Zairean Army

The Zairean Army is presented as a state force backing the FNLA in the campaign to seize Luanda, not as an independent political contender in the account. Its role is clearest in the planned northern and eastern advances, where army units were assigned to support FNLA forces, and in a later assault on the capital from the north. A separate prisoner's testimony connects Mobutu's troops with the round-up and forced recruitment of Angolan Bakongos into the FNLA, revealing another way the conflict's military manpower was assembled.

Role in the invasion plan

Operation Orange was designed to occupy Luanda by 10 November 1975, the date by which the last Portuguese units were scheduled to leave Angola under the Alvor Agreement. The plan anticipated declaring independence the following day and transferring power to an FNLA–UNITA coalition government. Its three advances were organized along major road corridors: South African motorized units were to move from the south, while the northern and eastern thrusts were assigned to FNLA forces supported by units of the Zairean Army and Portuguese volunteers.

This placement made the army an auxiliary component of a wider coalition rather than the principal force on either of those flanks. The plan specified its support role in both the north and the east, but the account does not detail the units' command arrangements, numbers, or particular tasks. It does establish that the proposed capture of the capital depended on coordinated pressure from several directions, with the Zairean Army included in the forces intended to strengthen the FNLA advances.

Participation in the assault on Luanda

A later account of a new two-front offensive describes an attempt to capture Luanda from the north. Armored vehicles and artillery took part alongside companies of Zairian troops and Portuguese mercenaries; the South African Army was advancing from the south. The Zairian troops are thus shown not only in a staff plan but also as part of an assault force approaching the capital.

The passage gives no account of the companies' movements within the attack, their casualties, or the assault's immediate outcome. Its emphasis is on the convergence of forces and the danger facing Luanda. Read alongside the plan, the episode shows the northern approach as a recurring axis of pressure: first an assigned route for FNLA units with Zairean support, then an assault described as involving Zairian companies directly.

Recruitment and the FNLA

The army's connection to the FNLA also appears in the testimony of a captured Bakongo soldier. During his interrogation after the capture of Caxito, he said that Angolan Bakongos were rounded up in Kinshasa and pressed into the FNLA by Mobutu's troops. According to his account, a person with money could buy release; he had none because he was unemployed, and was therefore taken into the force.

He described joining as compulsion rather than political commitment. The FNLA provided food, including manioc and lamb, and beer on Saturdays; battle victories could bring money, though he said he had not fought in battles for which he was paid. He also said he had not killed anyone and had never seen Holden Roberto. This testimony is an individual prisoner's account, not a wider survey of recruitment, but it places Mobutu's troops in the story of how at least some FNLA soldiers were obtained. Together with the invasion plan and the northern assault, it presents the Zairean Army's role through two connected forms of support: military backing for the FNLA's advance and, in the prisoner's account, coercive recruitment into its ranks.