Moïse Tshombe

Premier of Katanga Province (1960-1962) and prime minister of Congo (1964-1965)

• Born: November 10, 1919
• Birthplace: Musamba, Katanga, Belgian Congo
• Died: June 29, 1969
• Place of death: Under house arrest in a secret location near Algiers, Algeria

Tshombe believed that a confederation of provinces held together by a weak central government comprised the key to national unity in the postcolonial Congo. In spite of formidable opposition, Tshombe tried to carry out his unification program by emphasizing ethnicity over pan-Africanism and by using European money, people, and material.

Early Life

Moïse Tshombe (maw-EEZ CHAWM-bay) was the eldest of eleven children of Joseph Kapenda Tshombe, a wealthy businessman. Tshombe was reared in a devout Christian atmosphere and educated in American Methodist mission schools in Katanga (now Shaba). He also earned a correspondence accounting degree. He married Ruth Matschik, the daughter of Paramount Chief Mbaku Ditende of the Lunda, and they had ten children. By the early 1950’s, Tshombe’s life had been shaped by business, religion, and royalty; these influences encouraged his European lifestyle. As the eldest son, Tshombe inherited his father’s business at Elisabethville (now Lubumbashi) in 1951. Shortly thereafter, he was elected president of the African Chamber of Commerce. Tshombe’s business success was hampered by his own mistakes and colonial restrictions. Realizing both shortcomings, he turned over what remained of the family business to his brothers and launched his political career.

Life’s Work

In 1951, Tshombe replaced his father as a member of the Katanga provincial council and began to expand his political base. Drawing on experience acquired from a variety of political offices, Tshombe helped form CONAKAT, the Lunda-dominated Confederation of Tribal Associations of Katanga, in October, 1958. CONAKAT was created to promote Lunda politicians, repatriate non-Lunda immigrants, create an autonomous Katanga within a loose confederation, and collaborate with European mining interests.

At decolonization talks in Brussels in January, 1960, Tshombe led the CONAKAT delegation and argued for autonomous provinces within a loose confederal state. He was opposed by African nationalists, who accused him of being in the pay of Belgian mining interests. Of Tshombe’s two major opponents, Joseph Kasavubu led ABAKO, the Bakongo-dominated Alliance of the Bakongo, and also supported federalism. Tshombe’s other opponent, Patrice Lumumba, led MNC, the multiethnic, Soviet-supported National Congolese Movement. Lumumba advocated a strong central government and pan-Africanism. The conference produced a compromise in which the state’s unitary character was expressed through a president, prime minister, and bicameral legislature while the provinces joined in a federation of separate governments and legislatures. Independence was set for June 30, 1960.

Preindependence elections and Belgian support combined to make Tshombe president of Katanga . At the national level a coalition government was formed between Prime Minister Lumumba and President Kasavubu but ran into trouble immediately. By mid-July, army units, disillusioned with the slow pace of Africanization, mutinied. As violence spread throughout the Congo, the European-dominated civil service fled. Organized government collapsed. Lumumba appealed to the United Nations for help.

Tshombe also called on foreign intervention to end Katangan unrest. After Belgian paratroopers restored order, Tshombe proclaimed Katanga’s secession on July 11, 1960. The weakness of Lumumba’s central government, the encouragement from Belgian commercial and mining interests who preferred Western-oriented Tshombe over Soviet-supported Lumumba, and the ethnic desire to retain Katangan wealth within Katanga contributed to Tshombe’s action. Katanga’s major employer, Union Minière du Haut-Katanga, supported Tshombe’s secession with armaments, taxes diverted from the central government, and the cover of employment for European mercenaries to prop up the secession. Lumumba broke diplomatic relations with Belgium because of that country’s support for the secession. The Congo fragmented further when President Kasavubu and Prime Minister Lumumba quarreled over Soviet aid and dismissed each other. Mobutu Sese Seko, head of the army, settled the dispute by seizing power on September 14, 1960.

By November, U.N. troops had entered a chaotic Congo, sided with Kasavubu’s government, and detained Lumumba in Léopoldville. Lumumba fled U.N. custody for his supporters in Stanleyville, but Kasavubu’s soldiers captured him en route, interned him, and then transferred him to Katanga, where he was immediately executed under mysterious circumstances. His supporters continued his centralist, pan-Africanist government while accusing Tshombe of complicity in the execution.

