3.2 Background to the 1960-64 Congo crisis
3.2.2 UNSC authorization of ONUC
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namely; Ralph Bunche; Under Secretary for Special Political Affairs, Andrew; Executive Assistant and Heinz Wieschoff; Bunche’s deputy and the Secretariat’s African expert (Ibid).
This point is critical in that critical strategic decisions made regarding ONUC were handled by the Secretary General and his close American advisers.
During the early 1960s before most colonies attained independence, the UN membership had a predominantly pro-Western bias. Added to this scenario was the fact that the Secretary General had an American dominated advisory team for peacekeeping in Congo. It is therefore prudent to conclude that the drafting of the mandate and controversial interpretation of Security Council resolutions on the Congo crisis were influenced by the pro-Western bias of critical institutions of the UN to the detriment of the Congolese people and Government thereby rendering the Congolese Government ineffective and incapable to serve the interests of its citizens.
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there was no formal determination under Article 39 of a “threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” (Higgins 1980:54). The Security Council Resolution was crafted in such a manner that it did not formally condemn the Belgian act of aggression which was indeed a violation of international law and the UN Charter. In the view of the Western powers who dominated the Security Council as outlined above, Belgium was fulfilling a necessary function of protecting the lives of threatened foreigners in Congo. The Secretary General Hammarskjold referred the crisis in Congo as “the situation in Congo” as opposed to using such terms as the “dispute” or “conflict” in Congo, a deliberate move to avoid expressions that would lead to the condemnation of Belgian intervention by the Security Council (Al Qaq 2009).
It has been argued that the Secretary General’s presentation to the Security Council was designed to avoid a veto and ensure support from the two colonial powers in the Security Council namely Britain and France (Abi-Saab 1978:11). Given this scenario, Secretary General Hammarskjold opted to avoid the use of the term “aggression” in order to save a fellow Western nation from condemnation and embarrassment (Ibid.). The interests of the Congolese people were not a priority in the Secretary General’s priorities as there was no mention of the plight of the Congolese population whatsoever. The use of peacekeepers as a face saving strategy for big powers was also used during the Suez Crisis of 1956 when the same Secretary General crafted UNEF 1’s mandate to facilitate and ensure a face saving withdrawal of foreign aggressor nations, Britain, France and Israel as they withdrew from Egypt (Urquhart 1987:132).
The Secretary General’s deliberate failure to condemn Belgian intervention in Congo as a violation of Congo’s sovereignty resulted in bitter exchanges between him and Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba (Abi Saab 1978). This also led to serious misunderstandings on the interpretation of the Security Council’s resolutions and the role of ONUC specifically on dealing with the invading Belgian troops and the rebellious Katangese troops supporting the secessionist regime of Tshombe.
Security Council Resolution 143 of 14 July 1960 (UN SC Res S/4387, 14 July 1960)authorized the deployment of ONUC to facilitate a smooth withdrawal of Belgian troops that had invaded Congo and not to evict the invading foreign troops as requested by the host government (O’Neill and Rees 2005:46). The Security Council Resolution authorized the Secretary General:
…to take the necessary steps, in consultation with the Government of the Republic of Congo, to provide the Government with such military assistance as may be necessary until, through the
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efforts of the Congolese Government with the technical assistance of the United Nations, the national security forces may be able, in the opinion of the Government, to meet fully their tasks…
(UN Doc. (S/4387); Abi-Saab (1978:16) and The Blue Helmets (1990:219).
The Secretary General’s perspective was that the Congo mission was not initially deployed to resolve an internal conflict in that country but to contain the conflict that could possibly have otherwise drawn in the great powers and to assist in the decolonization process (Fortuna 2004:271). Here lies the initial source of UN peacekeeping mission failure in Congo. The mandate’s failure to prioritize and address the root causes of the conflict in Congo became a bitter source of acrimonious friction between Prime Minister Lumumba and the Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold.
Important to note is the fact that the mandate envisaged a strong collaboration between the peacekeeping mission in Congo and the Congolese government in order to “provide the Government with such military assistance as may be necessary until…the national security forces… meet fully their tasks” (UN SC Res. 143 of 1960). The wording of the mandate was a compromise among Security Council members who were pursuing different agendas through the deployment of the peacekeepers. The two superpowers supported the deployment of UN peacekeepers to rescue a failing decolonization gamble that was fast spiralling out of control as a result of manipulation by foreign powers.
They were each jostling for the friendship of this rich and strategically important new African state (James 1990:291). Cognisant of the strategic importance of the Congo in terms of its vital mineral resources and its strategic locations in the heart of Africa, the US and the Soviet Union agreed to the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force (Adebajo and Landsberg 2007:165) hoping that this would avert direct or indirect rivalry between the two Cold War ideological camps (James 1990:291). Unfortunately this was not to be the case as tensions between the Congolese government and ONUC officials took a nasty twist as a direct result of the Secretary General’s mishandling of the crisis.
A close examination of differing interpretations of the mandates would shed some light on the magnitude and intensity of the conflict of interests between the host government’s priorities and those of the Secretary General and his close advisers and further exposes the hypocritical interpretation of the Security Council Resolutions to serve US interests.
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3.2.3 Interpretation of the Security Council Resolutions by the UNSG and Prime Minister of