Word: katanga
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...coalition regime that took control of the Congo, after free elections, in June 1960, Lumumba favored strong central government. This was anathema to Tshombe. who had no intention of sharing the wealth of his mineral-rich province with the central government and the Congo's poorer provinces. "The Katanga cow." his followers said, "will not be milked by Lumumba's serpents...
Lumumba's inability to cope with the raping and looting turmoil that immediately followed independence gave Tshombe the excuse he needed. On July 11, 1960, Katanga seceded on the pretext that it was the only way to prevent the disorders from spreading into" the province. Ever since, both the U.N. and the central government have tried to get Katanga back under the wing of Leopoldville. At the Coquilhatville Conference last April, Tshombe was put under house arrest, kept until he agreed to join the central parliament. But back home in Katanga, he reneged on his agreement. Tshombe continually defied...
Against this background of frustration and failure, the U.S. decided to back the U.N.'s latest move against Katanga, for all its undoubted risks. Last week Washington refused to go along with the demands of Britain and France for an immediate cease-fire at any cost. From the White House and the State Department came the line: No cease-fire until Tshombe agrees to negotiate a satisfactory settlement with Adoula. This did not 'mean that the U.S. wanted to destroy Moise Tshombe. He has a following and a talent for leadership too rare to dispense with...
...story main Congo headquarters, was alive with activity. Aides scurried in and out of the office of burly Irish General Sean McKeown, chief of the U.N. Congo military force, who was busy reading reports on the fighting and firing off fresh orders to the air and ground commanders in Katanga itself, 1,000 miles away...
...patrols seldom strayed far from these redoubts; the rest of Elisabethville belonged exclusively to Katanga's soldiers, black and white, who wandered the streets or stood guard. There was something unreal about the whole thing. As the U.N.'s General McKeown put it, after a flying visit to Elisabethville early in the week, "We are not fighting a battle in the usual sense." It was masterful understatement...