Balubas Claim Irish U.N. Troops First To Kill

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29361, 14 November 1960, Page 15

Balubas Claim Irish U.N. Troops First To Kill

LEOPOLDVILLE, Nov. 12. As the search continued in north Katanga for the one man still missing from an 11-man Irish United Nations patrol ambushed by Baluba tribesmen last Tuesday night, a United Nations spokesman said in Leopoldville yesterday that the patrol had killed 10 Balubas and wounded another 10 in the clash.

The spokesman said the wounded Balubas, now under United Nations military custody in a hospital at Manono, claimed the Irish troops had killed the Balubas before the tribesmen killed the troops.

Only two of the patrol survived the ambush, and eight bodies have been recovered. A United Nations spokesman in Elisabethville, the Katanga capital, said patrols would be strengthened. Moroccan troops of the United Nations force fired over the heads of an unruly crowd demonstrating at Leopoldville yesterday against the arrest of the Governor of Leopoldville Province (Mr Cleophas Kamitatu). A United Nations officer went among the crowd to say Mr Kamitatu was safe and unharmed, and that he was with the Congo Army Chief (Colonel Joseph Mobutu). Mr Kamitatu. a supporter of the suspended Prime Minister *Mr Patrice Lumumba), was taken from his house last night with his wife, children and 15 employees by Colonel Mobutu's troopsThe arrest came after the appearance in Mr Kamitatu's partv newspaper of an antiMobutu article and a photograph of Mr Lumumba. But Colonel Mobutu said the Governor was arrested because a provincial minister had handed over secret military and civilian documents to the United Nations. Later Hie demonstrators outside United Nations headquarters moved towards Colonel Mobutu’s

house, but were blocked by Congolese troops, armed with machine-guns and rifles. Ghanaian troops armed with rifles and sub-machine guns were ordered out and moved in between the crowd and the Congolese troops. Two shots were fired, but nobody appeared to have been hurt. About 300 shouting, yelling Congolese gathered outside United Nations headquarters today and demanded United Nations intervention to secure Mr Kamitatu’s release.

A scuffle developed, and one Congolese was slipped and beaten up by the crowd. Moroccan soldiers who ran from their guard post to intervene were pushed by the crowd and became involved in the melee. Other Moroccan guards then fired a volley over the heads of the crowd and the scuffle broke up. Earlier the crowd had shouted abuse at a truckload of armed Congolese troops apparently sent to disperse them. A crowd of police—most of whom support Governor Kamitatu —arrived and the Congo troops suddenly disappeared.