Behind the Congo Crisis

...Adoula finally decided to go to Stanleyville with Gbenye, now his Interior Minister, to persuade Gizenga to come to Leopoldville...

...This led to the tragic death of the Italian airmen in Kindu, in Kivu Province...

...At this juncture the UN was attempting to remove non-African army officers from Katanga, in the belief that the secession would thus collapse peacefully...

...Gbenye and Lundula, seen as traitors, were chased by the soldiers, whose local officers were forced to go along...

...When the Italian airmen arrived in Kindu, the soldiers demanded to be transported to Albertville...

...Where before there had been two governments claiming legitimacy, there was now one, recognized alike by East and West and all of Africa...

...The Russians had nothing to lose by saying and doing nothing...

...The UN lost the war—for want of a plane which the West would not supply...

...The Central Government argued that only by crushing Katanga could its independence be safeguarded, and that only such a victory for Congolese nationalism could restore sufficient confidence to bring the army under effective civilian control...

...The radicalism of the soldiers, and probably even of the youth, was not the result of a clear ideological orientation...

...government was divided between those who argued that the Adoula regime was the only hope for stabilizing the Congo (and therefore give the UN a plane), and those who argued that Tshombe was a vital counterweight to Gizenga...

...He did so in the face of numerous appeals from the UN urging his attendance, and despite the special trip to Stanleyville made by his political party colleague, Cleophas Kamitatu, president of Leopoldville province, to convince him to come to Louvanium...

...Nevertheless, Gizenga was elected First Vice Premier of the Central Government, thus forcing a political choice upon him...

...Adoula proclaimed as the first order of business following Louvanium the need effectively to reintegrate Katanga...

...Gizenga came down from Stanleyville...

...Meanwhile, the Italians had already been murdered...

...Controlling none of the actors on the scene, and having no direct access, they could only wait till the Congolese would turn to them...

...The troops seemed to be under the control of Remy Mwamba of the Balubakat party, whose leader, Jason Sendwe, is Second Vice Premier in the Adoula government...

...These objectives have been constantly frustrated by outside forces that have taken advantage of internal disorders...

...The British, French and Belgian governments were aghast at the UN's stance in Katanga...

...His first reaction was to proclaim the formation of a new political party, the Parti National de Patrice Lumumba, presumably to bring the various parties in the Lumumbist coalition into one group over which he would preside...

...The Balubakat represent a Lumumbist tendency now cooperating with Adoula...

...The one important Lumumbist deputy who failed to attend Louvanium was Antoine Gizenga, leader of the Stanleyville regime...

...KATANGA SECESSION REMAINS THE CENTRAL ISSUE Behind the Congo Crisis By Immanuel Wallerstein THE REMARKABLE thing about the continuing Congo crisis is that, under a surface confusion of men and events, the issues have from the beginning remained rather simple and constant...

...Gizenga, it seems, was under pressure from the radical purists in Stanleyville who were in the youth movement of the Lumumba party and among the ordinary soldiers (not the officers) of the army in Oriental and Kivu provinces...

...Tension grew within the Cabinet, and Gizenga returned to Stanleyville...

...The U.S...

...The invaders were rebuffed by the better-trained Katangese, and the soldiers, returning to Luluaborg, sought the "Belgian spies" who had caused their defeat...

...But the troops were not under Mobutu's command and he announced that he was sending troops to take control in Albertville...

...The deputies of Katanga ruler Moise Tshombe's Conakat party refused to attend the Louvanium meeting...

...The Congolese may try a third time under a third man to win Western support...

...The UN defeat was a defeat for all those in the Central Government who had thought they could attain their national objectives by cooperating with the West...

...Gizenga said nothing more, but made no move to come to Leopoldville...

...Caught unawares by this move while still in Leopoldville, Gbenye repudiated the announcement...

...In July and August of 1960, the Congo Central Government was faced with two basic problems: an army not quite under control, and a province (or part of one) in secession...

