Katanga’s Secessionism in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Larmer, Miles; Kennes, Erik

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-90206-7_13

Miles Larmer^7,8 &
Erik Kennes^9,10,11

Part of the book series: Palgrave Series in African Borderlands Studies ((PSABS))

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3 Citations

Abstract

Our reading of the Katangese secession highlights its internal political foundations and agency, challenging not only the almost exclusive scholarly attention to external determining factors but also a teleological vision of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as a unitary state. Reconstructed ethnic identification and historic legitimization crystallized around Katanga, an entity created by the colony, but proved to be resilient throughout Congolese postindependence history. Although postcolonial developments demonstrate that this resilience is linked to the central state’s poor governance record, the resurgence of relatively powerful regional autonomist tendencies during the DRC’s recent history, in and beyond Katanga, questions the legitimacy of the central state.

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Notes

1.
De Witte (2001: xxi).
2.
Some existing provinces, including Katanga, were partitioned in 2015. Bas-Congo was renamed Kongo-Central at the time.
3.
Jan Vansina argued in the late 1960s that similarities in the culture of Congolese societies provided the basis for the potential development of a “general Congolese culture” (1967: 150–1). Importantly, he suggests that a degree of pre-colonial Katangese unity was achieved by the adoption of Luba political principles by the Lunda (223).
4.
Leclercq (1926).
5.
Some pro-secessionist Katangese genuinely believed Katanga was independent before 1933. See, for example, interview with ex-National Front for Liberation of the Congo (FLNC) General Mwepu, Kinshasa, 13 July 2008; Interview with ex-FLNC Colonel Vincent de Paul Nguz, Kinshasa, 11 December 2013; Matuka (2009), and Kennes and Larmer (2016: 24, 185–186).
6.
Some parts of Northern Katanga along the railway were part of “UMHK Katanga”; the urban center of Kamina fell within the territory of the Katanga Luba chief, the Kasongo Niembo, who would support the Katangese secession.
7.
Jewsiewicki (1989: 324–349).
8.
Higginson (1992: 55–80).
9.
Higginson (1989: 172–194), Perrings (1979: 225–7), and Bustin (1975: 141)
10.
For the British and French African experience, see Frederick Cooper (1996); for Congo, see Georges Nzongola-Ntajala (2002: 76).
11.
Nzongola-Ntajala (2002: 53).
12.
Foucher (2018). See also Higginson (1992: 53), and Fetter (1969: 269–277).
13.
Reprinted in Rubbens (1945: 128–9); quoted in Young (2003: 414–427).
14.
The term évolué was a formal colonial category of registered “civilized” Congolese Africans.
15.
Cooper (1996).
16.
Brion and Moreau (2006: 275–6).
17.
Gerard-Libois (1966: 3).
18.
Gérard-Libois (1966: 5).
19.
Bustin (1975: 160).
20.
Notwithstanding his family’s claims of association with the Mwaant Yav, the Lunda emperor, Joseph Kapenda, was primarily a social climber who used the new possibilities made available by the money economy to enrich himself and achieve a social position not otherwise available to him.
21.
Bustin (1975: 176–7).
22.
This phenomenon has been most successfully analyzed in West Africa: see, for example, Allman (1993). See also Zeller and Melber (2018).
23.
Communication by the Mwaant Yav, 31 January 1959, cited in (Bustin 1975: 189).
24.
Bustin (1975: 189).
25.
Bustin (1975: 193).
26.
In this sense, Katanga’s rejection of Congo resembled the refusal of Ivorian leaders to remain within a reconstructed postcolonial version of French West Africa.
27.
Tshombe’s uncle Gaston Mushidi succeeded to the Mwaant Yav title in 1963, establishing the domination of the Lunda kingship by the Tshombe family until the present day.
28.
Quoted in Bustin (1975: 181).
29.
Cited in Lemarchand (1964: 237). Schöller, who replaced Paelinck as Governor in September 1958, would himself go on to support Conakat.
30.
Lemarchand (1964: 237–8).
31.
Katanga, Elisabethville, 1 February 1958.
32.
Bustin (1975: 180).
33.
L’Essor du Congo, 26 May 1959; quoted in (Bustin 1975: 181).
34.
Lemarchand (1964: 208–9).
35.
Lemarchand (1964: 238).
36.
Gerard-Libois (1966: 22–5).
37.
Colvin (1968: 18–19).
38.
Brion and Moreau (2006: 310–311).
39.
Hughes (2003: 505–756).
40.
Daily Express (London), 2 March 1960, cited in Gérard-Libois (1966: 53–56).
41.
Hughes (2003: 604–6); cf. James (1996).
42.
Gérard-Libois (1966: 17).
43.
G. Munongo, Comment est. né le nationalisme katangais, Elisabethville, 16 June 1962 (mimeo), cited in Lemarchand (unpublished manuscript).
44.
Lemarchand (1964: 241–2).
45.
Gérard-Libois (1966: 63–65).
46.
Lemarchand (1962: 415).
47.
Translated from Gérard-Libois (1966: 328).
48.
Brion and Moreau (2006: 316–8).
49.
The extent of this Belgian support should not be exaggerated: only a handful of Belgian officers were in Katanga in July–August 1960 and a total of 177 served there during the secession.
50.
US State Department archives (hereafter USSD), RG59, E3111 (Bureau of African Affairs), Box 8, File 14.4., “Communism, 1960–1,” Hugh S. Cumming, Jr. to The Secretary, Intelligence Note: “Prospects for Communist Inroads in the Belgian Congo under Alternative Conditions of Unity or Fragmentation,” n.d. but c.16 June 1960.
51.
