- (You may be looking for the First Congo War, 1996-7, or the Second Congo War, 1998-2002)
The Congo Crisis (1960-1965) was a period of turmoil in the First Republic of the Congo that began with national independence from Belgium and ended with the seizing of power by Joseph Mobutu. At various points it had the characteristics of anti-colonial struggle, a secessionist war with the province of Katanga, a United Nations peacekeeping operation, and a Cold War proxy battle between the United States and the Soviet Union. In recognition of the failure of the word "crisis" to convey this complexity, some authors write Congo "Crisis" or "Congo Crisis". The Crisis led to the assassination of prime minister Patrice Lumumba, as well as a traumatic setback to the United Nations following the death of Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in a plane crash as he sought to mediate.
Background
Prior to the establishment of the First Republic in 1960, the native Congolese elites had formed semi-political organisations which gradually evolved into the main parties striving for independence. These organisations were formed on one of three foundations: ethnic kinship, connections formed in schools, and urban intellectualism.
The largest of these was Association des Bakongo (ABAKO), founded in 1950, which was an ethnic association which promoted the interests and language of the Bakongo (or Kongo) people, as well as Bakongo-related ethnic groups. ABAKO, led by Joseph Kasavubu during the Crisis, was at the forefront of the more insistent demands for both independence and federalism. Other less successful ethnic associations included the Liboke lya Bangala , who championed the needs of the Bangala collection of ethnic groups (a grouping created by Western ethnographers), and the Fédékaléo – who included people from the Kasai region. Fédékaléo later split into several groups. Though these organisations represented ethnic groups from all over the Congo, they usually based themselves in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), since one reason for their existence was the need to maintain ethnic ties after the mass migration to urban areas.
Another source of political groupings was the various Alumni Associations - whose membership came from former students of colonial Christian schools in the Congo. Most of the major politicians of the period were Alumni members, and the associations were used to create networks of advisors and supporters.
The third political tributary were the Cercles, urban associations that sprang up in the cities of the Congo, which were designed to foster solidarity amongst the évolués (educated elites). In the words of Patrice Lumumba, the head of the Cercles of Stanleyville (now Kisangani), the Cercles were created to "improve intellectual, social, moral and physical formation" of the évolués.
The thirty year plan
In the early 1950s Belgium came under increasing pressure to transform the Belgian Congo into a self-governing state. Belgium had ratified article 73 of the United Nations Charter, which advocated self-determination, and both superpowers put pressure on Belgium to reform their Congo policy. The Belgian governments response was largely dismissive. However, Belgian professor A.J. Van Bilsen , in 1955, published a treatise called Thirty Year Plan for the Politcal Emancipation of Belgian Africa. The timetable called for gradual emancipation of the Congo over a thirty year period - the time Van Bilsen expected it would take to create an educated elite who could replace the Belgians in positions of power. The Belgian government and many of the évolués were suspicious of the plan — the former because it meant eventually giving up the Congo, and the latter because Belgium would still be ruling Congo for another 3 decades. A group of Catholic évolués responded positively to the plan with a manifesto in a Congolese journal called Conscience Africaine, with their only point of disagreement being the amount of native Congolese participation. The ethnic association ABAKO decided to distance themselves from the plan, in part because most of the Catholic évolués who wrote the Conscience Africaine manifesto were not from the Kongo ethnic group favoured by ABAKO, but also because they had decided to take a more radical, less gradualist approach to ending colonialism. ABAKO demanded immediate self-government for Congo.
Independence
The independent Republic of the Congo was declared on 30 June 1960, with Joseph Kasavubu as President and Patrice Lumumba as Prime Minister. It shared a name with the neighboring Republic of the Congo to the west, a French colony that also gained independence in 1960, and the two were normally differentiated by also stating the name of the relevant capital city, so Congo (Léopoldville) versus Congo (Brazzaville).
Course of the Crisis
The First Republic
Mutiny
Despite gaining political independence, the new country had few military officers so it kept many foreign officers as it trained its own military leadership. On 5 July 1960, the army (the Force Publique) near Léopoldville mutinied against its white officers and attacked numerous European targets. This caused great alarm amongst the approximately 100,000 European settlers in Congo that lived mostly in the capital city and ruined the credibility of the new government as it proved unable to control its own armed forces.
This immediately led to an military intervention into Congo by Belgium in an ostensible effort to secure the safety of its citizens. The reentry of these forces was a clear violation of the national sovereignty of the new nation, as it had not requested Belgian assistance.
Secession of Katanga
Lumumba assassinated
Mobutu and the Second Republic
See also
External links
Further reading
- De Witte, Ludo. (2001) The Assassination of Lumumba, Verso. Publication of book resulted in Belgian parliamentary commission and official apology from Belgium for role in the assassination of Lumumba.
- Epstein, Howard (ed). (1974) Revolt in the Congo, 1960-1964, Armor Books. Essays by various authors.
- Gondola, Ch. Didier. (2002) The History of Congo, Greenwood Press, ISBN 0-313-31696-1.
- Kanza, Thomas. (1979) The Rise and Fall of Patrice Lumumba, Schenkman.
- Legum, Colin. (1961) Congo Disaster, Penguin Books.
- Lemarchand, René, (1964) Political Awakening in the Belgian Congo, University of California Press.
- Lumumba, Patrice. (1962) Congo, My Country, Pall Mall Press. Speeches and selected writing by Lumumba.
- Weiss, Herbert. (1967) Political Protest in the Congo: The Parti Solidaire Africain during the Independence Struggle, Princeton University Press.
- Weissman, Stephen R. (1974) American Foreign Policy in the Congo, 1960-1964, Cornell University Press.
Last updated: 05-21-2005 10:34:58