...neither Mobutu nor the local commander could control their forces...

...One year later at Louvanium, the Congolese said to themselves: Perhaps if we reorganize our Central Government under a man more acceptable to the West, it will help us crush Katanga...

...Congolese leaders cannot forever be "moderate," when moderation means surrender of their national integrity and independence...

...He remained in Stanleyville despite the attendance of his political friends, most notably Christophe Gbenye, president of Lumumba's political party...

...Its then leader, Patrice Lumumba, turned to the West for help in its most acceptable form, the UN...

...The radical purists felt that the General had betrayed them...

...The Italians refused and were arrested...

...The Central Government then turned to the Russians, with all the consequences we know...

...When Adoula announced at a public meeting in Stanleyville that Gizenga would leave to take up his post, Gizenga was greeted by cries of ne va pas from the youth and the soldiers...

...The pressures upon Hammarskjold forced him to concede defeat...

...These purists did not want Gizenga to go to Leopoldville for fear that he, too, would be corrupted by the West...

...Only three months ago, in August, there was reason for optimism in the Congo...

...Then war broke out between UN troops and Katanga for reasons that are still obscure...

...Immediately thereafter, Congolese troops, probably coming from Kivu Province, ousted the forces in the northern section of Katanga and re-established military control over the Baluba center at Albertville...

...These electorates have relatively simple, relatively rar tional objectives, to which the continued secession of Katanga remains the prime obstacle...

...To restore confidence in the Central Government, General Joseph Mobutu announced an invasion of Katanga...

...The Congolese Central Government has been seeking to establish effective control over its own territory and to conduct a relatively independent foreign policy...

...After 11 months of extra-parliamentary internecine struggle, the Congo Parliament had been allowed to reconvene at Louvanium, with the assistance of the United Nations...

...To appreciate the atmosphere in Kindu, it must be realized that, just at this time, it was announced that General Victor Lundula, commander of the Congolese Army of Oriental and Kivu provinces, had gone to Leopoldville and proclaimed his loyalty to the Adoula regime...

...But once again the West refused to give the Central Government the aid it needed...

...The Premier and a majority of the deputies clearly expected that now the UN would be willing to use force...

...As the chairman of the Security Council in November, Valerian Zorin was not in a hurry to convene a meeting...

...A plane was eventually gotten, but it was too late...

...It was basically a profound suspicion and rejection of the West...

...The Congolese army of Kivu, however, also was anxious to send reinforcements to Albertville...

...Throughout all this, the Russians played a quiet waiting game...

...But it is also possible for our luck to run out...

...The West refused to give it the necessary force...

...What seems to have convinced Gizenga to go anyway was the Premier's firm declaration that his Government would pursue Lumumba's objectives—in particular, that something would be done immediately to end the Katanga secession...

...While en route to do this, his plane crashed...

...The search degenerated into rape and violence...

...By a unanimous vote of those present, the deputies chose a new government representing all the main tendencies of Congolese nationalism, under Cyrille Adoula...

...The UN's failure gave him the excuse to return to a base of action where he felt more secure...

...The Central Government sought to assert its authority over the Congolese troops by sending Gbenye and Lundula, still theoretically the commander of these troops, to negotiate...

...Simultaneously, too, the Baluba migrants in Elisabethville were becoming restless again...

...Gizenga, far from being the effective leader of the radical purists, seemed rather their prisoner...

...To move against Katanga, however, unity was needed in the rest of the country...

...They, too, have electorates to whom they are responsible...

...The local Colonel, himself held at gunpoint during the arrest, sent telegrams to Gizenga and Lundula asking them to come...

...The major factor behind the decision to form a compromise government was the feeling that only in this way could the Congo reassert its own sovereignty...

...They did nothing to prevent the deterioration of the situation...

...Immanuel Wallerstein, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, completed his fourth tour of Africa this fall...

...Their spokesman was arrested by Tshombe, riots ensued, and thousands of Baluba sought refuge from the Katanga army in the UN compound...