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Hourly Watch. Tshombe also accused Patrice Lumumba of "preparing the mutiny of the Force Publique and establishing a dictatorial regime staffed by Communists to terrify Europeans so that they would leave the country and be replaced by technicians from the Communist bloc." Premier Lumumba and his ubiquitous companion, President Kasavubu, gave some credibility to this charge by cabling Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow that the Congo's independence was threatened by Belgium and "certain Western countries" and that their lives "were in danger." "We beg you to watch hourly over the development of the situation," they said. Delighted at this opportunity to pose as the champion of African nationalism. Khrushchev responded with an 800-word telegram of support for the Congo's "struggle" against colonial oppressors. "The bayonet was Belgian," cried Khrushchev rhetorically, "but the bosses were U.S., Belgian, British and West German monopolists," and he demanded that the West keep its "hands off the Republic of the Congo." While he fulminated, the U.S. was rushing to the Congo not marines but food and medicine, and furnishing planes to airlift U.N.
troops into Leopoldville.
At week's end the U.N. task force was growing at Leopoldville. Some 600 Tunisian troops and 200 from Ghana arrived in British planes, and 1,000 Moroccans are expected this week. Congolese citizens wildly cheered the U.N. arrival, and mobs of young men taunted Belgian paratroops patrolling the white neighborhoods of Leopoldville. Cars driven by Europeans were stoned, and two white men unwary enough to be abroad in the outskirts of Leopoldville were beaten to death. Belgian officers grumbled at the arrival of "more black bastards" in the U.N. detachments, and complained that they would be no more likely to protect Europeans than the Congolese troops had been.
The arrival of U.N. troops seemed only to make Lumumba more frantic. At week's end he issued an ultimatum to the U.N. forces, demanding that they clear all Belgian troops out of the Congo. If the Belgians were not gone within three days, said Lumumba, he would call on "Soviet Russian troops" for help. Khrushchev would undoubtedly be delighted to oblige.
Reeling Ship. The Congo treasury is empty, and there is virtually no chance of collecting taxes since most Congolese firmly believe that independence means freedom from taxation. Foreign investors have been thoroughly scared off, and each morning Congolese workers line up hopefully before the closed doors of factories whose white owners and managers have fled. The government bureaucracy ground to a halt as 10,000 Belgian civil servants left the country. The Leopoldville radio was off the air for 48 hours last week because there were no white men left to run it and inexperienced Congolese blew fuses every time they turned on the power.
In the third week of independence, the Congolese nation reeled through time like a ship that refuses to answer its helm in a storm. The white man's day seemed ended in the Congo—but it was far from clear that the black man's day had begun.