"Recognize who are the victims!'' cried Belgium's Foreign Minister Pierre Wigny, and the U.N. Security Council listened.
"Madame P. had a baby only a few months old in her arms whom the soldiers struck and threatened to kill if she did not allow herself to be violated. She was violated 20 times. Madame Q., several days after having given birth, still had an open tear in her abdomen held with clips. She was raped by several soldiers. What do you wish, gentlemen, shall I continue?"
It was difficult to believe that there could be a sympathetic answer to such a calendar of horrors. Yet the Congo's representative, Thomas Kanza, 27, who is one of only 16 university graduates in his nation of 14 million, went far to accomplish it. Speaking with dignity and restraint, he noted that there were other victims besides the unfortunate Belgian women: the Congolese themselves.
If the people of Congo were incompetent to govern, Kanza argued, "the first reproach must go to those who trained us." The Belgians ruled the Congo for 80 years without educating a single Congolese doctor or engineer. "Only eight years ago," said Kanza, "I was the first to leave Congolese territory to go through higher education." He might have pointed out that the actual casualties are far fewer than the headlines would suggest. Those killed were mostly soldiers from both sides and numbered twelve whites and 79 Congolese.
Kanza ended by asking for the evacuation—"I do not say immediate, but as soon as possible"—of Belgian troops from Congolese territory. With gratitude and relief, the Security Council quickly approved a resolution sponsored by Tunisia and Ceylon asking Belgium to "speedily" withdraw her troops. Kanza's level-voiced moderation disconcerted even the Russians, who had been giving noisy support to Premier Patrice Lumumba's charges of "aggression," and forced them in the end meekly to make the vote unanimous.
Up Morale. The Congo had reason to be grateful to the U.N. In a matter of days, U.N. troops had restored a semblance of order in a country that seemed about to fall into squabbling chaos. Overnight, the climate of racial hate changed. Tunisian troops patrolled the native quarters of Leopoldville, surrounded by happy Congolese crowds who hailed them as "liberators." A Ghanaian military band charmed the Congolese with sprightly tunes, and the bandleader said in clipped British accents, "Must keep up morale, old boy." Belgian paratroops grimly refused to give way in the European section of the city until they could be replaced by "white" U.N. soldiers, but the arrival of 650 blue-helmeted Swedes apparently put their fears at rest.