Exit, King of Diamonds

Katanga's Moise Tshombe is not the only secessionist to break off a piece of the Congo and call it his own. He is merely the richest. In the backcountry, other little fiefs have declared themselves inde pendent in defiance of central government authority. Zaniest of all is ludicrous little Mining State in South Kasai.

Like "independent" Katanga, Mining State was the virtual creation of Belgium's powerful Societe Generale, which, through a company called Forminiere, for years held the concession to mine the world's biggest source of industrial diamonds. After independence came in 1960, the Belgians put their weight behind an eccentric Baluba chief named Albert Kalonji, and went right on mining diamonds while the Congolese central government floundered helplessly in Leopoldville. Wallowing in Forminiere's lavish tax and dividend payments, the bearded Kalonji donned a diamond-studded crown and leopard apron, found himself a scepter, and dubbed himself Kasai's King Albert I.

Even after the Leopoldville regime arrested Kalonji last January for his secessionist activities, Mining State went right ahead as an independent nation, issuing its own postage stamps and flying its own flag, convinced that Premier Cyrille Adoula's central regime lacked the resolve to crush Kasai's lucrative rebellion.

This seemed true enough until King Al bert I slipped out of his jail last month and fled back to his little Kasai capital of Bakwanga. At last Adoula decided to act. ordered a group of army officers to fly off to Bakwanga and take over. It was easy, for a restive and well-bribed faction of Kalonji's own troops quickly joined the invaders. King Albert once again made his getaway; according to rumor, he took three cases of diamonds with him. At week's end the fleeing monarch turned up in Katanga, presumably getting sympathy from fellow separatist Moise Tshombe.

Kalonji's escape was hard to swallow, but the central government had made its point with the people who count--the Belgian diamond operators. Hurriedly, their chief flew to Leopoldville from Brussels, agreed henceforth to hand over the diamond operation's lavish cash benefits to Adoula's treasury.

"If only Katanga would prove as easy to crack," sighed one Western diplomat in the Congo last week. But Moise Tshombe was holding out as stubbornly as ever for his region's autonomy, and for the lion's share of the vast concession fees of Ka tanga's Belgian and British-controlled copper and cobalt riches. As U.S. Under Secretary of State George McGhee conferred patiently in Elisabethville, hoping to convince Tshombe that Katanga must return to the Congo fold, U.N. Acting Secretary-General U Thant published a U.N. report from Leopoldville which charged that Tshombe was beefing up his stout little army with additional white hirelings, had even added more than a dozen airplanes to his tiny air force.

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