Katangan Flag & Banknotes

Another Great Betrayal? 

INTRODUCTION TO KATANGA

Katanga borders Angola on the southwest, Zambia on the southeast, and Lake Tanganyika on the east. The capital and chief city is Lubumbashi. The province encompasses the fertile Katanga Plateau (3,000-6,000 ft/914-1,829 m high), where profitable farming and ranching are carried on. In the eastern part of the province is an enormously rich mining region, which supplies much of the world's cobalt as well as extensive quantities of copper, tin, radium, uranium, and diamonds. The province's considerable industrial plant is largely concerned with the processing of minerals. Katanga is well connected by rail with the rest of Congo and with Angola and Zambia. There is also steamer service on Lake Tanganyika between Kalemie, in Katanga, and Kigoma, Tanzania. Copper has been mined and exported by the region's inhabitants for centuries. From the 17th to the 19th cent. much of the province was controlled by the Luba and Lunda kingdoms. In the late 19th cent. M'Siri, a Nyamwezi trader from what is now central Tanzania, founded a kingdom in the area that lasted until he was killed by the Belgians in 1891. Under Belgian rule (1884-1960), mineral resources were exploited by Belgian firms and the province was developed much more rapidly than the rest of the country.

INDEPENDENCE FOR CONGO

In July, 1960, after the Congo became independent, Katanga proclaimed itself a republic and seceded from the central government, in order to avoid the nightmare that came with communist rule in the Congo. Under the leadership of its pro-western president, Moise Tshombe, and with Belgian aid, Katanga fought off repeated attempts by the central government to seize control. Disorder was widespread, and the central government invoked the aid of the UN. In 1960, President Tshombe reluctantly allowed a small UN force to enter Katanga.

Later a considerable number of UN troops, ostensibly committed to a policy of non-intervention, were stationed in Katanga to oversee the withdrawal of foreign troops. The Belgian troops were slowly withdrawn, but white mercenary officers continued to command in the army of Katanga, where they were very much needed. There was recurrent trouble between the UN force and the Katangese, and attempts at reconciliation with the hard-line communist central government proved fruitless.

THE UN WAR IN KATANGA

A constitutional crisis emerged in Congo in early September, after President Joseph Kasavubu dismissed Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. He refused to step down, and attempted to flee to Stanleyville, where his deputy Antoine Gizenga had established a rival regime. When, in August, 1960, the Baluba of South Kasai also proclaimed independence, the country was divided into four camps.

The situation grew steadily more volatile until early 1961, when the former premier Patrice Lumumba was murdered in Katanga. Lumumba, a rabid communist and terrorist had been so admired by Soviet leader Khrushchev, that he named the premier university of Moscow, 'Patrice Lumumba Friendship University' upon Lumumba's death. Under a new, stronger UN mandate the international force took control (1961) of Elizabethville (now Lubumbashi) and other strong points. An agreement (December 1961) for reintegrating Katanga into the country proved abortive.

In January 1963, UN troops acting on behalf of Congo leader Cyrille Adola, finally routed Tshombe's weaker forces and ended the Katanga secession. The UN had conducted a two year campaign of warmongering in order to destabilize Katanga and bring it back under Congo rule. The UN troops sent to Katanga to snuff out the candle of freedom, and force it back under the despotic communist rule of the Congo, were flown in on US Air Force transport planes. The ground troops involved in this infamous action originated from Ireland, Sweden ( see picture below ), Italy, Ethiopia and India.

According to many eyewitness accounts, notably the 46 civilian doctors of Elizabethville, who denounced the actions of the troops of the UN forces, in what was a brutal military campaign, the snuffing out of Katanga's freedom was accompanied by a barbarity seldom witnessed.

These activities included the bombing, machine-gunning and looting of civilian targets, including hospitals, ambulances, churches, schools, homes and cars. Over 90% of the buildings bombed and shelled by the United Nations were civilian structures with no military connections.

After protesting the UN attacks on ambulances, Mr Georges Olivet of the Swiss Red Cross was murdered by UN troops as he travelled in a Red Cross ambulance.

Worse still, if possible, was the behaviour of Congolese troops supplied and transported by the UN to invade Katanga from the North. Reports of cannibalism, massacre of missionaries and other civilians were rife. Wherever these Congolese troops passed, they left terror, anarchy and chaos.

KATANGA TO RISE AGAIN?

In 1966 the central government nationalized Union Minière du Haut Katanga, the Belgian firm that had controlled most of Katanga's mining interests. It was renamed Gecamines. In 1971 Katanga was renamed Shaba; the original name was restored in 1997. Throughout the 1970s further insurrections were put down by the government with help from foreign nations, but in the 1990s there was again talk of secession. Gecamines has had difficulty in maintaining its operations and exporting its copper.