From January 25 to February 16, 1961, national reconciliation talks took place at Léopoldville. Discussion continued from March 8 through March 12 in Tananarive (now Antananarivo), Madagascar, where Tshombe’s influence was paramount. Delegates recommended a loose, autonomous confederation, a shared foreign policy, and a national president. Yet what Tananarive had been to Tshombe, Coquilhatville (now Équateur) would become to Kasavubu. During discussions from April 23 to May 30, the Tananarive Accords were replaced with a federal structure composed of a strong central government, U.N. protection, and the U.N.-forced reintegration of Katanga. Tshombe walked out in protest, was arrested, and was threatened with trial. The agreement that Tshombe signed promising to reunite Katanga with the Congo was rejected by the Katangan government on the grounds that Tshombe had signed under duress.

Tshombe did not attend the central government convocation in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) in July. Mobutu, Kasavubu, and Lumumba’s successors accepted Cyrille Adoula as a compromise prime minister, restored constitutional government, and reestablished diplomatic relations with Belgium. With a central government now back in place, the U.N. could address the issue of mercenaries in Katanga. In late August, U.N. troops occupied key points in Katanga. After fighting broke out, Tshombe declared total war on U.N. forces. United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld was killed in an airplane crash en route to arrange a cease-fire.

Within weeks, the United Nations and Belgium took stronger measures against Tshombe. On November 24, 1961, the United Nations passed a resolution permitting U.N. forces to expel Katanga’s mercenaries. Belgium ordered its nationals serving Katanga to leave, revoked the passports of Belgian mercenaries, condemned Katangan secession, and encouraged Tshombe to open negotiations with Adoula. Tshombe met Adoula on December 19, 1961, and agreed to recognize the indissoluble unity of the Congo, conceded the central government’s authority over Katanga, and promised to help draft a new constitution. Yet Tshombe continued to delay. U.N. forces took control of most of Katanga on January 14, 1962. Tshombe marked the end of Katanga’s secession and approval to the United Nations’ reconciliation plan by going into exile.

Central government problems did not end with the reunification of Katanga. Kasavubu again fell out with a prime minister this time over the draft of a new constitution. On September 29, 1963, Kasavubu prorogued parliament and declared a state of emergency. It was well timed revolutionaries had captured about two-thirds of the Congo. Nevertheless, a special constituent assembly was convened in Luluabourg (now Kananga) on January 10, 1964, and established a U.N.-advised, unitary-federal constitution creating the Democratic Republic of the Congo .

Central government leaders invited Tshombe to return from exile and create a provisional government to implement the new constitution and end revolutionary activity. In July, 1964, Tshombe replaced Adoula as prime minister, created a coalition government in which he retained five of twenty portfolios, negotiated with rebel leaders, and released political prisoners.

Much of the country remained suspicious. In early August, Stanleyville (now Kisangani) fell to Lumumba’s successors. Tshombe, now not so gregarious and exuberant, blamed corrupt centralized government and Chinese and Soviet aid for the success of the revolutionaries. Risking the opprobrium of African nationalists and the Organization of African Unity, Tshombe hired white mercenaries to restore order. By the end of 1964, Tshombe’s combined mercenary-national forces had the revolutionaries in retreat. In response, Congolese revolutionaries held some eighteen hundred Europeans hostage for bargaining purposes. Tshombe permitted Belgian paratroopers to fly in on U.S. airplanes to Stanleyville during November 24-26, 1964, to rescue them. The city was recaptured and most hostages freed, but about two hundred Europeans and many more Africans were killed before all revolutionary areas were liberated.

By May, 1965, Tshombe had gained the support of some African nations, reestablished international credit, met Charles de Gaulle and Pope Paul IV, held national elections, and, through his forty-nine-party CONACO coalition, the National Congolese Convention, won a majority in the forthcoming parliament. Tshombe seemed poised for an important role in shaping the Congo’s future.

When the new parliament opened on October 13, 1965, Kasavubu, out of fear that Tshombe wanted the presidency, dismissed Tshombe and nominated another Katangan, Evariste Kimba, prime minister. When parliament rejected Kimba on November 14, 1965, Kasavubu nominated him again. Kasavubu’s third constitutional deadlock was broken for the second time by Mobutu. On November 24, 1965, the general overthrew the government and declared himself temporary president. Shortly thereafter, Mobutu assumed the presidency for five years and appointed some of Tshombe’s opponents to office. Tshombe returned to exile.

