Word: kasai
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...colonial government's bulging stock portfolio. In return for mining, forestry and transport concessions, Congo-based private companies had paid the colony in stock. As a result, the colonial government controlled nearly 20% of Katanga's wealthy Union Minière, had control of diamond mines in Kasai province and hundreds of smaller concerns. At independence, the portfolio was worth more than $700 million; it has since skidded to less than half that value. More than any other economic factor, the desire to keep control of Union Minière and related properties prompted Belgium's tacit...
...diamond-mining centers. The terrorists are mainly of the Bapende tribe, whose members are concentrated not only in Kwilu but also in Unité Kasaienne to the east, and in Kwango province to the west. The government's biggest immediate concern was that they might cut off the Kasai River, through which the Congo's copper from Katanga currently travels to the Atlantic port of Matadi...
...much for him to crow about. Even if Katanga is successfully reintegrated, he will still face the equally formidable problems of administrative incompetence, official corruption, army indiscipline and-worst of all-rivalries among the Congo's 200 tribes. The point was underlined in blood last week in Kasai province, where feuding tribesmen were at one another's throats over a border dispute. Natives kidnaped and reportedly ate two Belgian lumbermen, then began slaughtering one another in the town of Kakenge. Such gruesome incidents no longer surprised anyone. A Leopoldville newspaper reported the event as matter-of-factly...
Even after the Leopoldville regime arrested Kalonji last January for his secessionist activities, Mining State went right ahead as an independent nation, issuing its own postage stamps and flying its own flag, convinced that Premier Cyrille Adoula's central regime lacked the resolve to crush Kasai's lucrative rebellion...
This seemed true enough until King Al bert I slipped out of his jail last month and fled back to his little Kasai capital of Bakwanga. At last Adoula decided to act. ordered a group of army officers to fly off to Bakwanga and take over. It was easy, for a restive and well-bribed faction of Kalonji's own troops quickly joined the invaders. King Albert once again made his getaway; according to rumor, he took three cases of diamonds with him. At week's end the fleeing monarch turned up in Katanga, presumably getting sympathy from...