In August 1960 troops of the Republic of the Congo (presently Democratic Republic of the Congo) attempted to crush the secession of South Kasai by invading the declared state's territory. Though initially militarily successful, the attack faltered under intense international and domestic political scrutiny and the Congolese troops were withdrawn.
The Congo became independent in June 1960, and the following month the province of Katanga seceded from the country. As the Congo became engulfed by crisis, members of the Luba ethnic group became subject to violent attacks. In early August, Muluba politician Albert Kalonji declared the secession of South Kasai, a region just north of Katanga, with the aim of creating a Baluba-dominated state. The Congolese central government, led by Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, resolved to put down the secessions by force. As South Kasai controlled railway junctions critical for an attack against Katanga, the Congolese forces decided to target South Kasai first. Lumumba ordered the offensive to commence, though who planned it and led it is disputed. On 23 August troops of the Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC) began advancing upon South Kasai. They penetrated the border the following day, facing only minimal resistance from the poorly-armed South Kasain army and police—which quickly retreated—and local Baluba militia. Kalonji fled to Katanga, and the ANC seized Bakwanga, the secessionist capital, on 26 August. The ANC then came into conflict with local Baluba civilians. Both sides perpetrated atrocities, with the ANC committing several massacres, resulting in the deaths of about 3,000 civilians. In Katanga, Kalonji organised a new army to retake South Kasai. Their counter-offensive was halted by the ANC, though the Kasaian troops and Katangese forces successfully blunted ANC incursions into Katanga.
The massacres in Bakwanga provoked international condemnation, with United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld commenting that they amounted to "a case of incipient genocide". On 5 September Congolese President Joseph Kasa-Vubu declared that Lumumba had "plunged the nation into fratricidal war" and dismissed him from the premiership. A political deadlock ensued, leading ANC Chief of Staff Joseph-Désiré Mobutu to launch a coup and seize control of the central government. On 18 September Mobutu agreed with UN officials to end the fighting, and the ANC withdrew from South Kasai six days later. The territory remained in secession until 1962 when Kalonji was overthrown and the ANC occupied it. No evidence has since been provided to suggest that the ANC massacres in Bakwanga met the legal definitions of genocide.
Background Decolonisation of the Belgian Congo European colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. King Leopold II of Belgium, frustrated by his country's lack of international power and prestige, attempted to persuade the Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexplored Congo Basin. The Belgian government's ambivalence about the idea led Leopold to eventually create the colony on his own account. With support from a number of Western countries, who viewed Leopold as a useful buffer between rival colonial powers, Leopold achieved international recognition for a personal colony, the Congo Free State, in 1885. The Luba Empire, the largest regional power in the Kasai region, was annexed into the new state in 1889. By the turn of the century, the violence of Free State officials against indigenous Congolese and the ruthless system of economic extraction had led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium to take official control of the country, which it did in 1908, creating the Belgian Congo.
An anti-colonial Pan-African and nationalist movement developed in the Belgian Congo during the 1950s, primarily among the évolué class (the urbanised black bourgeoisie). The movement was divided into a number of parties and groups which were broadly divided on ethnic and geographical lines and opposed to one another. The largest, the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC), was a united front organisation dedicated to achieving independence "within a reasonable" time. It was created around a charter which was signed by, among others, Patrice Lumumba, Cyrille Adoula and Joseph Ileo. Lumumba became a leading figure and by the end of 1959, the party claimed to have 58,000 members. However, many found the MNC was too moderate. A number of other parties emerged, distinguished by their radicalism, support for federalism or centralism and affiliation to certain ethnic groupings. The MNC's main rival was the Alliance des Bakongo (ABAKO) led by Joseph Kasa-Vubu, a more radical party supported among the Kongo people in the north, and Moise Tshombe's Confédération des Associations Tribales du Katanga (CONAKAT), a strongly federalist party in the southern Katanga Province.
Although it was the largest of the African nationalist parties, the MNC had many different factions within it that took differing stances on a number of issues. It was increasingly polarised between moderate évolués and the more radical mass membership. A radical and federalist faction headed by Ileo and Albert Kalonji split away in July 1959, but failed to induce mass defections by other MNC members. The dissident faction became known as the MNC-Kalonji (MNC-K), while the majority group became the MNC-Lumumba (MNC-L). The split divided the party's support base into those who endured with Lumumba, chiefly in the Stanleyville region in the north-east, and those who backed the MNC-K, popular in the south and among Kalonji's own ethnic group, the Baluba.
