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Upside Down. Belgium's one remaining stronghold in the Congo is the mineral-rich province of Katanga. The provincial premier, Moise Tshombe, has declared his state independent and rules with the support of Belgian troops. Last week the political clouds were gathering over Tshombe's domain. There was a hint of the probable future in the capital city of Elisabethville, where Tshombe's new flag ("red for the blood that has been shed for Katanga's freedom, white for purity, and green for hope") was still flying bravely—but upside down.
Premier Tshombe has asked everyone for recognition and been turned down by all including Belgium, whose people want no further colonial adventures. Most African nationalist leaders view Tshombe as a Belgian quisling. U.N. troops have as yet made no effort to cross into the province, and Tshombe has loudly cried, and been loudly echoed by the Belgian government, that there is no need for U.N. intervention, since his province is "completely at peace."
Unfortunately for this boast, Belgian paratroops launched an attack on some 250 soldiers of the Congolese Force Publique who had taken possession of a hydroelectric plant supplying power to mines owned by the potent cartel Union Minière du Haut-Katanga. After a pounding by four rocket-firing Harvard planes of the Belgian air force, the Congolese were dislodged at a cost of two Belgian and 16 Congolese dead. Said Tshombe. deadpan: "There is no truth in the rumor of the fighting. Katanga is completely calm." As a last desperate measure to save Katanga and Premier Tshombe, Belgian officers were trying to get approval to paint their helmets blue and stay on as a unit of the United Nations. In any event, Paratroop Colonel Guy Weber assured nervous Premier Tshombe that Belgian troops would remain as long as he wanted them to. Gratefully, Tshombe set a preliminary estimate of 18 months.
Weather Vane. Most bewildering factor in the Congo crisis is 34-year-old Premier Lumumba. His temperament is like the New England weather: if you don't like it, wait a minute. Last week Lumumba first denounced the United Nations as a "tool of imperialism" and then hailed its action as "extremely gratifying." On Monday he was clamoring to have Russian troops land in Leopoldville; on Friday he renounced his flirtation with the Soviet Union and said Red intervention was "unnecessary." After weeks of screaming insults and threats against Belgium, Lumumba blandly about-faced to say he could have "no rancor" against Belgians because "this great country of Congo was built by them."
After exchanging cablegrams with Nikita Khrushchev and crowing that the Congo would be put on its feet economically by Russian aid and technicians, Lumumba stunned everyone by signing a "multimillion-dollar" agreement with a U.S. wheeler-dealer named Louis Edgar Detwiler (see BUSINESS), whose "Congo International Management Corp." promised to provide the Congo with everything from railroads to hospitals, undertook to build cities and churches—all in exchange for the rights to exploit the Congo's "resources." Most stunned of all was Lumumba's Acting Minister of Economic Planning, who had never been consulted.