"Katanga-Rhodesia Union Sought’

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29764, 6 March 1962, Page 13

"Katanga-Rhodesia Union Sought’

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, March 5. President Tshombe wants a political union between his rich Congo province of Katanga with Sir Roy Welensky’s Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, according to the “Daily Express.”

The newspaper’s chief foreign correspondent said Sir Roy Welensky had told him of the proposals when he flew back to Rhodesia with him last week. Mr Tshombe wanted to take Katanga, including the enormously wealthy Union Miniere copper-mining concern, out of the Congo and weld it permanently with the Rhodesian Federation, he said. Sir Roy Welensky had told

him: “Yes, of course Tshombe and I have been discussing the possibility of a union—and it is this possibility that scares the daylights out of the U.N.O. “I am not trying to pull Katanga into my own orbit, nothing of the kind, but if anyone wants to join us of their own accord, that is another matter.” Sir Roy Welensky had told him that if he were to agree to this union it “would mean signing Tshombe’s death warrant. He would be killed within a matter of days. “The Americans would come barging in and the AfroAsian group, which nowadays seem to run the U.N.0., would scream their heads off.” The correspondent said that it was his understanding that Mr Tshombe intended to keep trying for a union. Mr Tshombe felt that a union with the Federation represented by far the brightest future for Katanga.