Critique Of The UN Peace-Keeping Mission In Congo During The Congo Crisis (1960-1964)
In 1960, the United Nations (UN) authorized a controversial mission in the newly independent Congo. The Operation des Nations Unies au Congo (ONUC) has been criticized by several historians who have doubted the purity of the UN's motivations.
A few days after the Congo gained its independence from Belgium in 1960, the country entered a period of chaos, sabotage, and disorder, now known as the Congo Crisis. The national army mutinied, Belgian troops invaded the country, and three mineral-rich provinces seceded from the country. On July 30, 1960, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 131 asking for the Belgian withdrawal of its troops from the Congo and authorizing the UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, to give the Congolese government the military help it needed to cope with the crisis. However, the motivations behind this intervention are subject to debate among historians and scholars. Did the UN intervene in the Congo from a mere desire to restore peace in the region? Or was it rather to stop the so-called spread of communism in central Africa, especially since the prime minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, was accused of being a communist? Or was it because Dag Hammarskjold was trying to protect the financial interests of his family and his Swedish and American associates? Throughout this essay, we examine each of these perspectives to see which one is the most significant.
Before, it is important to mention two sources that are relevant to understanding the motivations behind ONUC. Lawrence Delvin’s memoir, Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone, gives insights into the intentions of the United States in involving the UN in the Congo crisis and how the Cold War politics affected the UN policies in the Congo. Larry was the chief of station of the CIA in Congo during the Congo crisis, so he was well aware of the US motivations in the Congo and how they affected the UN’s policies. Some argue that the memoir has a bias of self-exoneration because its tone is defensive, potentially limiting its disclosure of any information that might incriminate Devlin in Lumumba's death. Nevertheless, the memoir abounds in details about events, dates, names, and places thus it shows that the author’s account is accurate and can be corroborated by other sources.
Another good source is David N. Gibbs’ article Dag Hammarskjold, the United Nations, and the Congo Crisis of 1960-1: A Reinterpretation because it provided insights into how the financial considerations of some UN members played a bigger role than anti-communism considerations. Gibbs has a background in the study of international organizations and has written extensively on the United Nations. His academic credentials and expertise in the field of international relations lend credibility to his analysis. His article was written to provide a revisionist perspective of the Congo crisis, with a fresh and nuanced understanding of the crisis.
Some argue (naively) that the United Nations' intervention in the Congo crisis was motivated by its core mission to "maintain international peace and security". This perspective is supported by the fact that Belgium, following Congolese independence, deployed its troops supposedly to protect the Belgian citizens still living in the Congo, taking control of several cities and paving the way for the Katanga secession by providing military and financial support to the secessionists (including Moise Tshombe), which constituted perilous threats to the sovereignty of the Congo. In response, President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba sought assistance to counter the Belgian invasion and intervention. Thus, the UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold judged that the situation in the Congo was “a threat to the international peace and security”, and convinced the UN Security Council to authorize the deployment of UN troops in the Congo to assist the Congolese government), in accordance with the UN charter which allowed it to take military or non-military action to restore international peace. Also, Hammarskjold wrote to the former President of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev that the only mission of the UN in the Congo was to ensure the total withdrawal of Belgian troops because according to him the goal of the UN was to protect the weak nations, not to blindly serve the interests of the strong ones. This shows that the UN had both a legal and an ideological justification deeply rooted in its charter to intervene in the Congo.
However, other people argue that the UN intervened in the Congo to prevent the Soviet Union from taking advantage of the chaos to support communist and socialist forces in the country. In fact, the idea of involving the UN in the crisis did not come directly from the Congolese, but it was rather suggested by the US ambassador Timberlake who was afraid of the Soviets exploiting the chaos in Congo to establish communism in central Africa. This shows that from the very beginning of the crisis, the UN was intended by the US to be a tool for their Cold War politics.
Furthermore, resolution 131 of the UN Security Council requesting Belgium to withdraw its troops from Congo was a response to Lumumba's repeated threats to involve the Soviet Union and the Bandung nations in the conflict if the UN did not intervene. Thus, the intervention in the Congo was an attempt of the UN to prevent any involvement of Socialist Countries in the Congo.
Although resolution 143 (another one) of the UN Security Council stated that the UN troops were at the disposal of the Congolese government to restore peace by all means necessary, Hammarskjold ignored Lumumba’s urge to use the UN troops to invade the secessionist province of Katanga, supposedly because it was an internal matter. However, he did not hesitate to use those troops against Lumumba during his “dispute” with President Kasavubu because of Lumumba’s left-leaning. Indeed, after Lumumba was fired by Kasavubu who was pro-West, the UN troops seized the national radio station and the airport to prevent Lumumba from talking to the population and potentially regaining power, and Hammarskjold declared to the US Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge that the “communist” leader Lumumba “must be broken”. These facts imply that Hammarskjold was ready to pass over the Security Council’s resolutions and to go beyond the UN’s prerogatives in Congo, which did not allow intervention in internal political rivalries, as long as these measures prevented the country from falling into the hands of an alleged communist leader.
