Word: katanga
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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From the edge of the Elisabethville airport, black, handsome Moise Tshombe, president of the rebellious Congo province of Katanga, watched somberly as a white Convair circled slowly over his capital. At last the Elisabethville control tower gave the Convair permission to land but first warned that the seven troop-laden transports behind it must turn away. Back from the Convair crackled a curt message: Unless all eight planes were allowed to land, the entire flight would return to Leopoldville. Toying with a tourist booklet entitled "Elisabethville Welcomes You," Tshombe (pronounced Chombay) hesitated briefly, then gave clearance to all the planes...
...hand to greet him. Tshombe pointedly waited at his official residence for Bunche's call. There, sipping beer while Tshombe drank orange pop, Bunche argued earnestly for 2½ hours. Then Tshombe called in the press to declare airily: "I am confident no United Nations troops will enter Katanga." If they should, he went on, "the U.N. will bear a heavy responsibility and will provoke a conflict bringing discredit on it in the eyes of the world...
...Bunche grabbed the airport radio microphone and asked the pilot of the plane heading for the field whether any soldiers were on board. Assured there were none, the Katangans allowed the plane to land. "This is a free country, and we do not want the United Nations here," shouted Katanga's Interior Minister at Bunche as he prepared to depart. "You can refuel your plane and leave!" As Bunche walked up the steps into the plane, the Katanga troops trained their guns on him until the door was closed...
...army" to battle-or even to a jungle skirmish. For hours after hearing Bunche's report, Dag pondered the strength of Tshombe's hand. At last, barely six hours before the first contingent was due to take off, Hammarskjold canceled orders for U.N. troops to enter Katanga. Cabling ahead to call a special meeting of the Security Council, Hammarskjold boarded a plane for New York...
...flew westward, angry voices pursued him. At least for the moment, his backdown over Katanga had dented U.N. prestige in Africa. Both Guinea's Premier Sékou Touré and Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah rushed out statements of support for Lumumba's Congo government, offered to mobilize their minuscule armed forces to help throw the Belgians out. "This," announced Touré, "is henceforth the responsibility of African soldiers." But the sharpest cut of all came from the weather-vane Congo government, whose Cabinet only a few hours earlier had voted full confidence in Dag. From...