Mobutu further consolidated his power by seizing the property of Tshombe’s longtime supporter, Union Minière, disbanding Tshombe’s Katangan Regiment, and putting the former prime minister on trial in absentia. Tshombe was convicted of treason and sentenced to death by a three-man military court on March 13, 1967.

After almost two years of exile and intrigue, Tshombe’s fortunes took another tumble. His airplane was hijacked over the Mediterranean and forced to Algiers on June 29, 1967. Still, the Algerian government refused to extradite Tshombe. Instead, Tshombe was confined to military barracks and various villas. He died of natural causes in his sleep, ironically on double anniversaries: the independence date of the Congo and the date of his hijacking. Tshombe was buried at the Protestant church of Champ-de-Mars, Brussels, on July 4, 1969.

Significance

Politics tossed Tshombe and controversy together. At one time or another he was praised and condemned by most major contributors to the Congo crisis. In fact, Tshombe symbolized both the Congo’s hope and its hopelessness. Much of his complicated life remains mysterious. Tshombe’s defenders, generally a combination of Lunda, neocolonial, imperial, collaborative, and Christian forces, argued that the United Nations and various self-serving nations had slandered him. To his supporters, Tshombe’s diplomatic skills, Western education, wardrobe, entourage, and manners opened doors slammed shut to some African nationalists. Cultured and articulate, Tshombe was to many Europeans an intelligent, moderate African nationalist. His downfall was blamed more on the intrigue of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) than his own mistakes.

From the perspective of most African nationalists, however, Tshombe had betrayed Africa. Tshombe was accused of being out of touch with négritude and rising African nationalism by relying on white mercenaries and living like a European. Denounced by detractors as an embezzler and bribe-taking lackey of Belgian mining interests, Tshombe was seen as an opportunist who sought personal gain and Lunda supremacy over the Congolese people, an accomplice to the murder of Lumumba and perhaps Hammarskjöld, and a Cold War propagandist who slandered his political opponents with communist labels. Whether seen as a popular, pragmatic confederalist and diplomat or as a selfish sunderer of the Congo and collaborator with imperialists, Tshombe stirred strong feelings in everyone who knew him.

Bibliography

Bouscaren, Anthony. Tshombe. New York: Twin Circle, 1967. Well written, well researched, and sympathetic from a Western perspective; contains a pro-Tshombe statement by Senator Thomas Dobb.

Bustin, Edouard. Lunda Under Belgian Rule: The Politics of Ethnicity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975. An important study that places Tshombe and his ethnic group within Congolese and Katangan contexts. Last chapter considers Tshombe’s activities in Katanga.

Colvin, Ian. The Rise and Fall of Moïse Tshombe. London: Leslie Frewin, 1968. Probably the most pro-Western, sympathetic account of Tshombe. Colvin interviewed him and blamed the CIA for his downfall. The book is considered reactionary by African nationalists.

Devlin, Larry. Chief of Station, Congo: Memoir of 1960-1967. New York: Public Affairs, 2007. Devlin, an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was posted to the Congo in 1960, when Katanga was on the verge of secession. His memoir recounts his experiences in the country and discusses Tshombe and the Katanga crisis.

Edgerton, Robert. The Troubled Heart of Africa: A History of the Congo. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002. A comprehensive history that also includes information about Tshombe.

Gordon, King. The United Nations in the Congo. New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1962. Written by a staff member of the United Nations who was in the Congo. Assessment of the relationship among Tshombe, the Congo, and the United Nations is splendid. Best when read in conjunction with Lefever.

Kaplan, Irving, ed. Zaïre: A Country Study. 3d ed. Washington, D.C.: The American University, Foreign Area Studies, 1979. Contains the U.S. government’s view of events in the Congo. CIA involvement in Tshombe’s downfall is not considered. Important bibliographies are included.

Lefever, Ernest W. Crisis in the Congo: A United Nations Force in Action. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1965. A fine summary of U.N. activity in the Congo. Tshombe is considered throughout. Contains useful appendixes, including U.N. resolutions on the Congo. Best when read in conjunction with Gordon.

Nkrumah, Kwame. Challenge of the Congo. New York: International, 1967. Valuable from an African nationalist perspective of Tshombe. Particularly useful is Nkrumah’s letter to African leaders that symbolically devastates Tshombe.

Tshombe, Moïse. My Fifteen Months in Government. Translated by Lewis Barnays. Plano, Tex.: University of Plano, 1967. Although Tshombe reflects on Africa, his premiership, and his resignation, he is very selective in recollecting his most controversial activities. Spotty and hastily written.