Word: katanga
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Both sides are right. Some of Katanga's mercenaries are adventurers; some are extremist former French army officers, disillusioned with De Gaulle's Algerian policy; and some are white Katangese, appalled by the U.N. shelling their homes and businesses...
MORE emotional overtones were attached to the word "mercenaries" than to almost any other factor in the Katanga war. To the newly independent Afro-Asian nations (and to many U.S. liberals) who still regard imperialism as the paramount issue in world affairs, Katanga's white officers and soldiers were hired killers, sinister remnants of colonialism. This line, of course, has been happily aided by the Communists. Supporters of Moise Tshombe. however, insist that "mercenary" is merely an inflammatory term; all underdeveloped nations need foreign assistance (the U.S. sends thousands of officers and men abroad in its military aid missions...
...Katanga's President-the title he took after formal declaration of the Republic last July-was widely admired by most southern Katangese not only for his stout resistance to the onusiens but for his gracious, smiling manner and for the dignity of his somber grey suits. He is never late for an appointment, often arrives five minutes early, then waits outside, homburg in hand, until the hour. He is no playboy; often, at a conference of African bigwigs. Tshombe will retire to his room with a book while the rest of the boys go out nightclubbing...
...independence," Tshombe was rightly credited with heading the slickest, tidiest and best policed of all the fragments of the old Congo. He paid the police, paved the streets and repaired the waterworks from a source of cash no other province enjoys. It is the cut Tshombe gets from Katanga's Union Minière, the firm that produces 8% of the world's copper, 60% of its cobalt, as well as cadmium, zinc, silver, etc. Union Minière this year is due to hand Tshombe's regime some $52 million in dividends, mineral export taxes...
...Congo got its independence last year, the portfolio of 18% of Union Minière stock, once "held in trust for the Congolese people" by the Congo's Belgian colonial administration, was supposed to be handed over to the new central government; somehow the transfer never occurred. Once Katanga declared itself independent, all the payments flowed into the National Bank of Katanga; Union Minière shrugs and says it was forced by Tshombe's government to hand over the money...