In February 1961 (short after Lumumba’s brutal assassination), the UN resolved to employ military force in Katanga to end the secession, rejecting the justification that the secession was an internal problem not because it bore the welfare of the Congolese people at heart, but because US President Kennedy's administration convinced Hammarskjold that it was the most effective approach to combat communism in Congo. After Lumumba’s death, the Soviet Union started supporting the Lumumbists, who took control of the province of Stanleyville and later almost two-thirds of the Congo. Gibbs argues that the UN and the US believed that militarily ending the Katanga secession would have discouraged the USSR from supporting another secession since a direct confrontation with the Lumumbists forces (known as the Simba Rebels) would have created a situation similar to the Korean War, which is something that neither the UN nor the USSR wanted. As a reminder, under the strong influence of the US, United Nations troops (under the guise of the UN Command) fought against North Korean and Chinese forces to support South Korean forces throughout the active phase of the Korean War. From this we can infer that the UN intervened in Congo to halt the spread of communism and led its mission there not in the most effective way to end the crisis, but in the most effective way to remove any communist or socialist influence (involvement), sometimes hiding behind its ideal of non-intervention in internal problems and sometimes abandoning it depending on what best served the fight against communism.
Other historians and scholars argue that the UN’s intervention was motivated by the desire to protect the financial interests of the U.S. and Sweden companies in Congo. When the Liberian-American Swedish mining company (Lamco)’s American affiliate unsuccessfully tried to invest in the Congolese mining industry in July 1960, the UN advised the Congolese government to adopt foreign investment policies, which allowed that attempt to succeed. This suggests that the UN was serving American and Swedish capitalist ambitions in Congo.
Additionally, Dag Hammarskjold’s brother, Bo Hammarskjold, was on the board of the largest Lamco’s constituent companies, and this, according to the historian Pierre-Michel Durand, affected Hammarskjold’s choice of the members of the UN peace-keeping team and his policies in Congo. Durand argues that Hammarskjold put in the UN peacekeeping force people related to Lamco, such as Sven Schwartz and Borje Hjortzberg-Nordlund, respectively the director and alternate director of Lamco, with the power to influence the policies of the UN mission. These appointments were meant to ensure that the economy of Congo was liberal/capitalist enough to protect the investments of Lamco in the future. An article in the London Metal Bulletin of 1961 and several other newspapers in Belgium said that the US was using the UN to oust Belgium from Congo to take over the mining industry. From this, we can see that the alleged financial motivations of Hammarskjold had some impact on his policies in Congo.
Furthermore, the law firms that represented Lamco’s American affiliate: Sullivan & Cromwell, and Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, had strong bonds with the CIA director Allen Dulles, and George Ball, an important member of the State Department and with Fowler Hamilton, head of US foreign aid program, in short, people with significant influence on the US foreign. Since the US was the biggest supporter, both financially and militarily, of the UN in Congo, this suggests that the UN was in Congo to serve Lamco’s capitalist interests.
In conclusion, the UN intervention in DRC was certainly not about protecting Congolese lives or restoring Congo’s sovereignty. Instead, the intervention was a tool for US (and more broadly the West) Cold War policies or fight against communism/socialism, as well as a way to expand the capitalist interests of Western/American mining companies in the Congo. This exposition of the UN as an institution of imperialism highlights once more what Samir Amin called the “two wings” of imperialism, mainly the politico-military wing (with the UN troops and resolutions) and the financial wing (with the influence on foreign investment policies). So the incapacity of the UN to solve the problems of colonized/oppressed countries and nations is not because of some quantitative factors (the number of member-states or specialized organs), but because of the qualitative imperialist nature of the UN.
As we approach the centennial of both Frantz Fanon and Patrice Lumumba, let us quote the last words Fanon wrote about his friend’s assassination and the responsibility of the UN:
“Africans must remember this lesson. If we need outside aid, let us call our friends. They alone can really and totally help us achieve our objectives because, precisely, the friendship that links us is a friendship of combat (…) Our mistake, the mistake we Africans made, was to have for gotten that the enemy never withdraws sincerely. He never understands. He capitulates, but he does not become converted. Our mistake is to have believed that the enemy had lost his combativeness and his harmfulness. If Lumumba is in the way, Lumumba disappears. Hesitation in the murder has never characterized imperialism. (…) Africans have endorsed the imperialist police in the Congo, have served as intermediaries, and have sponsored the activities and the odd silences of the UN in the Congo. (…) The imperialists, too, are afraid. And they are right, for many Africans, many Afro-Asiatics have understood. The imperialists are going to pause for a while. They are going to wait for "the righteous indignation" to calm. We must take advantage of this brief respite to abandon our fearful approaches and decide to save the Congo and Africa.” (Frantz Fanon, “Toward The African Revolution”)
The struggle for the total liberation of Africa and Africans from the chains of imperialism and neocolonialism, and the building of a strong, unified socialist Africa, must address the question of the UN and reject its legitimacy and supposed impartiality as an International Organization. The UN has failed countless times to uphold the interests of the African People (and the oppressed people of the world in general), not only as a passive actor but also as a deadly political, military, and economic weapon against the Africans. One needs to just look at some of the ongoing events like the wars and exploitation of the DRC, the destabilization of Haiti, the genocide in Palestine, and many more. African people must unite and form one strong, unified socialist government that will assure and defend the sovereignty of Africa. The Revolutionary Pan-Africanist Government will establish Africa as a major world power with an independent foreign policy and will devise and plan the economic and financial strategies for the development of Africa under the principles of scientific socialism. Until Africa is free and united, no Africans anywhere will ever be respected.
We know that the struggle to achieve the Popular and Pan-African Revolution is long and tortuous, but we are committed until the end, until victory is achieved.
M.M.P. & B.S.Ph.
Note: This essay is based on an investigation study done by M.M.P that was restructured and summarized by B. S.Ph. Original Text with references and works cited.
