CONGO: The Hand of Kwame

The Russians and the Czechs were gone, and Patrice Lumumba’s Red-lining advisers had been sent packing, but now a new foreign force was at work in the confused Congo. It was that of Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, whose fervent hope is to rally an entire continent behind his Pan-African banner.

One of the young commissioners appointed by Colonel Joseph Mobutu made public a secret letter Nkrumah had written to Premier Patrice Lumumba three weeks ago. Nkrumah addressed Lumumba as “my brother,” gave him detailed instructions on how to circumvent his Cabinet, urged him: “Don’t make an issue of Kasavubu’s treachery now. The time will come. You must not push out the United Nations until you have consolidated your position.” Concluded Nkrumah: “When in doubt consult me . . . We know how to handle imperialists and colonialists.”*

Taking the Advice. Nkrumah’s agent on the spot was Ghana’s charge d’affaires, Nathaniel A. Welbeck, an old Nkrumah party crony and seasoned street-corner political agitator. While Lumumba stayed in the Premier’s residence, Welbeck took over the task of issuing wild accusations against the U.N., the U.S., France, and miscellaneous other “imperialists.” After Lumumba ventured out briefly for a half-hour tour of the city to test his popular support (few recognized him), Welbeck was at his elbow at the in evitable press conference on the Premier’s lawn. Becoming impatient, Welbeck interrupted Lumumba to announce that despite the sabotage of “certain individuals in the United Nations,” he was ar ranging a reconciliation between Lumumba and President Kasavubu. As for Colonel Mobutu, Welbeck declared, “he has seen that he was misguided and will now follow the right path.”

Black Colonization. But Welbeck had gone too far. President Kasavubu announced bluntly that Welbeck was a liar (“Lumumba was fired and he stays fired!”), and the enraged Colonel Mobutu replied with a demand that all Ghanaian troops in the U.N. force get out of the Congo and take their Guinean friends with them. From now on, Kasavubu added in a pointed reference to Lumumba, all foreigners should deal only with the new 28-man High Commission Mobutu had installed as temporary rulers of the Congo. The High Commissioners themselves called a press conference to criticize Nkrumah’s efforts to steer Lu mumba: “We denounce colonization of African countries by Africans!” shouted one Commissioner.

Amid the mess, the U.N. sat by, keeping the peace but numbly neutral, wistfully wishing someone could get a government together. “It is hoped that before it is too late the political leadership will make its choice, both wisely and well,” said Rajeshwar Dayal, U.N. chief in the Congo, in a formal report. Added Sture Linner, Swedish head of the U.N.’s nonmilitary Congo work: “The situation is getting more and more alarming. We are facing a panorama of disaster.” Appeals for economic help stream in from the provinces, but no one in Leopoldville can be found to sign the necessary papers; a list of Congolese students approved by the U.N. for study in European medical schools gathered dust because the authorizing office was empty.

* Colonel Mobutu at week’s end told of finding another secret correspondence, this one between Lumumba’s Deputy Premier Antoine Gizenga and Red China. Gizenga asked for money and men, was promised $2,800,000, but told that the Congo was too far away to fly in Chinese “volunteers.”