Tshombe Indicates Release Of Gizenga

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30481, 1 July 1964, Page 15

Tshombe Indicates Release Of Gizenga

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

LEOPOLDVILLE, June 30.

Mr Moise Tshombe, the former President of Katanga, announced yesterday that the Left-wing leader Antoine Gizenga would be released shortly. Mr Tshombe said in a statement to reporters that he had received a “formal assurance” from the Gongolese Prime Minister (Mr Cyrille Adoula) that Mr Gizenga would be freed.

Mr Gizenga, a former Vfce-Premler in the Central Congo Government, was taken into “administrative detention” in January, 1962, after trying to form a breakaway government in Stanleyville. He was detained on the island of Bula Bemba in the estuary of the River Congo. On Saturday it was announced that he had turned down a Government offer to release him. It was said then that he had refused to meet Mr Adoula, and that such a meeting was part of the Government’s offer. Mr Tshombe, the former Katanga secessionist leader,

returned to the Congo from Spain last Friday and since then has been in consultation with Mr Adoula and President Joseph Kasavubu about the formation of a “national reconciliation” Government.

Mr Albert Kalonji, a former secessionist leader in South

Kasai, returned on Saturday and also joined the talks. . Mr Remy Mwamba has been elected President of the Balubakat Party following the reported killing of Mr Jason Sendwe, a former. North Katanga President and party leader. Mr Mwamba’s first act was to send a telegram to Leopoldville giving Mr Moise Tshombe and Mr Godefroid Munongo, Justice Minister in the East Katanga Government, the right to “negotiate a sincere reconciliation.” However, Mr Munongo—a “strong man” in the former Tshombe Government—has already arrived back in Elizabethville from Leopoldville after talks with Mr Tshombe, who returned to the Congo last week after 12 months’ exile.

On his return, Mr Munongo refused to comment on the talks but said that Mr Tshombe “must come here before going anywhere else in the Congo to exemplify real conciliation.”

Mr Mwamba, President of the Balubakat-Conakat political party alliance, was elected the Balubakat Party President by a special extraordinary session of the party assembly. MOURNING DECLARED

The East Katanga Cabinet has declared next Wednesday a day of mourning for Mr Sendwe, whose body was reported on Saturday to have been found with those of three of his Cabinet members at his capital, Albertville. Mr Sendwe, aged 46, had set up his own regime in North Katanga in opposition to the secessionist Katanga Government of Mr Tshombe.