liberation Front (FNLC), a Katangese separatist militia, crossed the border from Angola into Zaire in an attempt to achieve the province's secession from the Zairian regime of Mobutu Sese Seko. The FNLC captured the important mining town of Kolwezi.
The Mobutist government appealed for foreign assistance and French and Belgian military intervention beat back the invasion just as in 1977.
The U.S. and Cuba coaxed Angola and Zaire into negotiations leading to a non-aggression pact. This ended support for insurgencies in each other's respective countries. Zaire temporarily cutoff support to the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), and National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and Angola forbade further activity by the Shaba separatists.
The U.S. worked with France in repelling the invaders, the first military cooperation between the two nations since the Vietnam War. U.S. Air Force elements involved included a Combat Control Team (air traffic controllers) of the 435th Tactical Airlift Wing, the 445th Military Airlift Wing, and other airlift wings.
Battle of Kolwezi
Six hundred troops of the French Foreign Legion's 2 Foreign Paratroop Regiment took back Kolwezi after a seven-day battle and airlifted 2,250 European citizens to Belgium, but not before the FNLC massacred 80 Europeans and 200 Africans. In one instance the FNLC killed 34 European civilians who had hidden in a room. However, Pierre Yambuya claims many of the civilian deaths were caused by FAZ-troops and not the FLNC.
In any case, the FNLC retreated to Zambia and back to Angola, vowing to return. The Zairian armed forces (Forces Armées Zaïroises) then forcibly evicted civilians along Shaba's 105-kilometre-long (65 mi) border with Angola and Mobutu ordered them to shoot on sight.