33.2.2: Lumumba and the Congo Crisis

The Congo Crisis

The Congo Crisis was a period of political upheaval and conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1960 and 1965. It began almost immediately after the Congo became independent from Belgium and ended unofficially with the entire country under the rule of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. Constituting a series of civil wars, the Congo Crisis was also a proxy conflict in the Cold War in which the Soviet Union and United States supported opposing factions. Around 100,000 people were killed during the crisis.

A nationalist movement in the Belgian Congo demanding the end of colonial rule led to the country’s independence on June 30, 1960. Minimal preparations had been made and many issues, such as the questions of federalism and ethnicity, remained unresolved. In the first week of July, a mutiny broke out in the army and violence erupted between black and white civilians. Belgium sent troops to protect fleeing whites and two areas of the country, Katanga and South Kasai, seceded with Belgian support. Amid continuing unrest and violence, the United Nations deployed peacekeepers, but the UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld refused to use these troops to help the central government in Léopoldville fight the secessionists. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, the charismatic leader of the largest nationalist faction, reacted by calling for assistance from the Soviet Union, which promptly sent military advisors and other support.

The involvement of the Soviets split the Congolese government and led to an impasse between Lumumba and President Joseph Kasa-Vubu. Mobutu, in command of the army, broke this deadlock with a coup d’état, expelled the Soviet advisors, and established a new government effectively under his control. Lumumba was placed in captivity and subsequently executed in 1961. A rival government, founded by Antoine Gizenga and Lumumba supporters in the eastern city of Stanleyville, gained Soviet support but was crushed in 1962. Meanwhile, the UN took a more aggressive stance towards the secessionists after Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash in late 1961. Supported by UN troops, Léopoldville defeated the secessionist movements in Katanga and South Kasai by early 1963.

With Katanga and South Kasai back under the government’s control, a reconciliatory compromise constitution was adopted and the exiled Katangese leader, Moise Tshombe, was recalled to head an interim administration while fresh elections were organized. Before these could be held, however, Maoist-inspired militants calling themselves the “Simbas” rose up in the east of the country. The Simbas took control of a significant amount of territory and proclaimed a communist “People’s Republic of the Congo” in Stanleyville. Government forces gradually retook territory and in November 1964, Belgium and the United States intervened in Stanleyville to recover hostages from Simba captivity. The Simbas were defeated and collapsed soon after. Following the elections in March 1965, a new political stalemate developed between Tshombe and Kasa-Vubu, forcing the government into near-paralysis. Mobutu mounted a second coup d’état in November 1965, now taking personal control. Under Mobutu’s rule, the Congo (renamed Zaire in 1971) was transformed into a dictatorship which would endure until his deposition in 1997.

The Death of Lumumba: Pro-Lumumba demonstrators in Maribor, Yugoslavia in February 1961.

Force Publique Mutiny

Despite the proclamation of independence, neither the Belgian nor the Congolese government intended the colonial social order to end immediately. The Belgian government hoped that whites might keep their position indefinitely. The Republic of the Congo was still reliant on colonial institutions like the Force Publique to function from day to day, and white technical experts installed by the Belgians were retained in the broad absence of suitably qualified black Congolese replacements (partly the result of colonial restrictions regarding higher education). Many Congolese assumed that independence would produce tangible and immediate social change, so the retention of whites in positions of importance was widely resented.

Lieutenant-General Émile Janssens, the Belgian commander of the Force Publique, refused to see Congolese independence as a change in the nature of command. The day after the independence festivities, he gathered the black non-commissioned officers of his Léopoldville garrison and told them that things under his command would stay the same, summarizing the point by writing “Before Independence = After Independence” on a blackboard. This message was hugely unpopular among the rank and file—many of the men had expected rapid promotions and increases in pay to accompany independence. On July 5, several units mutinied against their white officers at Camp Hardy near Thysville. The insurrection spread to Léopoldville the next day and later to garrisons across the country.

Rather than deploying Belgian troops against the mutineers as Janssens wished, Lumumba dismissed him and renamed the Force Publique the Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC). All black soldiers were promoted by at least one rank. Victor Lundula was promoted directly from sergeant-major to major-general and head of the army, replacing Janssens. At the same time, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, an ex-sergeant-major and close personal aide of Lumumba, became Lundula’s deputy as army chief of staff. The government attempted to stop the revolt—Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu intervened personally at Léopoldville and Thysville and persuaded the mutineers to lay down their arms—but in most of the country the mutiny intensified. White officers and civilians were attacked, white-owned properties were looted, and white women were raped. The Belgian government became deeply concerned by the situation, particularly when white civilians began entering neighboring countries as refugees.

Lumumba’s stance appeared to many Belgians to justify their prior concerns about his radicalism. On July 9, Belgium deployed paratroopers, without the Congolese state’s permission, in Kabalo and elsewhere to protect fleeing white civilians. The Belgian intervention divided Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu; while Kasa-Vubu accepted the Belgian operation, Lumumba denounced it and called for “all Congolese to defend our republic against those who menace it.” At Lumumba’s request, white civilians from the port city of Matadi were evacuated by the Belgian Navy on July 11. Belgian ships then bombarded the city; at least 19 civilians were killed. This action prompted renewed attacks on whites across the country, while Belgian forces entered other towns and cities, including Léopoldville, and clashed with Congolese troops.

Attributions

• Lumumba and the Congo Crisis
  • “Patrice Lumumba.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Congo Crisis.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Crisis. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Protestno_zborovanje_v_Mariboru_ob_umoru_kongovskega_predsednika_Patricea_Lumumbe_1961_(3).jpg.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba#/media/File:Protestno_zborovanje_v_Mariboru_ob_umoru_kongovskega_predsednika_Patricea_Lumumbe_1961_(3).jpg. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.