Word: katanga
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
There always seems to be some excuse for violence in the Congo, and the violence nearly always involves either Kisangani, the city once known as Stanleyville, or Katanga, the stronghold of exiled ex-Premier Moise Tshombe. In the past few weeks, it has involved both...
...figured in every Congolese conflict since the Tshombe secession of 1960. Finally there was ex-General Mobutu's own Armee Nationale Congolaise, inefficient as fighters but at least loyal to his government. Fearful of disarming or disbanding the "Kats," who might stir up trouble back at home in Katanga, Mobutu stationed them alongside A.N.C. units in Stanleyville, 400 miles away, where a hostile population could not easily be aroused...
...September 13, 1961, O'Brien--then the U.N.'s chief of operations in Katanga--authorized U.N. troops to move against the forces of Moise Tshombe's secessionist government. At first it was reported that Tshombe was subdued and would have to accept whatever cease-fire terms might be offered him. But it quickly became clear that Elisabethville was not yet under U.N. control, and what had seemed an easily won victory evolved into a costly defeat...
...clamored for a cease-fire on any terms. They also questioned on what authority the attack on Elisabethville had been ordered. In response, O'Brien indicated that Secretary-General Hammarskjold had authorized the attack after Tshombe had ignored a U.N. ultimatum demanding that he oust all foreign mercenaries from Katanga. But it was impossible to verify what Hammarskjold actually had or hadn't authorized since a plane carrying him to a conference with Tshombe had crashed in the meantime, and the Secretary-General was dead...
When he wrote To Katanga and Back, the story of his six months in the Congo, various U.N. officials argued that he had no right to tell his story, which they felt was biased anyway. He was pictured as a guilty victim bent on self-justification. But O'Brien seems awfully clearheaded, and even lighthearted, as his U.N.-inspired image would imply. True, he quit two jobs after disagreements with his superiors, but there is much to indicate that he may have been justified in both cases...