Word: lumumba
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Louder & Louder. While his blue-helmeted men stood bored guard duty on sweltering street corners and dusty village lanes. Dag Hammarskjold dickered endlessly with the Congo's erratic politicians. Encouraged by the mercurial remarks of Premier Patrice Lumumba as he wended his way home from the U.S., the Congo government became more and more insistent on the departure of Belgian troops from their bastion in Katanga...
...preindependence days supplied 60% of the revenue of the Congo government and most of the wealth the Belgians drew from the colony. In Katanga, Provincial Boss Moise Tshombe stoutly insisted that the Belgians must stay to protect Katanga's self-proclaimed status as a sovereign "republic" independent of Lumumba's government. Even a public promise from Hammarskjold that the troops the U.N. wanted to send in to replace the Belgians would not meddle in Katanga's quarrels with Lumumba failed to budge the stubborn Tshombe...
...this business, and she is evidently, feeling the pinch. W. W. Rostow's thesis that a colonial mother country's problem is not so much to colonize as it is to clear out of its colonies is justifying itself in a manner intolerable to Premier Eyskens. The Premier regards Lumumba as the worst type of new nationalist leader, and Tshombe as a nice, cooperative sort of chap whose policies seem likely to keep everyone perfectly tranquil...
Tshombe, scared that the U.S.S.R. may be closer to his borders than he ever suspected, will allow himself to be protected by the U.N. But he may forget that the U.N. cannot protect him forever, whereas the indignant Premier Lumumba is likely to resent his independence even longer than that. The last thing Lumumba wants is to see Katanga's requirements for U.N. entry, absolute assurance of sovereignty, guaranteed. The province, containing a tenth of the Congo's people but almost half its wealth, is much too fruity a peach to be let out of Lumumba's grasp. The longer...
They call Lumumba the leader of rising hope in Africa, which (however much he has been discredited), he is, and they allege that Tshombe is a tool of the Belgian government, which, in some measure, he is also. What they do not acknowledge is the fact that the former's leadership is of a very dubious brand indeed, and that the latter will not let anyone, including, if need be, Belgium, distract him from his ambitions of independence...