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Congo Crisis
Part of the Cold War and the Congo conflicts
Belgian paracommandos preparing for a hostage rescue operation, November 1964
Date June 1960 – November 1966 Location Republic of the Congo Result Congo established as an independent, unitary state under Mobutu
Belligerents
Congo (Stanleyville) Simba Maoists ONUC Supported by:[1]  Soviet Union Cuba Egypt FLN/ Algeria People's Republic of Congo-Brazzaville Tanzania (formerly Tanganyika) Burundi People's Republic of China	Belgium  Katanga  South Kasai South Africa (Mercenaries) Rhodesia (Mercenaries)	Congo (Léopoldville) Supported by:  United States
Commanders and leaders
Patrice Lumumba † Antoine Gizenga Pierre Mulele Gaston Soumialot Dag Hammarskjöld † Nikita Krushchev Che Guevara Gamal Abdel Nasser Ahmed Ben Bella Alphonse Massamba-Débat Julius Nyerere King Mwambutsa IV Mao Zedong	King Baudouin I Moise Tshombe Albert Kalonji Mike Hoare Jean Schramme	Joseph Kasa-Vubu Joseph-Désiré Mobutu Cyrille Adoula Dwight Eisenhower Lyndon B. Johnson
Total killed: 100,000–200,000[2]

v t e Conflicts in Congo Congo Crisis First Congo War Rwandan Genocide Second Congo War Lusaka Ceasefire Gbadolite Agreement Sun City Agreement Pretoria Accord v t e Ituri conflict Bogoro attack – Artemis Response UN 1484 v t e Kivu conflict 2008 2009 2012

History of the DRC

Early history Migration & states Colonization Stanley (1867–1885) Congo Free State Leopold II (1885–1908) Belgian Congo (1908–1960) Congo Crisis First Republic (1960–1965) Zaire Mobutu regime (1965–1996) First Congo War Kabila's rise (1996–1998) Second Congo War Africa's Great War (1998–2003) Transitional government Towards unity (2003–2006)

v t e

The Congo Crisis (1960–1966) was a period of turmoil in the First Republic of the Congo that began with national independence from Belgium and ended with the seizing of power by Joseph Mobutu. At various points, it had the characteristics of anti-colonial struggle, a secessionist war with the province of Katanga, a United Nations peacekeeping operation, and a Cold War proxy battle between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Crisis resulted in the deaths of some 100,000 people (King Léopold II’s rule had resulted in the deaths of around 10,000,000 Congolese people).^[3] It led to the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, as well as a traumatic setback to the United Nations following the death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld in a plane crash as he sought to mediate.

Background[link]

Prior to the establishment of the First Republic in 1960, the native Congolese elites had formed semi-political organizations which gradually evolved into the main parties striving for independence. These organizations were formed on one of three foundations: ethnic kinship, connections formed in schools, and urban intellectualism^{[citation needed]}.

The largest of these was Association des Bakongo (ABAKO), founded in 1950, which was an ethnic association which promoted the interests and language of the Bakongo (or Kongo) people, as well as Bakongo-related ethnic groups. ABAKO, led by Joseph Kasa-Vubu during the Crisis, was at the forefront of the more insistent demands for both independence and federalism. Other less successful ethnic associations included the Liboke lya Bangala, who championed needs of the Bangala ethno-linguistic group (a grouping created by Western ethnographers), and the Fédékaléo – who included people from the Kasai region. Fédékaléo later split into several groups. Though these organizations represented ethnic groups from all over the Congo, they usually based themselves in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), since one reason for their existence was the need to maintain ethnic ties after the mass migration to urban areas^{[citation needed]}.

Another source of political groupings was the various Alumni Associations—whose membership came from former students of colonial Christian schools in the Congo. Most of the major politicians of the period were Alumni members, and the associations were used to create networks of advisors and supporters.

The third political tributary were the Cercles, urban associations that sprang up in the cities of the Congo, which were designed to foster solidarity amongst the évolués (the educated, westernized middle class). In the words of Patrice Lumumba, the head of the Cercles of Stanleyville (now Kisangani), the Cercles were created to "improve intellectual, social, moral and physical formation" of the évolués^{[citation needed]}.

In 1958, together with Cyrille Adoula and Joseph Ileo, Lumumba founded the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC), a national independence party intended to be non-tribal. It later split into two, MNC-L led by Lumumba and the MNC-K led by Albert Kalonji in Kasai^{[citation needed]}.

The thirty year plan[link]

In the early 1950s the Belgian government came under increasing pressure to allow the Belgian Congo to become a self-governing state. Belgium had ratified article 73 of the United Nations Charter, which advocated self-determination, and both superpowers put pressure on Belgium to reform its Congo policy. The Belgian government's response was largely dismissive. However, Belgian professor A.J. van Bilsen, in 1955, published a treatise called Thirty Year Plan for the Political Emancipation of Belgian Africa. The timetable called for gradual emancipation of the Congo over a thirty year period—the time Van Bilsen expected it would take to create an educated elite who could replace the Belgians in positions of power. The Belgian government and many of the évolués were suspicious of the plan — the former because it meant eventually giving up the Congo, and the latter because Belgium would still be ruling Congo for another three decades. A group of Catholic évolués responded positively to the plan with a manifesto in a Congolese journal called Conscience Africaine, with their only point of disagreement being the amount of native Congolese participation. The ethnic association ABAKO decided to distance themselves from the plan, in part because most of the Catholic évolués who wrote the Conscience Africaine manifesto were not from the Kongo ethnic group favoured by ABAKO, but also because they had decided to take a more radical, less gradualist approach to ending colonialism. ABAKO demanded immediate self-government for Congo^{[citation needed]}.

This plan was never made official. All early political efforts were hampered because Belgium had made no plans for Congolese independence. There were only nine university degree holders,^[4] and no Congolese in the entire military with a rank higher than Sergeant.

1959 Leopoldville and Stanleyville Riots[link]

ABAKO gathered steam over the following few years, consolidating political control over much of the lower Congo and Léopoldville. By early 1959, much of the lower Congo was beyond the control of Belgian authorities. The Belgian authorities prohibited ABAKO from meeting and this caused widespread rioting in Léopoldville from 4–7 January 1959 during which 34 Africans died.^[5] On January 12 Joseph Kasa-Vubu was arrested and the Belgians stated that he would be released on March 13. Subsequently, the Belgian government announced constitutional reforms intended to bring more Congolese into government, but only in an advisory capacity. They also indicated that the end result of the process would eventually be independence. With this plan the Belgians hoped to satisfy the demands of the more moderate Congolese for inclusion in the political process while neutralizing the more extreme Congolese nationalists with the promise of eventual independence. The end result was the opposite of what was intended. There was a surge of political activity, over fifty political parties were registered, nearly all of them based on tribal groups. Nationalist demands grew more extreme as parties competed with each other. There was further rioting, during which 24 people were killed, in Stanleyville on October 31, 1959 after Patrice Lumumba was arrested following a meeting of the MNC.^[6]

The Roundtable Conference, Brussels 18–27 January 1960[link]

Faced with increasing instability, the Belgians held a "Roundtable Conference" in Brussels for the leaders of the different Congolese parties. The MNC demanded that Lumumba should be released from prison so he could attend. The Belgians agreed to independence but tried to negotiate for a transitional period of three to four years. The Congolese insisted that independence be granted immediately and the most that they would concede was a few months. At the end of the conference on 27 January 1960 it was agreed that elections would be held by 22 May 1960, and independence granted on 30 June 1960. The experience of the French in the ongoing Algerian War for independence was something the Belgians desperately wanted to avoid^{[citation needed]}.