Katanga Opposes U.N. Plan For Disarming

Press, Volume C, Issue 29435, 10 February 1961, Page 13

Katanga Opposes U.N. Plan For Disarming

(Rec. 10.30 p.m.) ELISABETHVILLE, February' 9. Demonstrators today stoned the American Consulate in Elisabethville after hearing the Katanga President, Mr Moise Tshombe, denounce the proposal by the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Hammarskjold, to disarm the regular forces in the Congo, including Katanga.

“This is Africa,” he told a crowd of 6000 at the Elisabethville football stadium. “Americans, Moroccans and others should stay where they belong.”

The proposal that regular forces in Katanga be disarmed would result in anarchy and slavery, he added. “The United Nations will meet the entire Katanga population at the ready should they want to force themselves upon our country,” he said Mr Hammarskjold has asked the Security Council for a mandate to reorganise the Congolese National Army to prevent it from intervening in political conflicts. After Mr Tshombe’s speech, about 300 Katanga youth movement members paraded through the streets shouting slogans and bearing banners saying, “Down with the United Nations” and "Down with communism." They threw stones at the American consulate. The stones landed on the roof and garden without doing any damage They then marched to United Nations headquarters, where they demonstrated in front of Swedish soldiers on guard. Armed police who had followed the procession in lorries

then dispersed the crowd. A Johannesburg message says an envoy of the Katanga Government, who refuses to reveal his name, has arrived to recruit former army men and pilots for the Katanga Army. Sources close to the regime of President Tshombe said he hopes to recruit 2000 men. several hundred of them in South Africa.

Another envoy, Mr Stuart Finley-Bissett, arrived earlier looking for men to pilot Katanga’s jet aircraft. In Leopoldville, President Joseph Kasavubu is today reported to have approved the formation of a new provisional Congo Government Mr Albert Delvaux, Minister without portfolio in the Kasavubu Government, said Mr Joseph Ileo, who was named Premier-designate by President Kasavubu, would head the Government According to the reports, President Kasavubu has approved the proposed Government, but there was no sign of a meeting of Parliament being called to approve it