Situation in Kasai
One of the major legacies of colonial rule in Kasai was the arbitrary redivision of the population into new ethnic groups. Despite the shared language (Tshiluba) and culture of the two groups, colonial administrators believed the inhabitants of the Lulua river area to be ethnically different from the Baluba and dubbed them the Bena Lulua. The colonists believed the Baluba to be more intelligent, hardworking and open to new ideas than the Bena Lulua who were believed to be more reactionary and stupid. As a result, from the 1930s, the state began to treat the two groups differently and applied different policies to each and promoted the Baluba to positions above other ethnicities.
During the 1950s the Belgians began to fear that the rise of a powerful Luba elite would become a threat to colonial rule, and the administration began to support Lulua organisations. This further contributed to the growing ethnic polarisation between the two groups. In 1959, Luba-Lulua animosity was brought to a head by the discovery of a colonial proposal to move Luba farmers out of Lulua land to the less fertile land on Luba territory. As a result, hostility increased and violent clashes broke out. In August 1959, Luba demonstrations against the plan were violently repressed by the colonial military and police.
As independence approached, the Belgian government organised Congolese elections in May 1960. These resulted in an MNC-L relative majority. Nationally, Kasa-Vubu was proclaimed President, and Lumumba Prime Minister. In Kasai Province, the 1960 elections degenerated into an "anti-Baluba plebiscite" as the Luba MNC-K succeeded in obtaining a plurality but failed to take control of the provincial government. Instead, Lumumba promoted a Lulua candidate, Barthélemy Mukenge, as provincial president while Kalonji was denied an important ministerial portfolio in Lumumba's government. Kalonji refused Lumumba's offer of the Agriculture portfolio. The Kalonjists, who felt rejected and marginalised by the central government, began supporting alternative parties. Among them, the Kalonjists supported Tshombe's CONAKAT party in nearby Katanga which, because of its strongly federalist stance, opposed to Lumumba's conception of a strong central government based in the capital Léopoldville. As part of this, the Kalonjists backed CONAKAT at the expense of their main local rivals, the Association Générale des Baluba du Katanga (BALUBAKAT) party led by Jason Sendwe, which, although it represented the Baluba of Katanga Province, was in favour of centralism. The Kalonjists, who believed themselves to be acting on behalf of all the Luba-Kasai, created an animosity between the Luba-Kasai and the Luba-Katanga but also failed to gain the full support of CONAKAT, much of which had racial prejudice against the Baluba and supported only the "authentic Katangese".
Congo Crisis
The Belgian Congo became independent as the Republic of the Congo on 30 June 1960 in relative peace. On 5 July the Léopoldville garrison of the Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC)—formerly the Force Publique—mutinied in protest of poor working conditions and lack of material advancement following independence, and the revolt quickly spread throughout the Lower Congo. On 8 July the government implemented several reforms, including the promotion of Victor Lundula to general and commander of the army and making Secretary of State Joseph-Désiré Mobutu colonel and army chief of staff. Two days later the Belgian government initiated a unilateral military intervention to protect its citizens and in the following days Belgian troops occupied numerous towns throughout the Congo, particularly in Katanga. On 11 July Tshombe declared that Katanga, in opposition to "the arbitrary and neo-communist will of the central government", was seceding from the Congo.
On 14 July Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu sent a telegram to the United Nations (UN), stating that peacekeepers were requested to guard the Congo's sovereignty against Belgian aggression and warning that if the request was not speedily fulfilled they would turn to the Bandung Powers for assistance. The following day they sent a message to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev from Kindu, asking that he monitor the situation in the Congo closely. In New York City the UN Security Council adopted UNSC Resolution 143, calling upon Belgium to withdraw its troops and authorising the Secretary-General to send military and technical assistance to the Congo in consultation with the government to restore law and order. This resulted in the establishment of a large UN multinational peacekeeping force (generally known by its French acronym of ONUC). Foreign contingents arrived in the capital shortly thereafter. UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld later stated that these were to form a "temporary security force" that, although acting with the consent of and performing some of the tasks of the government, was completely under UN command.
Meanwhile in the same period of time, Baluba throughout Katanga and Kasai became the subject of violent attacks. Kalonji and his allies made an official call to the Baluba across the Congo to return to their "homeland" in the southern portion of the province on 14 July. Initially, they envisaged the division of Kasai in two in order to allow for the creation of a quasi-autonomous MNC-K and Luba-dominated provincial government. Rapidly, however, Kalonji realised that the chaos in the rest of the Congo could be used to secede unilaterally and declare full local independence. On 9 August 1960, Kalonji declared the region of south-eastern Kasai to be the new Autonomous State of South Kasai (État autonome du Sud-Kasaï). South Kasai's secession was supported by Belgian corporate interests, chiefly the Forminière mining company.
Prelude