Power Blocs and the Congo

...The UN agencies are still doing all the work of a government and an administration...

...Lumumba has only one aim: taking power...

...The UN General Assembly should therefore take some simple steps...

...Power Blocs and the Congo By Sal Tas Hunger, epidemic and savagery necessitate a moratorium on internal Congolese politics LEOPOLDVILLE THE PRESENT incredible session of the United Nations underlines the artificial character of that organization...

...Then suddenly Mobutu stopped...

...On the other hand, a conference without him, under Kasavubu's leadership, would meet with much less resistance and probably be able to settle the delicate problem of Congolese federation...

...But what would have happened had the West threatened to withdraw...

...That is why all Khrushchev's attacks against the UN and Hammarskjold failed...

...Covered, saved and protected by the UN forces, the "leaders" of the Congolese political world go on about their infantile intrigues...

...Apparently well-advised by Moroccan General Kitani, he "seized power" and blocked both Premier Patrice Lumumba and President Joseph Kasavubu...

...Any defeat of Russian policy is inherently and indirectly a victory for the West, and Nkrumah is not interested in a Western victory in Africa...

...Obviously, these are the problems on which both the UN and the world should concentrate, unhampered by political or other intrigues...

...The UN must concentrate on the humanitarian rescue work, the primary responsibility and necessity now...

...It became clear that Mobutu, in his effort to clear up the situation, was forced to side with Kasavubu against Lumumba...

...In that time the UN can attempt to build a number of Congolese administrative cadres and eventually political technicians who, when the worst epidemics are over, can either replace the UN officials gradually or form a Congolese group to exercise power or serve as a screen between the UN and the Congolese...

...The expression "seized power" should be used with utmost caution, for the fringe area in which the Congolese can use power is very small...

...However, the Congolese political groups are not yet so firmly established that they are indispensable...

...As more and more countries have been liberated, colonialism has become less and less a real issue and the Afro-Asian bloc has in reality become increasingly a racialist bloc...

...second, they would be left in the company of the Russian bloc...

...We are the ones who send the technical experts the Afro-Asians need and trust...

...We are the ones who pay for the UN...

...It is therefore unrealistic to equate the two...

...Obviously, the Moroccans, especially General Kitani, who had been advising Mobutu, suddenly got new instructions from home...

...Mobutu's statement that he was above both Lumumba and Kasavubu was a fiction...

...It is not too difficult to see that behind this change in Moroccan policy lay the hand of Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah...

...Lumumba's defeat would mean not only a Kasavubu victory but a settlement, a consolidation in the Congo and, by virtue of that fact, a victory for the West...

...It should proclaim a moratorium on internal politics in Congo...

...Why did Mobutu make the false step of proposing a conference...

...No wonder they did not like Khrushchev's attack very much, and liked his proposal for a triumvirate still less...

...Being what it is, the UN forced the West to handle all kinds of states, large and small, more or less organized, more or less civilized, through the Afro-Asian lobby in terms that increased the strength of their voices out of all proportion...

...What could such a roundtable conference accomplish...

...That is certainly a step backwards...

...What I am saying is simply that the West has the strongest trump cards in its hands...

...This is very dangerous and the Afro-Asians know it...

...Under the influence of Sekou Toure and Guinea...

...No wonder the UN leadership pushed Mobutu in that direction: The realities of life were stronger than juridical fictions...

...And he knows that his only chance of winning that power is con tinuing instability in the Congo...

...In it are three so-called blocs: Russian, Western and Afro-Asian...

...Dag Hammarskjold was one of the most significant representatives of this trend of over-estimating the Afro-Asian lobby...

...Let me emphasize that Lumumba and his followers have not made one contribution to the fight against Congolese calamities: in fact, Lumumba has never even bothered to discuss them, thus showing his contempt for these practical problems...

...The Soviets might continue their destructive tactics, but that would simply make them increasingly unpopular...

...Breaking up the UN would do more damage to the Russians and to the Afro-Asians than to the West...

...He must eliminate Lumumba, for Lumumba is a destructive force and an enemy of the UN, while Kasavubu is a constructive personality, though weak, and at least willing: to collaborate with the UN...

...This fiction did not last very long...

...stabilization means the end of revolutionary tactics and only those tactics can put Lumumba in power...

