A SMALL BAND of brave whites surrounded by maddened savages on the Dark Continent: it was the sort of story that once gave a romantic veil to the sordid history of Africa's colonization. American newspapers seized on the invasion of Shaba province by Katangan rebels and the subsequent rescue mission by French and Belgian paratroopers, as if they had found a modern version of Stanley and Livingston. The Boston Herald-American screamed out "Whites Massacred in Zaire," while Newsweek, slightly less hysterically racist, went with "Massacre in Zaire." White casualties were carefully tabulated and lamented, but the death toll for blacks--a much higher number--was not even mentioned for the first few days, then left casually at "several hundred." The caption on an AP photo in The New York Times was typical: underneath the picture of piled bodies, it said, "Bodies of a number of blacks and a European were found at this site."

The story that the media was pounding into our consciousnesses was one of marauding blacks, drunk on white blood, systematically murdering every white they could find. But, as David Ottoway reported this week in The Washington Post, the massacre reports came from French and Zairean sources and "were deliberately exaggerated to gain quick Western public sympathy" for the French-Belgian intervention.

Ottoway's story contradicts on almost every count the official line we've been fed. The French claimed last week that 200 Europeans had been killed, but independent groups like the Red Cross have been able to verify fewer than 100 European deaths among the more than 2000 Europeans in Kolwezi. And at least 20 Europeans may have been executed by Zairean army troops, not by the rebels. Ottoway reports that the victims, both African and European, "died in a mostly haphazard manner," singly and in small groups, with "no overall design for the killing or even the saving of lives, either by rebels or Zairean soldiers." He writes that many of the deaths may have resulted from the crossfire between rebels and French paratroopers, and that rebel commanders acted in many instances to protect whites, rather than to order their execution. There is also the possibility that French and Zairean troops piled up bodies in several locations to simulate massacres.

The lesson we should learn from all this is that the French-Belgian intervention, which Newsweek called "a gallant rescue mission" for the Europeans in Kolwezi, was actually a rescue mission for the shaky, uniquely corrupt and autocratic regime of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire. Even with the hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid that the U.S. has pumped into Mobutu's army, it broke and ran in the face of a few thousand Katangan rebels, and had to be bailed out by the French and Belgians. Mobutu's latest pronouncement on the subject was his call this week for a "foreign defense force" for the copper mines in Katanga--a euphemism for mercenaries and more bail-outs.

Mobutu's regime is shaky because he has never represented nationalist aspirations for an independent Zaire. Mobutu came to power in the early '60s as a result of foreign intervention, and he has stayed in power propped up with U.S. aid, CIA backing and revenues from the foreign-run copper mines in Shaba province. He has consistently looked out for his personal interests, rather than the welfare of the impoverished majority of Zaire's peoples--reputed to be the wealthiest person in Africa, Mobutu owns the largest hotel in Dakar, Senegal, as well as a number of hotels and a large Swiss bank account.

Zairean dissatisfaction with Mobutu has deep roots, going back to the early '60s, when Zaire--then the Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa)--won independence from the Belgians under the leadership of Patrice Lumumba. The Belgian record in Africa was particularly cruel, with a long history of massacres and torture in the Congo. By international agreement, the Congo was the personal fiefdom of Belgium's King Leopold, who grew notorious for the repression and exploitation he encouraged in the area.

Economic violence was the quieter accompaniment to the obvious political repression: the colony's economy was structured to benefit the Belgians, and the Belgians alone. When the Congo gained independence, social security payments in Belgium dropped 40 per cent--an indication of the importance of the huge African country for its colonial masters. The rich copper mines in Shaba, then Katanga, were owned by a Belgian state monopoly. The Belgians had hoped to continue their economic control even when political power had passed into African hands.

But Lumumba was outspoken in his opposition to such a future for his country. As a result, the Belgians fostered a coup against him, and then promoted secession by Katanga, which contained most of their assets. (The Katangan rebels who took Kolwezi two weeks ago are the remnants and descendants of the losing side in the civil war that followed secession.) United Nations "peacekeeping" forces, with U.S. support, also played a key role in the success of the coup against the Lumumba government, holding government forces in check while allowing Mobutu, then head of the army and considered "safe" by the Belgians, free rein to take over. There is evidence, revealed by former CIA officer John Stockwell, that the CIA had a hand in Lumumba's eventual kidnapping and murder at Lubumbashi. His body has never been found.

VISITING LUBUMBASHI now, one can still see the scars of the civil war, although Mobutu has nominally established independence for a united Zaire. Houses still lie in ruins and roads are a shambles; at the university, the frame of a three-story building, originally meant to be a library, stands unfinished and rusting. All the university students were drafted and placed under military discipline when they protested Mobutu's policies. Most of the rest of the city consists of mud huts, where the people eke out a living on the edge of starvation. And corruption is a way of life. (According to popular belief, Mobutu simply does not pay his soldiers, which is why they set up road-blocks in places like Lubumbashi and Matadi, waving submachine guns and demanding bribes before they let drivers pass.)

