Word: congo
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...trees swarmed with black urchins and the crowds along the road shouted "Vive le Roi!" as Leopoldville welcomed young (25) King Baudouin to the Belgian Congo's steamy, metal-rich and thriving jungleland. Resplendent in white-and-gold uniform, Baudouin was the first Belgian monarch the Congo had seen since 1928, when grandfather Albert I visited a far less prosperous and bustling Congo...
...Congolese, or those among them who have climbed fastest from darkness to light, are slowly starting to talk about such verboten things as self-rule and democracy. Their stirrings are not enough to disturb the massive calm of the Belgian administration, or impede the spectacular advance of the Congo economy, but they are perceptible. To some Belgians they are alarming. Says a top-ranking Congo official: "What would the Negroes do with votes? Votes mean Communism...
Small Voice. To most of the hard-headed businessmen who run the Congo government, the signs of a Negro awakening present not a danger but a challenge. "Once advance has begun, you cannot stop it, on any front," says Economist Henri Cornélis, Pétillon's deputy and almost certain successor. The Brussels Cabinet agrees, and the result is that the Congo government is getting ready to give the Congolese a small voice in the colony's affairs. Some time next year, if present plans are carried out, the literate Africans in the principal Congo cities...
...Belgians plan to move slowly-and progress steadily. "We adapt and adjust continually to the Congo's circumstances," says Governor Pétillon. "In the cities perhaps we shall move towards the ordinary concept of democracy, for black and white alike, but in the countryside, we may have to be content for a long time with a modified form of tribalism...
Belgium, in its strong position as a major supplier of raw uranium ore from the Belgian Congo (see FOREIGN NEWS), has had less trouble than most in getting U.S. aid and assistance. Its first low-power reactor, using 30 tons of U.S.-refined uranium and 500 tons of British graphite (as moderator), is under construction...