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Gizenga has sent out an urgent appeal for help. Last week nine Communist-bloc countries and seven left-leaning neutrals lined up to extend him diplomatic recognition as the "legitimate" government of the Congo. But even if Gizenga gets support from abroad, he is a poor stand-in for Lumumba as a national leader. He has little political presence, is a faltering orator who does not even speak the Eastern province's Swahili.
New Support. In Léopoldville, stolid President Joseph Kasavubu and his new Premier Joseph Ileo picked up new support. Last week the U.N.'s Conciliation Commission, composed of eleven Afro-Asian countries that sent troops to the Congo, advised that Ileo might be able to bring peace with a broad-based government, and they recommended convening a "summit" meeting to bring the Congo's assorted factional leaders to agreement.
With Lumumba gone, the strongest man around is the man responsible for his death: Katanga's cold-blooded President Moise Tshombe. But Tshombe runs only one province, and is heartily disliked outside it. Last week his well-equipped army, led by 400 Belgian officers, struck into northern Katanga, easily pushed back pro-Lumumba Baluba tribesmen as far as the Lualaba River. Tshombe, wearing a Homburg, helicoptered to the front to congratulate his men. At Elisabethville airport, a Boeing Stratocruiser arrived, carrying in its hold three twin-jet Fouga Magisters, advertised as trainers but equipped for firing rockets.*
Tshombe is backed in his province by a humming economy still run by the Belgians. Despite all of the Congo's troubles, the copper mines of Katanga's Belgian-owned Union Minière set production records last year, paid $50 million in taxes into Katanga's treasury. With his Belgian adviser, Colonel Guy Weber, always at his shoulder, Tshombe has launched an offensive to clear his province of Gizenga's invading soldiers. In partnership with the Léopoldville military boss, Major General Joseph Mobutu, Tshombe would like to go after Gizenga himself—if the U.N. were not in the way. "If others will leave us alone," he growled, "we will solve our problems. Both East and West must keep their noses out of our affairs."
As for the limber, goateed adventurer who in a few dizzy years had skyrocketed from postal clerk to world figure, Tshombe had only a terse epitaph: "The fuss over this evil man will soon die down. The people have no memories here. C'est fini."
* The planes probably came from the Belgians, who pay no more attention than does the U.A.R. to the U.N. ban on "unilateral" aid. But the delivery was clouded with mystery. Katangese officials said that they had meant to cancel the order and that delivery of the planes at this time was "a terrible mistake." The Stratocruiser was unmarked except for its serial number, which traced back to a New York charter outfit called Seven Seas Airlines, Inc. The company denied that it owned the Boeing, said it was engaged only in a food airlift to the Congo.