Only one area of town seems almost untouched. The section where the white workers in the copper companies live resembles a pleasant Belgian suburb, with well-kept gardens and roads, European cafes and restaurants. African mine workers, of course, still live in overcrowded one-and two-room shacks. Although the older mines are now nominally owned by Zaire, there are only a handful of Africans in management positions. New mining investments by Japanese and South African firms maintain the same pattern: Never hire an African for an upper-level job when an expatriate can be imported.

Outside the mines the Shaba economy is stagnant. The only development in the area is the investment by OTRAG, a huge West German company, in a rocket-testing site near Lubumbashi. Mobutu gave the site, covering hundreds of kilometers, to OTRAG in much the same way colonies were assigned to European monopolies in the 19th century. OTRAG may remove the inhabitants and establish its own laws; its personnel are not subject to Zaire laws. The site borders on Zambia and Tanzania, and is only a few hundred kilometers from Angola--a fact that has made these independent countries understandably nervous. But rocket-testing, even on the huge scale envisioned, will bring no prosperity to most of the inhabitants of Shaba. Pushed off the better land by Europeans and Mobutu's cronies, with no industrial jobs available, they continue to live in poverty, while Mobutu invests in personal jets and Olympic-size arenas where Muhammed Ali can box for the T.V. cameras.

Mobutu's relations with his neighbors are strained, to say the least. Angola in particular has had problems with his erratic and belligerent style. Mobutu's designs on Angola have never been secret: he wanted to acquire the oil-rich enclave of Cabinda--which is separated from Angola by the Congo River--along with whatever else he could grab. When the Portuguese agreed to leave Angola, Zairean and South African troops joined local groups to fight the Movimento Popular de Liberacion d'Angola (MPLA), which had established itself as the best-organized and most popular nationalist movement. In this "Second War of Independence," (the first was against Portugal), Zairean troops invaded Angola in support of the FNLA, headed by Mobutu's brother-in-law Holden Roberto--obviously Mobutu's hope for extending his influence into Angola. South African troops invaded from the south in support of UNITA, the group they trusted to set up a safe buffer state to keep the heat off the racist Vorster regime in South Africa.

The end of that story is familiar: Cuban troops with Soviet aid helped the MPLA repel the invasions, and stayed in Angola to prevent further incursions by Zaire and South Africa. But Mobutu continues to aid the FNLA, which occasionally conducts raids into Angola. That is the real reason Angola has a sympathetic attitude towards the Katangan rebels--the Katangans serve as a diversion force, a counter to Mobutu's designs through FNLA on Angola.

But President Carter and his cold-warrior advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, don't see it that way. They believe the Cuban presence in Angola and the Soviet aid to MPLA are part of a grand Soviet design to extend its influence in southern Africa. Carter has been squawking recently about the Congressional amendment, sponsored by Sen. Frank Church (D-Ida.), which bars U.S. intervention in southern Africa. Carter says the amendment "ties my hands" and cuts down his options. But the option that Carter is apparently considering is support of UNITA in its South-African-supported guerrilla war against MPLA in southern Angola. This would in effect line the U.S. up with the world's most racist and oppressive regime.

THIS IS A very familiar tack for the United States. Previous administrations backed Portugal in its colonial oppression of Angola. Under then-President Gerald R. Ford, the CIA spent over $30 million supporting the FNLA and UNITA, as well as Zaire's and South Africa's attempts to get control in Angola. And as long as the United States persists in viewing southern Africa in terms of "responding" to Soviet participation there, we shall always be on the wrong side.

The Soviets have consistently been on the right side: they supported the black nationalist movements against Portuguese colonialism; they backed MPLA, the only genuine nationalist movement in Angola, against invasions by Zaire and South Africa; they support black liberation throughout southern Africa. Meanwhile, as one black South African told Harvard students this year, "The U.S. is not just on the wrong side, the U.S. is the wrong side"--with its corporate interests in South Africa, its military aid to dictators such as Mobutu, and its consistent support of the status quo in southern Africa.

The French and Belgians have shown their willingness to intervene in southern Africa to protect their interests--interests in Zaire's copper mines that are run by French and Belgians, interests in propping up the shaky regime of a "safe" pro-Western-exploitation dictator, Mobutu. The future looks grim for the people of Zaire: Mobutu has wiped out all possible opposition, except for the Katangans; the worldwide recession and drop in copper prices has left Zaire's economy in a shambles; and the International Monetary Fund is imposing "austerity" on Zaire. We can be sure, however, it will not mean austerity for Mobutu.

If Carter, Brzezinski and the CIA have their way, Mobutu will continue to oppress his people. If American policy-makers succeed in firing up the Cold War again, the MPLA may be prevented from ever establishing true independence for the Angolan people. Worst of all, however, as Rhodesia's white foreign minister pointed out this week, America's blind anti-Soviet knee-jerks can only help the racist white regimes in Rhodesia and South Africa.