Word: katanga
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Back." But with full backing from the U.S. and the Afro-Asian nations, the U.N. was determined to dictate a settlement to Tshombe and make it stick. If it fails, the rest of the Congo, starved of the riches that enable Katanga to account for 65% of the country's exports, could splinter into a score of warring tribal domains. Already a corps of 100 Central Government functionaries was flying into Elisabethville to take charge of Katanga's administration...
Bizarre as it was, the incident was an accurate indicator of the way things actually were going last week in the Congo's copper-rich Katanga province, where the U.N. was waging war with Tshombe's breakaway regime for the third time since September 1961. In two weeks, the tough U.N. troops had seized a steadily lengthening ribbon of rail lines and nearly every major population center in the province. Only the western copper town of Kolwezi remained in Katanga's grip; it was defended by 2,000 boozy gendarmes, 100 of Tshombe's white mercenaries...
...question mark, as usual, was the slippery Tshombe. As the week began, he was holed up defiantly in Kolwezi with the mercenaries. There were rumors that he might flee to Europe rather than give in to the U.N. But he was not surrendering Katanga's top job. Lo and behold, he was back in Elisabethville. "in spite of all the trouble and bloodshed," he declared with MacArthurian grandeur, "I am back." What policy would he follow? No one could say, for before long he was bouncing wildly from one position to another. "Pure India rubber," marveled a foreign diplomat...
...Katanga, and added: "The task is not completed...
...Artists. Tshombe himself alternately shouted defiance and whispered of his peaceable aims. After a panicky flight to Southern Rhodesia when the U.N. first attacked, he returned to Katanga, setting up headquarters in the town of Kolwezi. He was disposed to negotiate, he said, but if the U.N. refused to do so, "we shall fight to the end." Upset at his gendarmerie's pitiful showing, he reportedly sacked hot-tempered Army Commander General Norbert ("Napoleon") Moké, relied chiefly on a force of 200 or 300 white mercenaries for a possible last-ditch stand. But apparently even the mercenaries left...