For the first time in ten months, the Congo's fledgling Parliament reassembled last week in Lovanium University's handsome modern auditorium. Isolated from outside influences by an electrified barbed-wire fence, patrols of police dogs and Indian machine gunners of the U.N. force, the legislators made a forlorn stab at statesmanship. That it failed was largely the fault of two bedridden absentees: Red lining Antoine Gizenga, boss of Eastern province and heir apparent of Lumumba, and round-faced Moise Tshombe, President of the separatist state of Katanga.
By a narrow vote of 62-58, Gizenga's slate of seven candidates swept every office in the...