Hoskyns (1965: 158–9).
52.
Resolution adopted in 886th Session of UN Security Council, 9 August 1960, Appendix II, Gérard-Libois (1966: 330).
53.
For Hammarskjöld’s report to the UN, see NAUK FO/371/146775, “Congo, 1960,” UK UN Mission to FO, 6 August 1960.
54.
Hoskyns (1965: 163).
55.
US State Dept archives, RG59, E3111 (Bureau of African Affairs), Box 8, file 17.2 “Internal Research Reports, Jan-Jun 1963,” Hare to Elting, 2 February 1961, “Belgian Assistance to the Congo.”
56.
Belgium never officially recognized Katanga as an independent state and its actions were motivated, not by active enthusiasm for the secessionist project but rather to defend Belgium’s control and/or influence over Katanga’s mining industry against a potentially radical Central Congolese government.
57.
On the history of the Katangese Gendarmes and its successive transformations until 2006, see Kennes and Larmer (2016).
58.
Young (1976: 175).
59.
After Lumumba was deposed as Congolese Prime Minister, his deputy Antoine Gizenga established a rival Congolese government in Stanleyville; supported by Lumumbist forces, this government was overthrown by Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC) forces in January 1962.
60.
Colvin (1968: 56–7); Centre de Recherche et d’Information Socio-Politiques (1962).
61.
Evidence of this fractious relationship can be found in the telexes sent from Belgium’s consul in Elisabethville to the Foreign Ministry in Brussels during the secession: Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives Diplomatique, File refs Nr 14,333, 17,138, and 17,139.
62.
Katanga’s Minister of Finance, Jean-Baptiste Kibwe, made financial demands on UMHK and its subsidiary companies during the secession that belied his government’s reputation as the “tool” of the mining company. See, for example, UMHK archives, Box file 102, Assemblée Générale, 24 May 1962, Interpellations, 2.
63.
Gérard-Libois (1966: 188).
64.
USSD, RG59, E3111 (Bureau of African Affairs), Box 8, File 14.3, “The Katanga Question,” J. Wayne Fredericks to Robert C. Good, “Neutralizing extremist Congo political elements as a prelude to Katanga reintegration and political consensus,” 7 May 1962.
65.
Colvin (1968: 57).
66.
Young (1965: 340).
67.
USSD, RG59, E3111 (Bureau of African Affairs), Box 6, File 1.D/1.1. The President (Tshombe), 1961 and 1963, J. Wayne Fredericks to Mr. McGhee, “Tshombe’s Political Orientation,” 12 July 1962.
68.
Various accounts suggest assistance from the Central African Federation in moving Tshombe’s gold reserves and in assisting his retreat to Northern Rhodesia Hughes (2003: 611–12).
69.
Notwithstanding numerous official enquiries that have concluded that the plane crash was not caused by foul play, considerable suspicion still surrounds Hammarskjöld’s death: see most recently, Susan Williams (2011).
70.
USSD, RG59, E3111 (Bureau of African Affairs, Box 7, File 5.2 “Conferences,” William Brubeck to McGeorge Bundy, “Our Congo Policy after the London Talks,” 21 May 1962).
71.
“Le Plan Thant pour la reintegration du Katanga” (1963: 12–17).
72.
Gérard-Libois (1966: 273).
73.
Gérard-Libois (1966: 275).
74.
Kennes (2003).
75.
For the belief in the notion of reviving “Grand Kivu” see Thomas Turner (2007: 78).
76.
Young (1994: 247–263) and Young and Turner (1985: 60–63).
77.
For the Shaba rebellions of 1977 and 1978, see Larmer (2013: 89–108).
78.
De Boeck (1996: 75–105).
79.
The complexities of the two Congo wars cannot be seriously examined here. Among the wealth of literature on the Congo wars, the most useful studies of this question are Lemarchand (2009), Reyntjens (2010), and Prunier (2009). See also the volumes of Cahiers Africains published during this period, by authors including Kennes, J.-C. Willame and G. De Villiers among others.
80.
MONUC (2012).
81.
http://radiookapi.net/actualite/2013/03/23/lubumbashi-le-calme-est-revenu-apres-la-reddition-des-miliciens-bakata-katanga-la-monusco/ (last accessed 03/24/13).
82.
There may be a limited exception for the Lunda in Lualaba province, but this cannot be detailed here.
83.
Herbst and Mills (2009).
84.
See also Byrne and Englebert (2018) in this volume.

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Authors and Affiliations

University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Miles Larmer
Department of Historical and Heritage Studies, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
Miles Larmer
Institut Supérieur d’Etudes Sociales, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Erik Kennes
Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
Erik Kennes
Africa Museum, Tervuren, Belgium
Erik Kennes

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Editors and Affiliations

Wageningen University & Research, De Bilt, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Lotje de Vries
Pomona College, Claremont, CA, USA
Pierre Englebert
Overseas Development Institute, London, UK
Mareike Schomerus

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Larmer, M., Kennes, E. (2019). Katanga’s Secessionism in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In: de Vries, L., Englebert, P., Schomerus, M. (eds) Secessionism in African Politics. Palgrave Series in African Borderlands Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90206-7_13

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90206-7_13
Published: 21 August 2018
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