A Familiar Frontier: The Kennedy Administration in the Congo ...

A year later, responding to the pressures coming from France’s massive decolonization ofAfrica in 1960, Belgium invited Congolese leaders to participate in a round-tableconference in Belgium. The conference reflected the new, shorter timetable:independence was scheduled for June 30, with parliamentary elections to come evensooner. 3 The need to build a national government under such time constraints wascomplicated by the tribal divisions within the diverse environments of the largest countryin sub-Saharan Africa. British and French leaders had encouraged fledgling states toadopt one or two parties, but the history of Belgian neglect led to a multitude of smalllocal parties, segregated by tribe and region. Lumumba, a figure already regarded withsuspicion by many, including Eisenhower’s team, had been the surprise winner of theparliamentary elections in May, with his MNC winning a small plurality in the politicallydivided legislature: 35 out of 137 seats. 4 Joseph Kasavubu was chosen for the largelyceremonialrole of President at the suggestion of Brussels. The Belgians hoped thatKasavubu might restrain the fiery Prime Minister Lumumba, who had been in a Belgianjail until January 1960 for his role in the previous year’s riots. Lumumba lived up to hisreputation as a thorn in Belgium’s side immediately, delivering an impassioned speech onindependence day. He publicly embarrassed King Baudouin I when he declared that “ourwounds are too fresh to forget.” 5 Only a week later, the Congo crisis began in earnest, asthe Congolese soldiers in Thysville, dangerously close to the capital, mutinied againsttheir officer corps, made up exclusively of white Belgians.3 Madeleine G. Kalb, The Congo Cables: The Cold War in Africa — From Eisenhower to Kennedy (NewYork: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1982), xxi4 Kalb, The Congo Cables, xxv5 Qtd. in Kalb, The Congo Cables, 315