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Nude Parade. This gesture of appeasement was not enough. That night a blacked-out train reached Léopoldville from Thysville, 90 miles south. Its 300 passengers were mostly Belgian and Portuguese women and children. In voices drained of emotion, they said that the Thysville garrison had mutinied and imprisoned its white officers. Houses and stores were sacked. European men were beaten in the street, and European women humiliated by being forced to parade in the nude. Worse news came three hours later as a convoy of twelve autos brought refugees from Inkisi and Madimba, led by Antoine Saintraint, 33, the civil administrator of the Madimba district. Huddled exhaustedly over a sandwich, he recounted how his wife and some 30 other women had fled to a Roman Catholic convent for protection. Soldiers broke in and raped them all, except for three who were spared because of obvious pregnancy. Was his wife among those raped? "Some things are better left unsaid," Saintraint said grimly.
Red Landing. More and more cars came in from the countryside scarred by stonings, and the occupants told of being dragged from their homes, beaten and searched for arms. Hundreds of whites camped in the embassies. Unruly bands of soldiers roamed the streets, leaderless and apparently aimless. At one point they all rushed off to the Léopoldville airport because they had heard a rumor that three planeloads of Russian paratroops had landed to take over the Republic of the Congo.
Under the dust-red light of a nearly full moon, thousands of Europeans flocked to the "Beach," the starting point of ferries making the two-mile run across the mighty river to Brazzaville in French Congo. Normally, the ferries operate only in daylight to avoid being swept downstream into the perilous rapids, but the terrified whites crowded onto paddle-wheel steamers, motorboats, skiffs—anything that would float—in their panicky flight.
Foot & Jeep. The next day Léopoldville was a dead city. Shops and offices were closed, and the 15-story skyscrapers stood empty and silent. The deserted streets were patrolled by mutineers on foot or in Jeeps. From hunting for "invading Russians," the soldiers turned to hunting down their former officers—particularly those who were Flemings (i.e., Belgians whose language is related to Dutch), who have always been unpopular with the Congolese for their fancied relation to the South African Boers, whose language is derived from Dutch. Invading the main hotels along the Boulevard Albert, the soldiers drove out U.S. and British newsmen at bayonet point and confined U.N. Representative Ralph Bunche to his room.
Prime Minister Lumumba, encouraged and accompanied by Foreign Minister Bomboko, who emerged last week as the coolest and most courageous member of the Congolese government, went to the Leopold II Barracks to negotiate with the army mutineers. A compromise was effected: President Joseph Kasavubu would become commander in chief of the Force Publique in place of General Janssens; the garrison would get native officers; and the army would be run by a general staff, part Belgian and part Congolese.