April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

from the pages of Drum Magazine, was photographed lying prostate in
front of Lumumba’s car, arms spread out in a gesture that symbolically
stated: ‘Drive over me if you like, My Leader! If I die today, I am satisfied
enough to do so gladly!’
It was also reported that another Congolese, filled with pride, jumped the
line of troops guarding King Baudoin at a public ceremony, removed the
King’s ceremonial sword, and ran away with it into the crowd.
But in the barracks of the Congolese army, the ‘Force Publique’, reality
took a different turn altogether. The commander of the Force, Gen. Emile
Janssens, felt obliged to make a speech to his assembled troops. He
fatuously announced that the much-touted ‘independence’ would have no
immediate effect on life in the Force Publique. The situation ‘après [after]
l’’ndependence', he very kindly explained, was precisely the same as
‘avant [before] l’independance’. Contrary to reports they had heard,
Janssens told the troops, ‘no African officers were to be commissioned in
the near future’.
Thus this insensitive officer shattered, with a few sentences, all the
dreams that the Congolese soldiers had woven in their minds about life in
an independent Congo. Their increased pay, their officers’ pips, the cars,
the bungalows they had dreamt about - all vanished with the general’s
words.
Within hours, the troops had mutinied. Units brought in to restore order
joined the mutineers, attacked their white officers, and turned on the
officers' families, raping some of the women. Gangs of armed, uniformed
troops looted shops, and indiscriminately beat and terrorized Europeans in
the streets.
Léopoldville's European population fled en masse across the river to the
relative safety of Brazzaville. The mutiny spread to the interior of the
country and non-African inhabitants found themselves under siege.
Belgium now faced the task of evacuating its nationals under fire. It flew
commandos in from Europe and secured the country’s major airfields,
while bringing in additional reinforcements by sea. Belgian forces in the
Congo quickly swelled from an initial 3,800 to well over 10,000. To Prime
Minister Lumumba and the Congolese army, this looked more like a
colonialist coup than a rescue mission. Fire-fights broke out between
Belgian units and Congolese soldiers, as Lumumba urged his people to
resist all moves by the Belgian troops. Meanwhile, he appealed to
independent African countries to send troops to help the Congolese army
restore order, so that the Belgian troops could be expelled from the
Congo.
Ghana’s President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah was one of the first to respond to
Lumumba’s appeal.
The African group at the UN agreed with Nkrumah that Belgium was using
the mutiny as an excuse to re-impose colonial rule on the Congo. So they
asked the United Nations to order Belgium to withdraw its troops forthwith
and replace them with UN troops.
The UN procrastinated, as is usual with it. In the mean time, Lumumba
asked Nkrumah directly for bilateral assistance. Within one week, Ghana
was able to dispatch 1,193 troops to the Congo equipped with 156 military
trucks and 160 tons of stores.