KATANGA 1960-1961

Katanga, Congo's richest province because of its huge deposits of copper, cobalt and uranium, borders Angola on the southwest, Zambia on the southeast, and Lake Tanganyika on the east. It tried to establish itself as a separate state in the chaos that followed independence from Belgium in June 1960. As Congolese troops mutinied and attacked Belgian settlers, and the United States and Soviet Union intervened to support rival factions of the government, Moise Tshombe (1919-1969) declared secession with the support of the Belgian-owned mining company and a comic-opera army led by European mercenaries.

Government troops moved towards Katanga in August 1960 but got stuck in the diamond-mining state of Kasai and massacred thousands of Baluba tribes people. The United Nations sent troops to restore order in Congo and eventually managed to land a force in the capital of Katanga, Elizabethville (now Lubumbashi), where they were soon fighting with Tshombe's mercenaries.

Meanwhile, Joseph Mobutu led a military coup in September 1960 which overthrew Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961) and expelled the Soviet embassy. Lumumba, a courageous but unstable man, was murdered in mysterious circumstances the following February.

In September 1961, UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961) led a mission to try to reconcile Tshombe with the central government. Hammarskjold was killed in a plane crash and UN troops fought renewed battles with Tshombe's forces in December. However, after a further round of fighting in Elizabethville in December 1962 that routed the mercenaries, Tshombe ended his secession and accepted a UN-brokered National Conciliation Plan in January 1963. Eighteen months of further negotiations led to him being appointed Prime Minister but he went into exile in 1965.

Under Mobutu, Katanga was renamed Shaba. It became Katanga again in 1997 after Mobutu was driven into exile.

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