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Zaire The Secession of Katanga
Katanga had always been a special case, administered
until 1910
by the privately owned Special Committee of Katanga
(Comité Spécial
du Katanga). In 1910 administration of Katanga was placed
in the
hands of a vice governor general, still separate from the
rest of
the Belgian Congo. The administrative reorganization of
1933, which
brought Katanga administratively in line with the rest of
the
provinces under the central colonial authorities in
Léopoldville,
was strongly resented by Katangan residents both local and
foreign.
The predominant role Katanga played in the country's
economy
reinforced this regional pride and sense of separateness.
In the
months preceding independence, pressure to restore
Katangan
autonomy grew.
The breakdown of central authority offered Tshombe an
ideal
pretext for proclaiming the long-planned independence of
Katanga on
July 11, 1960. Although Brussels withheld formal
recognition,
through the legal fiction that any province could receive
Belgian
technical assistance if it so desired, the Belgian
government
played a crucial role in providing military, economic, and
technical assistance to the secessionist province.
Under Belgian supervision, immediate steps were taken
to
convert the Katangan Gendarmerie into an effective
security force.
Recruitment agencies were set up in Brussels for the
enlistment of
mercenaries. A variety of Belgian advisers surfaced in
various
administrative organs of the breakaway state. Professor
René
Clemens, of the University of Liège, was invited to draft
the
Katangan constitution.
That the secession lasted as long as it did (from July
11,
1960, to January 14, 1963) is largely a reflection of the
efforts
of Belgian civilian and military authorities to prop up
their
client state. Yet from the very beginning, the operation
ran into
serious difficulties. A major handicap faced by "authentic
Katangese" stemmed from their inability to come to terms
with the
Balubakat-instigated revolt in the north. Despite the
numerous
military expeditions against northern "rebels," at no time
was the
Tshombe regime able to claim effective control of the Luba
areas.
Further discredit was cast on Tshombe when, in January
1961,
Balubakat leaders proclaimed the secession of their own
northern
province, presumably out of loyalty to the principle of a
united
Congo. Balubakat seceding from the secessionists for the
sake of
unity was a painful logic for Conakat to assimilate.
Diplomatic isolation was another major weakness. In
spite of
countless demarches, overtures, bribes, and promises, the
secessionist state never gained international recognition.
Even
Belgium never officially recognized Katanga. But perhaps
the most
serious diplomatic blow against the Tshombe regime came on
February
21, 1961, when the UN Security Council passed a resolution
urging
the UN "to take immediately all appropriate measures to
prevent the
occurrence of civil war in the Congo, including
arrangements for
cease-fire, the halting of all military operations, the
prevention
of clashes, and the use of force, if necessary, in the
last
resort."
The UN Security Council's February resolution was an
attempt to
check the trend toward total anarchy in the Congo and to
bring
about international pressure for reintegration of the
Congo. The
resolution gave the UN forces greater authority to act in
order to
prevent civil war and called for the removal of foreign
advisers
and mercenaries attached to the Congo governments, the
convening of
parliament, and the reorganization of the ANC.
This entirely new construction of the UN mandate,
allowing the
use of force as a last resort, was the direct, though
largely
unanticipated, outcome of Lumumba's death. The worldwide
commotion
caused by Lumumba's death had an immediate repercussion in
the UN
General Assembly. The new mandate given to the UN forces
in Zaire
did little more than articulate in legal terms the sense
of shock
and anger of most Third World nations in the face of the
coldblooded murder of the man who best symbolized the struggle
of
African nationalism against the forces of neocolonialism.
Data as of December 1993
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