Africa
Page 13
A final problem, one whose repercussions would last through to the end of the century, was the question of white racialism and the white settler enclaves. These included Algeria, Congo (Kinshasa), Kenya, Southern Rhodesia, Angola, Mozambique and South Africa, while smaller white minorities were to be found in about a dozen other countries. In Kenya the Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s was more than the settlers could cope with on their own, with the result that British forces were sent to the colony to deal with the rebellion. This return of the imperial factor meant that, although Mau Mau was defeated, the possibility of a universal declaration of independence (UDI) by the settlers had also been pre-empted and at independence the 45,000 settlers were forced to come to terms with the reality of black majority rule. Further south, however, the white rearguard action was to be fierce and brutal, lasting until 1994 when Nelson Mandela became the first black president of South Africa, and lingering beyond that date with the latent conflict between white and black surfacing in Zimbabwe at the very end of the century. Given the history of white settlement in Africa, these rearguard actions were to be expected. What made them infinitely more dangerous, threatening the entire relationship of Africa with the former colonial powers, was the determined and deeply hypocritical way in which the West, and most notably Britain, defended blatant racism at the United Nations and elsewhere as long as it was remotely possible to do so.
Western racial attitudes became clear from 1960 onwards in the reporting of the Congo (Kinshasa) crisis: black atrocities against whites were always emphasized and the death of one white was given more attention than the deaths of hundreds of blacks, while the repeated use of such phrases as semi-civilized rulers, petty kingdoms or barbarism became stock usage for reporting from the Congo. White atrocities, especially by the mercenaries, and the fact of ruthless white intervention to destroy a government that did not suit Western interests, were ignored, glossed over or represented as necessary measures to restore law and order. Africans were soon appalled by the overt double standards: black racism wherever it appeared was denounced, white racism in Rhodesia, Angola or South Africa was inverted to become ‘upholding civilized values’. Margery Perham, whose study of colonial Africa and support for African independence, earned her the invitation to give the BBC Reith Lectures of 1961, said of South Africa: ‘They have their backs to the wall, but they dare not turn to read the writing on it. Yet all the rest of the world can read it. Their state rests upon the foundation of absolute power over the black population.’ She certainly did not foretell the manner in which Britain over the coming years would use its influence and power through the Commonwealth or in the United Nations to prevent the kind of pressures that might otherwise have brought an end to apartheid sooner than was to prove the case. Perhaps such Western behaviour was inevitable. Empire, after all, had been about the spread of white power and much of its raison d’être had been explained in terms of racial superiority and the natural right of Europeans to rule over barbaric or uncivilized races. As empire slipped away the overt sympathies of the British and French ruling elites, not to mention the Portuguese, were with their remaining white minorities in Africa. Had the colonial powers been less racist and insisted upon black majority rule, as Britain surely could have done in 1965 when Ian Smith in Rhodesia carried out his unilateral declaration of independence (UDI), much of the subsequent history of Africa could have been less violent and more constructive.
The problems facing independent Africa, as the new states rapidly discovered, were daunting in their range and variety. They included the search for suitable political systems, the need to Africanize, controlling – or failing to control – the military, the need for aid at almost all levels of development, coming to terms with the artificial boundaries bequeathed by the colonial powers, the tiny size of most African markets and their inability to compete in the world economic system, the lack of skills of almost every description and the huge expectations of their people. At the same time the new states had to take their place on the international stage, they needed to do so proudly and with assurance and they soon discovered just how little power they possessed and just how small even their collective influence was in the world at large. Internal problems – that is, internal to Africa – included boundary adjustments, the search for unity, the need to establish economic unions or common markets, the problems attaching to the white minority controlled states and the need to see the rest of Africa achieve its independence. Such problems were enormously exacerbated, as they soon discovered, by the impact of the Cold War and the determination of the major powers to intervene and manipulate whenever it suited their interests to do so.
The problems were formidable by any standards and yet the 1960s were a wonderful decade for the continent: Africa was free at last, colonialism was over and by 1970 43 African states were independent and members of the United Nations. The decade, despite everything, was one of hope, and the freedom that had just been won was to be enjoyed.
CHAPTER TWO
The Congo Crisis
The murder of Patrice Lumumba in January 1961 marked the end of the first phase of the Congo crisis. The second phase would last until Mobutu seized power in his coup of November 1965. Few events in Africa during the 1960s better illustrated the hypocrisy of the Western powers or their determination to control the newly independent countries of Africa by any means at their disposal. They manipulated the United Nations, they facilitated the deployment of mercenaries, they worked through the great mining groups such as Union Minière du Haut Katanga or Tanganyika Concessions, which they controlled, and by threats, bribes and overt political pressures they made certain that a puppet system beholden to them rather than any fully independent political leadership came to power in the mineral-rich Congo. The Cold War was one excuse for this behaviour – preventing the spread of Soviet or Communist influence in the region; greed was another – the Congo was too rich to be allowed to escape from Western corporate controls; and deep resentment on the part of the Belgians at loss of control of their colonial empire in Africa was the third. The end result was to consign the Congo (later Zaïre) to more than 30 years’ dictatorship under Mobutu Sese Seko (as he became) who was to make state kleptocracy fashionable. More than any other actions at this time, Western behaviour in the Congo crisis gave substance to Kwame Nkrumah’s accusations about neo-colonialism.
