The Unkept Peace

At the center of the Congo's swirling storm is India's Rajeshwar Dayal, U.N. commander in the Congo. Like any man in such a job, he has long had his critics -and their number is increasing. He is not on speaking terms with Congolese President Joseph Kasavubu, scarcely conceals his contempt for Premier Joseph Ileo, and has made little effort to get out and meet the many other bickering faction leaders or to get acquainted with the Congolese people. Although Dayal claims that he has been "spiritually enriched" by the Congo experience, others see him as a bundle of nerves often on the verge of panic. Said one recent visitor: "He gets worked up about a problem, but when you try to get down to specifics, he lapses into vagueness at best and contradiction at worst."

Dayal's job was getting tougher, not easier. Under the new Security Council resolution, he was instructed to prevent civil war. "by force if necessary." He was also supposed to "reorganize" (i.e., disarm) the Congolese troops. On the civil war front, the U.N. command seemed singularly irresolute in using its new powers. In Luluabourg, even as the Stanleyville invaders were fleeing in confusion, crowds of angry Lulua tribesmen clashed with the local Congolese garrison; the troops proceeded to mow down the mob. killing 44 before the eyes of U.N. Ghanaian patrols, who apparently had orders not to interfere.

As for disarming the unruly Congolese soldiers, the U.N. found the tables turned and its own Nigerian, Tunisian and Canadian soldiers being disarmed by the Congolese. As usual in the Congo, the whole thing started with a misunderstanding compounded by native Congolese hysteria. On a peaceful, sunny Sunday at a lake outside Leopoldville, where hundreds of Belgian families and off-duty U.N. employees had gone to picnic and swim, a U.N. truck with armed Tunisian U.N. troops drew up with urgent orders from Dayal's headquarters, instructing all U.N. people to leave the area immediately. On a nearby hillside, scores of Congolese troops, also relaxing with their wives and girl friends after a hard week of maneuvers, heard the U.N. orders echoing over the lake from a loudspeaker, jumped to the conclusion that a U.N. force was about to arrive to disarm them. Rushing over with rifles, the Congolese held the twelve startled Tunisians at gunpoint, took their weapons and then departed to warn their superiors of the U.N.'s "intentions."

Rough Stuff. Soon Congolese soldiers in the whole Leopoldville area were mobilizing as if for war; around the army's big Camp Binza, roadblocks went up and patrols went out, clearly spoiling for a fight with any U.N. troops in sight. A Congolese paratroop outfit opened fire on a passing Tunisian patrol. In the woods near Camp Binza, Congolese troops grabbed a Sudanese U.N. officer and held a gun at his neck as other soldiers raped his companion, an English U.N. secretary. Danish and Canadian U.N. military police, searching Camp Binza's back roads for a stolen U.N. Jeep, were arrested, roughed up and jailed. Four other Canadians were pulled out of their car and forced to run barefoot on gravel roads, and seven U.N. Tunisians on ration duty were grabbed and their weapons taken. None fought back. It was open season on the U.N.'s Sudanese and Canadian troops at the seaport towns of Banana and Matadi. where Congolese soldiers used mortars and machine guns to bombard the foreigners.

Off to the Island. In Manhattan. Dag Hammarskjold worked on the theory that little could be done until he got more troops for his Congo force. He was briefly cheered when India, which had refused to contribute anything more than a hospital unit in Korea, unexpectedly offered a full 3,000-man brigade. As soon as he could muster enough manpower, Hammarskjold hoped to take over one by one strategic road junctions, airports and towns, eventually force a truce by setting up more neutral zones similar to the ones already in effect in Northern Katanga and Eastern Kasai. But to make his system work.

Hammarskjold would also have to deal with the complicated problem of leadership of the U.N. force in the Congo; he was, in fact, already seeking alternative candidates for Dayal's job.

The Congolese made clear that they would make Hammarskjold's job as hard as possible. Leopoldville's Premier Joseph Ileo, Kasai Mining State's Albert Kalonji and Katanga's Moise Tshombe met in Elisabethville to sign a military pact designed to resist with force any U.N. effort to disarm their armies or take away their Belgian advisers. Seeking a quiet place to talk, the three then agreed to fly off to the island of Madagascar to hammer out the final details of their agreement to resist "U.N. tutelage."

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