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Weapons Afloat. Alarmed at the prospect of damage to mine installations in which both Britain and Belgium had heavy investments, British U.N. Ambassador Sir Patrick Dean and Belgium's Walter Loridan demanded assurances from Thant that the U.N. forces would go no farther. Thant assured them that they had halted at the Lufira River. That was correct, up to a point. With three bridges down, the Indians stopped at the Lufira all right, but only long enough to rig ropes and pulleys to a swimming float and ferry 120-mm. mortars, recoilless rifles and Jeeps across the stream. Noronha had no orders to take Jadotville—but then again, he had no orders not to—so he kept on going. Unopposed, the Indians trooped into Jadotville with Noronha himself heading a column of Jeeps.
Things were going less smoothly back at U.N. headquarters in Manhattan. Convinced that Thant had deceived them about Jadotville, Belgian and British diplomats wanted to know what had happened. Thant intimated that his aides in the Congo had exceeded their orders. "There occurred a serious breakdown," a spokesman said, "in effective communication and coordination between the U.N. headquarters and the Leopoldville office.'' Off to Leopoldville "to determine the cause of this lapse and to ensure it will not recur" flew U.N. Under Secretary Ralph Bunche. But once there, Bunche announced that the U.N. still wanted "freedom of movement" throughout all of
Katanga, and added: "The task is not completed."
Bug-Out Artists. Tshombe himself alternately shouted defiance and whispered of his peaceable aims. After a panicky flight to Southern Rhodesia when the U.N. first attacked, he returned to Katanga, setting up headquarters in the town of Kolwezi. He was disposed to negotiate, he said, but if the U.N. refused to do so, "we shall fight to the end." Upset at his gendarmerie's pitiful showing, he reportedly sacked hot-tempered Army Commander General Norbert ("Napoleon") Moké, relied chiefly on a force of 200 or 300 white mercenaries for a possible last-ditch stand. But apparently even the mercenaries left something to be desired. Two whites, a Belgian and a Hungarian-born U.S. Army deserter who were captured by the Indians at the Lufira River, scorned the South Africans and Rhodesians with whom they fought as "big bug-out artists." The Katangese, they said, "ran even before the first shot."
Tshombe's "scorched earth" threats proved more bluff than anything else. Before they fled, his Katangese troops sabotaged the control board at Union Miniére's Jadotville plant. The company's production was at a total halt. But damage was relatively mild, and the U.N. now had sentries protecting two-thirds of its installations.