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Zaire The UN Intervention
Ambiguous as it was, the phrasing of the UN February 21
resolution left little doubt about the sense of
frustration felt by
Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld in dealing with the
Katanga
secession. Keeping the peace without meddling in the
internal
affairs of Katanga proved a contradiction; UN efforts to
act as a
mediator between Katanga and the central government met
with
repeated setbacks. As one reconciliation formula after
another was
tried and found wanting, it dawned on many people at the
UN that
the scope of permissible action had to be substantially
broadened,
which is what the February 21 resolution sought to
achieve.
The new mandate provided the basis for Operation
Rumpunch on
August 28, 1961. As it became clear that Tshombe had no
intention
of complying with the UN request that mercenaries and
European
officers be withdrawn from Katanga--a move that he
realized would
cripple his security forces and quickly bring the collapse
of his
regime--UN troops at last sprang into action, securing the
Katangan
post office, radio, and residences of key European and
Congolese
officials and rounding up mercenaries and European
officers. The
operation, however, was suddenly halted when the Belgian
consul in
Léopoldville persuaded local UN officials that he would
complete
the operation by himself, a pledge that turned out to be a
ruse as
only regular Belgian officers and not mercenaries were
expelled
from the province.
Anger and frustration on both sides mounted rapidly. A
new UN
plan, Operation Morthor, following rapidly after Rumpunch
and
expected to go into effect on September 13, was no longer
merely to
rid the province of mercenaries and foreign advisers but
to
terminate the secession by force. Forewarned of the
impending
attack, the Katangan gendarmes put up a stiff resistance,
while a
lone jet fighter strafed the UN troops. News of UN attacks
on
civilian installations was received with indignation in
European
capitals. Morthor ended in a total fiasco. It was at this
point, on
September 17, that Hammarskjöld decided to give up force
and once
again try to arrive at a negotiated solution with Tshombe.
Hammarskjöld never made it to the site of their meeting in
Ndola
Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), however; shortly before it
was due
to land, his aircraft crashed into a wooded hillside,
killing all
passengers.
The next and final phase in the Katangan imbroglio
began with
the so-called "U Thant Plan," made public on August 10,
1962, and
ended with Tshombe's announcement, on January 14, 1963,
that "the
secession was now terminated." The plan, which offered yet
another
constitutional formula for reunification, at first met
with
Tshombe's approval; then equivocation ensued, and the work
of the
joint Léopoldville-Élisabethville commissions soon bogged
down. As
tensions mounted between UN troops and Katangan gendarmes,
little
was needed to trigger an explosion. It came on Christmas
Eve, when
UN troops accused the Katangan forces of shooting down a
UN
helicopter. On December 28 Tshombe called for a general
uprising of
the population, to which the UN responded by moving
against key
points. This time the tide moved decisively against the
gendarmes.
In the end, Tshombe had no alternative but to concede
defeat. After
two and a half years of conflict and crisis, the Katangan
secession
had finally come to an end. Many of the remaining Katangan
gendarmes went into exile in Angola. Others were
incorporated into
the Congolese military.
Data as of December 1993
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