Word: kolwezi
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...soothe the 4,000 grumbling ex-gendarmes who once served him admirably in the old secessionist days, and who had waited with forlorn fidelity in Angola during Tshombe's exile from the Congo. Now the troops were billeted uncomfortably in railroad boxcars at the mining town of Kolwezi, and demonstrated their ugly mood by refusing to let trains enter or leave the station...
...cheered and cheered-until Tshombe was out of sight. Then, the gendarmes loaded their automatic rifles, cut the main roads into Kolwezi and held up the local branch of the Banque du Congo. From the vault they took an additional 30 million francs, then went out and got drunk. That night, as they slept it off in their boxcars, steam engines hissed up, locked on, and hauled them off to Kamina. Thus ended the long estrangement...
...almost as wacky as the Mad Hatter's outdoor tea party in Wonderland. Smack in the middle of a mud-fouled road at Pumpi, 40 miles from Secessionist Moise Tshombe's last-ditch headquarters at Kolwezi, United Nations Brigadier Reginald Noronha set up four folding tables and laid out tea, peanut-butter sandwiches, coffee and Simba beer. At 9 a.m.. right on schedule, four Katanga province officials and three representatives of the Union Miniere mining outfit roared up in two autos. ''We have come to meet you as friends," declared one, and the party...
Despite the apparent absurdity of it. the Pumpi tea party was a dead serious affair arranged so that Tshombe could peacefully escort United Nations troops into Kolwezi. the last major objective in its drive to end Katanga's 2½-year secession. Typically. Tshombe failed to show up at the party, but the operation went smoothly anyway. When the sandwiches were munched and the tea sipped. Noronha led a three-mile column of 1,000 Indian troops straight into Kolwezi...
...Madame Yvette, had taken off for the Angolan border. But most of Tshombe's 2.000 bedraggled men paid heed to his plea to "cooperate with the U.N. and our Congolese brothers," dutifully stacked their arms at a nearby depot. At his yellow villa on the edge of Kolwezi, Tshombe greeted Noronha with a grin. "Nobody shot at you, I see," he cracked. Replied Noronha, throwing an arm around Tshombe's shoulders, "I have come to thank you for keeping your word...