A leading article in the Manchester Guardian of December 1960 examined the chaotic situation in the Congo as follows:
The Congo has become so fragmented that a more realistic basis on which to act would be a (UN) resolution seeking to reunite the provinces of Leopoldville, Orientale, Kasai, and Katanga. All four are now under governments operating without any common purpose… Politics were not allowed to develop naturally in the Congo: if they are to develop now some midwifery will be needed. It can be supplied either by the United Nations as a whole or – and this would have a greater chance of success – by the Afro-Asian coalition. It should, however, be the major aim of United Nations’ policy.1
At the same time the Prime Minister of India, Mr Nehru, criticized the course the United Nations had been following (there were Indian troops in the Congo, acting under UN auspices). While the whole country was going to pieces, the United Nations was ‘sitting there passively’, he said, carrying its policy of non-intervention to an extreme. He wished that the United Nations would take a more positive role, using its forces and powers to enable the Congo Parliament to meet in spite of Colonel Mobutu, seeing that the Belgians left the country, and obtaining the release of political prisoners, including Lumumba, to the protection of the United Nations. The Prime Minister put great emphasis on the importance of the Congolese Parliament meeting as soon as possible. This, he said, was the obvious step, but it had been prevented by Colonel Mobutu, who had been encouraged in his opposition to parliament by various authorities and various countries.2
THE CRISIS DEEPENS
During the early months of 1961 the situation became increas
ingly chaotic. The African summit in Casablanca early in January devoted much of its attention to the situation in the Congo. Delegates had a common approach in which they saw colonialism’s resurgence: a ‘manifestation of neo-colonialism’. With the exception of Ghana, every state present that had troops in the Congo decided to withdraw them, although Ghana wanted to give the UN Command another chance. In the end a compromise was reached: a threat by every state, including Ghana, to withdraw troops from the Congo unless the UN Command acted immediately to support the central government. The Katanga government announced the death of Lumumba on 13 February and claimed that he had been murdered by tribesmen in Kolwezi. On 18 February Nkrumah advocated the creation of a new UN command, which must be African; disarming the Congolese; the expulsion of non-African personnel then in the Congo army; the release of political prisoners; and the temporary removal of diplomatic representatives. Violence through February included attacks on the UN forces whose Canadian, Sudanese and Tunisian troops suffered casualties. By the end of the month a total of 18 countries – Canada, Ireland and Sweden from Europe, and 15 Afro-Asian countries – Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Liberia, Mali, Malaya, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia and the United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria) – were part of the UN operation. Following the announcement of the death of Lumumba the position of foreign nationals, especially Belgians, became more difficult in Orientale and Kivu provinces, which were strongly Lumumbist. Urging various nations to take their fingers out of the Congo pie, the London Observer argued:
This applies particularly to Belgium, Britain and the United States, all of which have played an active and influential role. Unlike the Soviet bloc and France, these three countries overtly support the role of the UN in the Congo. But while they have defended Mr Hammarskjold from the attacks of the Communists, they have, at the same time, helped to undermine the UN authority in the Congo.3
On 23 April 1961 President Kasavubu and Prime Minister Joseph Ileo met with ‘President’ Moïse Tshombe of the breakaway Katanga Province at Coquilhatville in Equateur Province in the hope of working out a settlement of their differences. But after two days Tshombe walked out, declining to cooperate unless Kasavubu renounced his agreement with the United Nations. When Tshombe attempted to leave Coquilhatville, however, he was arrested. At this conference it was decided to divide the Congo into 19 states: Leopoldville province would become four states, Equateur three, Eastern three, Katanga two, Kivu two and Kasai five. Antoine Gizenga, whose base was in Eastern Province, refused to accept these conference decisions. Since the death of Lumumba, whose close associate he had been, Gizenga had claimed to be the legal prime minister and at this time he was backed by the Afro-Asian and Communist blocs. His position was denied by the central government of Kasavubu. Far greater powers than those envisaged at an earlier conference of political leaders that had taken place in Tananarive, Madagascar, were assigned to the federal government and the president. When the first anniversary of the Congo’s independence came on 30 June 1961, West Africa magazine said, among other things: ‘In the first week of independence Tshombe appealed for help from the Rhodesian Army; Lumumba appealed to the UN and later to the Russians; Bomboko intervened and Lumumba re-embraced the Belgians; Tshombe began forming the Katanga Army; the Force Publique mutinied and started a campaign of pillage and rape; the Belgian Army retaliated. From abroad the whole process seemed incredible and pathetic, but it was the beginning of disintegration which eventually led to Lumumba’s murder, Gizenga’s execution of political innocents – including Ghanaian soldiers.’ West Africa had more to say but the picture it conveyed was one of massive confusion, distrust, factional fighting and dubiously motivated interventions.
