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 1 THE CONGOLESE CRISIS (1960-1963)

General Presentation

The ex-Belgian Congo became independent on 30 June 1960. Joseph Kasa-Vubu, President of the Association des Bakongo (ABAKO), became President of the new state, which took the name of Republic of the Congo, while Patrice Lumumba, leader of the Congolese National Movement/Majority (MNC-L) and winner of the legislative elections in May, acceded to the post of Prime Minister. However, the celebrations were short-lived, since the young Congolese state was soon confronted with a series of internal conflicts that threatened the unity of the country and exposed its population to the torments of civil war. On 10 July, disappointed that independence had brought no change in their condition, the soldiers of the Public Force mutinied against their European officers. The exactions committed by the mutineers, which were blown up out of all proportion by the Western press – official Belgian documents in fact refer to a total of four deaths and 52 rapes of Europeans (Hoskyns, 1965: 48) – and the panic that ensued among the 97,000 whites still in the Congo, quickly led to the intervention of metropolitan Belgian forces stationed at Kamina and Kitona, in order to protect and evacuate foreign nationals. Perceived as an act of ‘aggression’, this intervention prompted transformation of the mutiny into a military conflict between Belgium and the Congo.

On 11 July, as the unrest spread to the whole country, the leader of the mining province of Katanga, Moïse Tshombe, who enjoyed the support of the Mining Union of Haut-Katanga (UMHK) and a large majority of settlers, took advantage of the Belgian intervention and the chaos in Leopoldville to proclaim the independence of Katanga. A month later, on 8 August, it was the turn of the mining state of South Kasai to secede under the auspices of the leader of the Congolese National Movement/Minority (MNC-K), Albert Kalonji. On 13 July, Prime Minister Lumumba severed diplomatic relations with Belgium and appealed to the United Nations to put an end to the secession of Katanga, where the situation was further complicated by the fact that the General Association of the Baluba of Katanga (Balubakat) and its leader, Jason Sendwe, were opposed to the secession led by Tshombe. Very soon, gangs of young Baluba in their turn rebelled against Elisabethville, while Jason Sendwe proclaimed the creation of a province of Lualaba in North Katanga.

On 5 September, the exactions committed during operations to recapture South Kasai (first stage in Leopoldville’s offensive against Katanga) by the Public Force, renamed the Congolese National Army (ANC) in the interim, led President Kasa-Vubu to replace Patrice Lumumba by Joseph Ileo at the head of the Congolese government. On 14 September, when Patrice Lumumba refused to submit and in turn deposed President Kasa-Vulu, Colonel Mobutu seized power and suspended the institutions. He retained Joseph Kasa-Vubu at the head of the state, placed Patrice Lumumba under house arrest, and transferred power to a College of Commissars composed of young academics (Binza Group) led by Justin-Marie Bomboko. This coup d’état prompted the supporters and allies of Patrice Lumumba to take refuge in Stanleyville, where the leader of the African Solidarity Party (PSA) and former Deputy Prime Minister of the Lumumba government, Antoine Gizenga, likewise removed on 5 September, reconstituted a central government containing a number of Lumumbist ministers.

Having sought in vain to join Antoine Gizenga in Stanleyville, Patrice Lumumba was transferred to Elisabethville on 17 January 1961, where he was murdered by Moïse Tshombe’s troops. A month later, on 13 February, the College of Commissars was dissolved in favor of a provisional government headed by Joseph Ileo. The Congo now had three concurrent governments – at Leopoldville (Ileo), Stanleyville (Gizenga) and Elisabethville (Tshombe).

In August 1961, in a spirit of reconciliation, President Kasa-Vubu replaced Joseph Ileo by the trade-unionist Cyrille Adoula, who was charged with forming a government of national unity containing Lumumbist nationalists (including Gizenga and Gbenye) and members of the Binza group, and which was to govern the Congo until June 1964 with the help of the United Nations. The ‘reconciliation’ between supporters of President Kasa-Vubu and the Lumumbist nationalists, which signaled the victory of centrist forces, did not mean a return to calm. Although named Deputy Prime Minister of the Adoula government, Antoine Gizenga stood his ground in his bastion of Stanleyville. Moreover, Moïse Tshombe’s Katanga still categorically refused to return to the bosom of Leopoldville.

Antoine Gizenga was the first to be neutralized. In January 1962, General Lundula and Christophe Gbenye, having negotiated with General Mobutu, proceeded to his arrest and sent him to Leopoldville, where he was put under house arrest. The conflict between Elisabethville and the central government took longer to resolve, since it lasted another year – and this despite the increasingly marked intervention of the United Nations Organization in the Congo (ONUC). Between August 1961 and January 1963, UN troops launched three major offensives to end the Katangese secession. However, it was not until the offensive of December 1962 that the UN’s efforts were finally crowned with success. On 15 January 1963, Katanga surrendered. In the days that followed, while Moïse Tshombe went into exile, numerous mercenaries and Katangese gendarmes took refuge in Angola.

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