President's Week

For two weeks the Congo's pro-Western President Joseph Kasavubu had been cooling his heels in a Manhattan hotel room, waiting for the U.N. General Assembly to decide whether to give him the Congo's seat over the violent objections of his prime foe--erratic, mischief-making Patrice Lumumba. When the matter finally came up before the Assembly last week, Ghana led the fight for Lumumba, proposed a motion to adjourn the debate without even considering Kasavubu's case.

Harried Joseph Kasavubu had behind him not only the Western bloc but a new factor in U.N. politics--tribal ties. Cassock-clad Abbe Fulbert Youlou, the President of the former French Congo and, like Kasavubu, an Abako tribesman, rallied nine French Community states, helped beat back the adjournment motion 51 to 36. Result: after a bit more debate, Kasavubu seemed likely to get the coveted seat.

Get Out. Back in the Congo the vote strengthened the hand of Kasavubu's key ally, Congolese Army Commander Colonel Joseph Mobutu. Six weeks ago Kasavubu had declared Ghana's Charge d'Affaires Nathaniel Welbeck persona non grata on the ground that he was running around Leopoldville whipping up support for Lumumba, who since his dismissal has rarely dared to venture out of the official mansion where he is still holed up. Instead of leaving, Welbeck kept right on operating from the Ghanaian embassy, where he was guarded by Ghana's U.N. contingent. Last week, after his men caught a secretary at the Ghanaian embassy trying to get to Lumumba with $600 and plans to set up a new state in the southern Congo, Mobutu himself ordered the eviction of all Ghanaian diplomats from the Congo. The colonel had not been so exercised since he kicked out all Communist-bloc emissaries back in September.

At this point the new winds from New York began to blow. Under heavy Afro-Asian pressure, the U.N. had been tacitly supporting Lumumba's contention that he is still Premier of the Congo despite his dismissal three months ago by Kasavubu --and had been treating Kasavubu's commands with a gentlemanly disdain. Now, apparently with an eye on the Assembly vote, the U.N. command shifted its stance slightly, ruled that if served with a formal expulsion order, Welbeck would have to get out, since the U.N. "does not intend to interfere in the relations between the government and diplomats."

Temporary Discomfort. Mobutu's hand was being strengthened, too, by the return of hundreds of Belgians, who were coming into Leopoldville last week by the planeful, reopening their musty shops and returning to the advisory jobs with the Congolese government which they had been scheduled to occupy under the original independence agreement. Drilling the Congolese army day after day, a handful of returned Belgian army officers last week turned it out 3,000 strong for a snappy if belated Armistice Day parade. As he brought the troops into the line of march on Boulevard Albert I, a Belgian captain turned to Mobutu, whose highest rank under Belgian rule was sergeant, and announced with a smart salute: "All is ready, mon colonel.'" The army band broke into a new national anthem that nobody had ever heard before, and the 75,000 spectators liked the show well enough to refrain from breaking out with the bicycle chains they had brought along in case of dissension. For the U.N. officers in the reviewing stand, it was hard to escape the conclusion that Mobutu came closer than any of the Congo's myriad "leaders" to exercising effective power.

The return of the Belgians is openly encouraged by both Kasavubu and Mobutu, whose recruiters in Brussels are busy lining up as many as possible of the 10,000 Belgian technicians who planned to stay in the Congo before last summer's army mutiny. In New York, top U.N. officials have coldly charged that all this represents a Belgian attempt to regain power in the Congo--an accusation to which Belgian Foreign Minister Pierre Wigny hotly replied last week with the implicit threat of a Belgian walkout from the U.N. But many a rank-and-file U.N. worker in the Congo is glad enough to see the Belgians return. "Why shouldn't they come back?" asked one U.N. civil affairs officer. "They've forgotten more about this place than we'll ever learn."

At week's end, as relative peace temporarily settled on Leopoldville, news from the boondocks indicated that the U.N. could use all the help it could get. In the bush country of Katanga province, where they ambushed and killed nine Irish U.N. soldiers a fortnight ago, savage Baluba tribesmen last week hacked 113 of their native enemies to death, carving some of the bodies up for cannibal feasts. To its edgy troops the U.N. passed out the not very reassuring instructions that "if [poison] arrows are removed within two seconds, they cause only temporary discomfort."

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