The Congo: The Snake Has All the Lines

According to a story now current in Leopoldville, the Congolese government is actually run by a talking snake. Not long ago, as the witchmen tell it, an army officer’s wife was walking through the forest outside her husband’s garrison when the snake slithered up and hissed: “Take me to your leader.” She did, and ever since it has been dispensing advice from President Joseph Kasavubu’s kingly mansion on the banks of the Congo River.

Last week there was strong suspicion that the snake had turned against the Congo’s new Premier, Moise Tshombe. To prove himself a true-black African leader and dispel accusations of colonialist stoogery, Katanga’s onetime secessionist leader planned to attend this week’s meeting of the Organization of African Unity in Cairo. Tshombe knew he had many enemies in the 34 African states comprising the O.A.U., but felt he could win sympathy from the group’s conservative members and hold his own with the rest through the sheer force of his considerable personal charm.

Good as His Word. But howls of protest arose from Algeria’s Ahmed ben Bella, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, and even Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. To them, Tshombe is still the renegade who played on the side of the Belgians, the man who connived at the murder of Leftist Patrice Lumumba, the Congo’s first Premier. Worried at the reception they might receive in Cairo, Kasavubu nervously canceled both his and Tshombe’s appearances at the O.A.U. meeting.

It was a setback in the Premier’s bold, uphill battle to weld a cohesive government for the Congo, and he was furious. Accurately enough, he accused Ben Bella and the others of running ruthless dictatorships that produced martyrs no less worthy of sympathy than Lumumba. “To Monsieur ben Bella, who shouts loudly, I answer with equal force,” “Tshombe said. “Do as we do, free your political prisoners.”

An hour later, Tshombe proved to be as good as his word. Into Leopoldville’s Ndjili Airport flew an Air Congo Beechcraft carrying Leftist Leader Antoine Gizenga, self-proclaimed heir to Patrice Lumumba and the instigator of Stanleyville’s bloody 1961 revolt. Clad in a red, white and blue ski sweater, Gizenga was unshaven but smiling as he stepped out of the plane, apparently none the worse for the 2½ years he had spent on Bulambemba, an island prison in the mouth of the Congo River. It had not been a painful confinement, for his obliging jailers had given Gizenga plenty of opportunity to engage in his favorite non-political sports: the smoking of hemp and the pursuit at close quarters of young girls.

Crossed Branches. Tshombe was determined to use Gizenga, and his considerable left-wing following, in his efforts to unify the Congo. Without giving Gizenga even enough time to shave, Tshombe put him into the back seat of a white Impala convertible. He also grabbed the onetime God-Emperor of Kasai province, Albert Kalonji, now Tshombe’s Agriculture Minister, and set forth on a triumphant tour of Leopoldville’s African quarter. For 21 hours, thousands of Congolese paid screaming homage to the unlikely trio, who as bitter rivals had once led the Congo’s most ruinous major rebellions.

Clapping an arm around “Brother” Moise, Gizenga explained in the Lingala language that his rebel days were over. “I am ready to work for pacification and peace in our country,” he said benignly. The crowd waved crossed branches—the Congo-wide symbol of unity—and women danced so wildly that they nearly spilled the porcelain tubs of manioc flour balanced on their heads. It all seemed very hopeful, except that revolt still raged in three of the Congo’s outlying provinces, where Communist-encouraged bands burned villages, terrorized whites and slaughtered Congolese almost at will. Still, Tshombe has made more progress so far toward solving the Congo’s chaotic problems than any of his predecessors. And he certainly has self-confidence. At a rally in Baudouin Stadium before 25,000 rapt listeners, he said: “Before discovering America, Christopher Columbus said to his tired friends, ‘In three days I will give you a new world.’ To you who are also tired—tired of anarchy and disorder—I say, three months and I will give you a new Congo.”

With that kind of oratory, he might even be able to charm the talking snake in Kasavubu’s palace.