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UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold wrote in 1960 that African events are putting the UN to a test both as regards the functions its parliamentary institutions and as regards the efficiency and strength of its executive capacity. One of the first African events that tested the efficacy of the UN in addressing the challenges of international peace and security was the crisis in the early 1960s in the Congo, a vast Central African nation about 70 times the size of its former colonial power, Belgium.
The UN took a peacekeeping mission to this resource-endowed country at the height of the Cold War. The operation was heavily influenced by East-West ideological differences, and the world paid early for it. The operation cost the lives of UN Secretary-General Hammarskjold and Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, as well as plunging the world body into a grave political and financial crisis. The operation itself ended with installation in power of a Sergeant, Joseph Mobutu, who would later become Field Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko.
The Democratic Republic of Congo of today, which, at the various junctures in its political history, assumed different names Belgian Congo, Congo Leocoldville, Congo Kishasa and Zaire , became independent on 30th June 1960. At the time of independence, the country had a population of 14 million people, but only 17 university graduates, no doctors, no lawyers and no engineers. There was therefore neither a well defined sense of nationhood, nor a strong foundation for political authority. The Congolese received their political freedom in an atmosphere of chaos, calling into operation the hope inspiring structures erected by the UN Charter.
The May 1960 election that preceded the country's independence produced no clear winner. A trinity embracing the three leading political personalities - Patrice Lumumba, Joseph Kasavubu as Tshombe was formed, with Lumumba as prime minister and Kasavubu as president, while Tshombe's party was compensated with three ministerial portfolios. However, the ideological differences between these three personalities were exploited by the former colonial power, Belgium, and the country was set ablaze.
It began with inter-ethnic fighting on 2nd July 1960; then came an army mutiny on 5th July 1960, sparked off by the refusal of the Belgian Commander of the Congolese military to improve the conditions of service of the Congolese troops. During the mutiny, Prime Minister Lumumba refused Belgium's request to use Belgian troops stationed in the Congo to restore peace and order. Instead, he sacked the Belgian Commander and appointed two locals Warrant Officer Victor Lundula as Commander with the rank of Major General and Sergeant Joseph Mobutu as Chief of staff with the rank of Colonel. All Congolese troops were promoted by one rank to accelerate the Africanisation of the national armed forces.
Belgium immediately responded to three developments with a unilateral military intervention, in violation of the Friendship Treaty it had signed with its former colony. Confusion enveloped the entire country in the confusion, Belgian troops assisted the mineral - rich Katanga Province to secede under the leadership of Tshombe. And on 12th July 1960, President Kasavubu and Prime Minister Lumumba requested the assistance of the United Nations to restore internal security. This request was refined the following day to mean protection of the Congolese Territory, and led to the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 132 of 13/14 July 1960, which culminated in the establishment of the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC). |
