The Angolans entered the current fray near the end of August 1998, supporting Kabila's rag-tag army with their own spit-and-polished infantrymen and aircraft, not so much to save Kabila's ass, but to keep Angolan UNITA guerrillas from finding sanctuary in the region of Congo that borders Angola. Zimbabwe, for its part, seemed to join Kabila's party just to keep their troops lubed. In June 1999, on the eve of another round of peace talks in Lusaka, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe sent into Congo an additional 3,000 troops. Mugabe's not much interested in ethnic snot-slinging matches. Though the Zimbabwean president claims he's defending Congo's sovereignty, he's in it for the bucks. Kabila's offered Mugabe huge mineral concessions in exchange for the rental of Zimbabwean troops. Zimbabwe's own figures show that they spent $166 million between January and June on their war effort in the Congo.
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