On 2 August 1961 President Kasavubu established a new government in Leopoldville: he appointed Cyrille Adoula as Prime Minister and brought in Antoine Gizenga as deputy. Adoula was to be prime minister for three years. A month later, on 13 September, the United Nations forces attempted to take control of Elizabethville (Lubumbashi), the capital of Katanga, but they met with strong resistance and considerable fighting at Jadotville. Peace talks were then scheduled to be held at Ndola, Northern Rhodesia, on 17 September but the flight carrying the UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold to Ndola crashed in circumstances that have never been adequately explained and he and all on board were killed. A provisional ceasefire was arranged on 20 September between the central Congo government (the UN forces) and Katanga. However, from mid-November 1961 to mid-January 1962 heavy fighting took place as UN forces attempted to end the Katanga secession. At one stage Britain agreed to supply the UN with bombs but then the government refused to do so after heavy pressure from its own right wing. A new flare-up rook place in January 1962 between the forces of the central government and supporters of Gizenga in Stanleyville (Kisangani); Gizenga at this time, though supposedly part of Kasavubu’s government, had been absent from Leopoldville for three months. On 15 January the Congolese Parliament passed a motion of censure on Gizenga and the following day Adoula sacked him from the government. Gizenga agreed to return to Leopoldville under UN protection. The UN then handed him over to the government in Leopoldville.
There had been a rapid increase of concern in white-dominated Southern Africa once it had become clear that the Congo would achieve its independence in June 1960 and prior to that date a Salisbury–Elizabethville airlift of arms to Katanga had been mounted with the knowledge of the Belgians. Lumumba had increased white fears when he proclaimed that the liberation of the Congo would be the first phase of the complete independence of Central and Southern Africa. He made clear that he would support liberation movements in Rhodesia, Angola and South Africa. ‘A unified Congo, having at its head a militant anti-colonialist constituted a real danger for South Africa. … Lumumba, because he was the chief of the first country in this region to obtain independence, because he knew concretely the weight of colonialism, had pledged in the name of his people to contribute physically to the death of that Africa. That the authorities of Katanga and those of Portugal have used every means to sabotage Congo’s independence does not surprise us.’4
Dag Hammarskjold, whose untimely death tended to create for him a status he did not deserve, was never held in much esteem in Africa. As Ronald Segal wrote scathingly of him: ‘Hammarskjold’s report to the Council (UN Security Council) that the dispute with Katanga “did not have its roots in the Belgian attitude” was clearly absurd, and his treatment of the Tshombe regime as a factor outside the scope of the central government was a virtual accession to the wishes of the West. The truth is that the Secretariat, for all its outward deference to the Afro-Asian states during the Congo crisis, was dominated by the West, especially the United States, and responsive to its view of events.’5 When the Tshombe regime, assisted by Belgian troops, pacified the hostile Baluba north region, its assaults were ignored by the West, but when Lumumba turned to Moscow for support this was importing the Cold War into Africa while the continuing presence of Belgian troops and administrators in Katanga was part of the struggle to sustain peace and good government in the troubled Congo. Radical African states became disenchanted with Hammarskjold’s performance in the Congo but since they also saw the United Nations as a protection against the great powers they were reluctant to attack him openly. An Afro-Asian motion in the General Assembly (17 September 1960) while saving the face of the Secretary-General had requested him to ‘assist the Central Government of the Congo in the restoration and maintenance of law and order throughout the Republic of the Congo and to safeguard its unity, territorial integrity and political independence’. Hammarskjold had tried to persuade the Belgians to remove their forces from Katanga, although he got no response from them. When he attempted an accommodation with Lumumba the US State Department protested. ‘It was clearly one thing to support the UN when it acted as the West desired, and quite another when it took uncongenial directions.’6
In many respects, Katanga was central to Western con
cerns over the Congo since it was both the mineral heartland of the country and the geographic-strategic link with the Central African Federation (through Northern Rhodesia) and the white-dominated south of the continent, which for years to come would be shielded where possible from African nationalism by the West. An article in the Saturday Evening Post of 8 September 1962 had this to say of the Congo crisis.
In one of the more ironic twists of our times, ultra-conservatives who pride themselves on being more anti-Communist and more devoted to the cause of freedom than others are clamouring for UN troops to withdraw from the Congo. They are urging the US Government to put its trust in wily, opportunistic Moïse Tshombe, secessionist President of Katanga province. An organization called the ‘American Committee for Aid to Katanga Freedom Fighters’ in a full-page newspaper advertisement recently proclaimed, ‘It’s time for the UN Army to get out of the Congo’ and asked the question, ‘Why not let the Congolese settle their own affairs?’.
That, needless to say, was the last thing that any outsider was prepared to countenance. Addressing a special session of the UN General Assembly in New York on 2 February 1962, the Congolese Prime Minister, Cyrille Adoula, said that the first concern of his government was national unity and to ‘bring Katanga back to legality’ and to free the province of mercenaries. Katangan secession would not have lasted without outside help.
In the Katanga case, real power remained in the hands of former colonial officials, who received the full backing of the Belgian state, and who were assisted in their rape of the Congo and its resources by a host of white adventurers and mercenaries from all over Europe and Southern Africa.