Introduction

Ethnic sub-nationalism bedeviled Zaire later the Democratic Republic of Congo in the first three years after independence to the extent of arousing a separatist or secessionist movement in the province of Katanga (later Shaba). Katanga's secession was a more complex affair, however, than the desire of some ethnic groups (or rather, their leaders) to carve out a new state and ignore a border drawn up by Europeans when they scrambled for Africa two or three generations earlier.
 
The Congo became independent on 30 June I960 with Kasavubu as President and Lumumba as Prime Minister. Six days later, on 5 July, the Force Publique mutinied in protest at its Belgian commander Janssens, who declared his opposition to Africanization and demoted an African non-commissioned officer. At that time the Force had not a single African officer. The African soldiers mutinied against their Belgian officers, though, in the mutiny some European civilians were also killed. Belgium therefore flew in troops to protect Belgian lives and property, with the Lumumba government's permission.
 
Then on 11 July the Belgian navy bombarded the port of Matadi as a retaliation. On the same day Moise Tshombe, the provincial Premier of Katanga, declared the province's 'independence', with the backing of the local Belgian administrators and garrisons. Lumumba ended the mutiny by promising rapid Africanization of the Force Publique and sacking Janssens. But the Prime Minister could not cope alone with the aftermath of the events of 11 July. The shelling of Matadi led to revenge attacks on white people throughout the country, which in turn provoked massive
'further Belgian military intervention - an illegal intervention which Lumumba was not consulted about.
 
The second Belgian intervention led to Belgian military occupation of large areas of the country and strengthened the position of the secessionists in Katanga. Lumumba and Kasabuvu agreed to call in the United Nations to maintain law and order until the Force Publique could be reorganized and disciplined, to assist in training civil servants, to replace the invading Belgians and to end the secession of Katanga. UN intervention was Lumumba's alternative to imperial peace. Africa was as yet not equipped ' or ready to assert a Pax Africana over itself. The rest of Africa was soon to approve of this move for the time being. Better a collective police action by the world body than a return to imperial pacification.

The first UN troops arrived in the Congo on 15 July. Tunisian troops were followed at intervals by Ghanaian and then Ethiopian, Indian, Irish and Swedish troops.
 
The key to Katangan secession was the Belgian presence, in the form of troops and the financial influence of the huge mining combine, Union Miniere, Tshombe's CONAKAT party and his regime, lacking widespread local support, was dependent entirely on Belgian arms, men and money. The Elisabethville (later Lubumbashi) correspondent of the (London) Daily Telegraph newspaper summed up the position in his report published on 27 July: "The outline of Belgium's emergency policy for Katanga is now discernible. It is to protect the great financial stake here and hold a political bridgehead in the hope of a Congolese union amenable to Belgium and the West.'

National Movements and New States in Africa