...It would surely have turned into a forum for Lumumba since he is much stronger and more able than his opponents...

...His strict conformity to juridical fiction made their bloc policy possible...

...Worse, in some villages there have been found messages from Lumumba to the mutinous soldiers of the Force Publique ordering them to create unrest to prove that Lumumba is indispensable...

...A triumvirate would mean the clear end of that juridical fiction...

...Cleaning up the situation in the Congo means the elimination of Lumumba—no normal, healthy or orderly situation is possible as long as Lumumba is involved in politics...

...Nkrumah wants a deadlock between the West and the Communist bloc so that he can play the decisive role himself...

...In this respect, Nkrumah's position is the same as Lumumba's: Consolidation in Africa would spell an end to his pan-African ambitions...

...Very few Congolese leaders, even those who are aware of this, have had the courage to say so in private, much less in public...

...The West never acts as a bloc and the Afro-Asians form only a kind of lobby, united on a number of disparate interests which are defended in various devious ways after long internal discussions and give-and-take...

...If these measures are reinforced by proper financing and the necessary technicians, and backed by the right humanitarian propaganda, it would be exceedingly difficult for Nkrumah to sabotage the plan...

...That is why the West's refusal to play that game was enough to kill the proposal...

...The Afro-Asian bloc is now complaining about the cold war, but in reality has enormously profited from it...

...The Congo power struggle prevents us from seeing these essential realities clearly...

...The UN army can impose its will whenever it wants...

...And this in the midst of a wave of cannibalism...

...The three blocs would then confront each other squarely and everybody would understand what was happening without ambiguity...

...This may mean that an unstable and troubled Congo remains a danger spot in Africa, but this risk Nkrumah is willing to run so long as there is any hope that he can plant on Congolese soil a regime friendly to and dominated by him...

...Three terrible specters now haunt the Congo: hunger, epidemic and cannibalism...

...In some districts, a doctor friend who works there writes me, all smallpox innoculations have been stopped as a form of "liberation from colonialism...

...Instead of liquidating Lumumba, he started talking about a roundtable conference in which all forces in the Congo would come together to settle the question...

...That the West should try to win the sympathy of the Afro-Asian nations is beyond question, but why do it particularly through the UN...

...Khrushchev's attack on Hammarskjold was a terrible mistake, for what would the Afro-Asian bloc be without a man like the Secretary General...

...he would wave the flag of national unity and national pride, fight the "dishonorable tutelage" which the UN now exercises in the Congo, etc...

...If we could win over the indigenous leaders and use the existing political structure for such rescue work, that would be good, but this is virtually impossible because the different tribal groups block one another...

...Lumumba is more or less Nkrumah's man...

...Take the Congo situation...

...But in fact there is only one bloc: the Russian...

...It should give Hammarskjold an order to organize a fight against the essential problems and to take full responsibility for the Congo until this fight is won...

...Because a triumvirate such as Khrushchev proposed would place the West in a minority, it is still less in the West's interest...

...More than anyone else he clung to the juridical fiction that all the nations of the UN are equal...

...Negotiations for a roundtable conference have failed until now because no one had confidence in Lumumba...

...If the UN is to be effective in this field, the UN leadership on the spot must have the authority to accept the help of those who wish to collaborate and to break the resistance of those who, by their personal or partisan agitation, try to interfere with these primary responsibilities...

...The point is, does the UN want to...

...The cold war—that is, the competition between the West and the Soviets—has enabled the Afro-Asians to forge themselves into a lobby which can put pressure on the West, make demands of it, and to some extent even blackmail it...

...What Congolese in such a conference would have had the courage to speak out against Lumumba and say that UN tutelage is a necessary blessing for the Congo...

...Political life must be put on ice for some years to come—five years perhaps...

...For a moment, it looked as if Colonel Joseph Mobutu would clean up the situation...

...First, the Afro-Asians would lose the partner they have so far been able to blackmail...

...Real power, whether we like it or not, is in UN hands...

...Lumumba has certainly gone further toward the Russian bloc than Nkrumah himself would have liked, but Lumumba is still very close to the Ghanaian leader...

...The threat that this bloc would turn to the Russians was especially effective under the Eisenhower Administration, and during Henry Cabot Lodge's tenure at the UN Afro-Asian demands were put through even if they had nothing to do with Western interests...