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Zaire The Mutiny of the Force Publique
Maintaining stability in the provinces would have been
difficult enough with the help of a reliable security
apparatus;
the mutiny of the Force Publique rendered the Lumumba
government
utterly impotent
(see The
Congolese National Army
, ch. 5).
The
first acts of indiscipline were recorded in the capital on
July 4;
as other units were called in from Thysville (now
Mbanza-Ngungu) to
attend to the situation, they turned against their
European
officers. On July 5, bands of mutineers could be seen
roaming
through the streets of the capital, causing panic among
both
Africans and Europeans.
This extraordinary situation was, in large part, caused
by
Force Publique commander Lieutenant General Janssens, who
had
persistently refused to Africanize the officer corps, and
who, on
the very day that the mutiny broke out flatly declared
that the
Force Publique would continue as before. But with the
mutiny in
full swing, urgent and sweeping changes were needed to
restore a
measure of order. On July 6, Lumumba dismissed General
Janssens,
and the following day the entire officer corps was
Africanized,
with only a small number of European officers retained as
advisers.
Shortly thereafter, the decision was made to promote all
enlisted
men to the next higher rank, thereby eliminating all
privates from
the army. On July 9 Lumumba promoted Victor Lundula to
major
general and commander in chief of the renamed Congolese
National
Army (Armée Nationale Congolaise--ANC), with Joseph-Désiré
Mobutu
(later Mobutu Sese Seko) as chief of staff.
Unrest nonetheless persisted. By July 9 the mutiny had
reached
Équateur and Katanga provinces; panic-stricken Europeans
began to
arrive in Léopoldville, telling their own grisly stories.
Ostensibly to protect Belgian lives, Brussels sent in two
companies
of paratroopers, in turn causing Lumumba to denounce
Belgian
intervention as an unwarranted aggression. The troop
landings--a
breach of the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation signed
by the
two countries the day before independence--convinced the
Congolese
authorities that Belgium was attempting to reoccupy the
country.
Meanwhile, on July 11 Belgian naval forces took the
unfortunate
step of bombarding Matadi, which by then had already been
evacuated
by Europeans. On the same day, Katanga formally proclaimed
its
independence, an act supported by Belgians in Katanga. As
tension
rapidly mounted between Brussels and Léopoldville, Lumumba
and
Kasavubu agreed for once to send a formal cable to the UN
secretary
general on July 12 to solicit "urgent UN military
assistance" in
the face of Belgian aggression and support of the
secession of
Katanga.
A United Nations Security Council resolution on July
14, 1960,
responding to the Congo government's request for aid,
called for
the withdrawal of Belgian troops and authorized Secretary
General
Dag Hammarskjöld to take the necessary steps, in
consultation with
the Congo government, to provide military and technical
assistance
for the Congolese security forces. Although the first UN
troops
landed in Léopoldville the next day, Kasavubu and Lumumba
were
dissatisfied with the pace of UN action and threatened to
request
Soviet help unless Belgian troops were withdrawn in two
days. By
July 20, the UN force had several thousand troops under
its
command, and Lumumba withdrew the threat when Belgium
agreed to
remove its troops from Léopoldville.
Data as of December 1993
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