Word: congos
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...song written on it. The composer was unknown, but the song itself was being sung at nationalist meetings throughout the territory. "Congoland, land of our forebears," ran the opening lines, "we will fight for your freedom, if blood must run in streams." Last week, after the worst eruption the Congo had seen in a decade, blood did in fact run in Léopoldville...
Just across the Congo River from Leopoldville sits Brazzaville (pop. 86,000), capital of French Equatorial Africa, which has been astir with De Gaulle's promise of autonomy. Kasavubu began to dream of reviving the fabled 14th century kingdom of the Congo, combining territories now French, Belgian and Portuguese. After his election as one of Léopoldville's commune burgomasters in 1957, he had himself declared "Supreme Leader" by his followers, and began receiving homage seated on a leopard skin, symbol of tribal supreme power. Meanwhile, the rival Bangalas also began organizing, and the bush telegraph began...
...Brussels a hushed special session of Parliament quickly voted to send an investigatory mission. The new Minister of the Congo, Maurice van Hemelrijck, a longtime critic of Belgian complacency and the author of a long-awaited proposal for the Congo's gradual emancipation that is to be presented to Parliament this week, gave his countrymen a brief but pointed lecture. "We have been on the border of catastrophe," he said. "We are not without fault. We could not wait so long without punishment before letting the Congolese know of our intentions...
...drove through the streets in his blue-grey Pontiac, his excited fans followed in trucks and jeeps, shooting into the air and shouting, "Olele! Olele! The Abbé has won!" The abbé-Brazzaville's round, smiling Mayor Fulbert Youlou, 41-had just returned from the French Middle Congo's capital city of Pointe-Noire. There the Assembly had turned the territory into an autonomous republic within the French community and named abbé Youlou its new Premier...
...while Brazzaville rejoiced last week, Paris received the news with something of a shudder. Everywhere else, the transfer of power had gone without a hitch. In the Republic of Congo, it cost the lives of at least eight people, and trouble was not yet over...