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In Search of a Thread: The UN in the Congo Labyrinth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Stanley Hoffmann
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Extract

It is possible to distinguish roughly two periods in the history of the United Nations. During the first, which lasted until the middle nineteen fifties, the Western powers had a fairly secure majority in the General Assembly, and Cold War issues tended to dominate. The supreme test of that first phase was the Korean War. It showed both that the new International Organization refused to practice appeasement and that in a bipolar world whose main antagonists were engaged in an ideological struggle and endowed with nuclear weapons, UN intervention in the conflicts between the blocs would either expose the Organization to a demonstration of impotence or submit the world to the risks of escalation. A second phase began when membership of the UN increased, and the newly-independent nations became the biggest group within the Assembly. Now, as Dag Hammarskjöld put it in his report to the fifteenth General Assembly, the main task in the area of peace and security shifted to “preventive diplomacy”—rushing to the scene of fires which break out “outside the sphere of bloc differences” before the arrival of the major contenders. The biggest challenge has been the Congo crisis. It has tested all the assumptions which had been made—by scholars as well as by the late Secretary-General—about the role of the UN, its possibilities and its limits, and about the relations between its principal organs and its main groups of members.

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Articles
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International Organization , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , Spring 1962 , pp. 331 - 361
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1962

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References

1 For the text of those cables, see Chronique de Politique Etrangère, 07–11 1960 (Vol. 13, Nos. 4–6), p. 668 and 696Google Scholar.

2 Non-members can only appeal to the Security Council under Article 35, par. 2, i.e., in the framework of Chapter VI. See Virally, Michel, “Les Nations Unies et l'affaire du Congo en 1960,” Annuaire français de Droit International, VI, 1960, p. 557–559 and p. 563–564CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 S/PV.873, July 13/14, 1960, and Document S/4389.

4 Addendum 5 to the Secretary-General's first report, Document S/4389.

5 Document S/4417 and Add.6.

6 See Mr. Lumumba's letter of August 14 in Document S/4417, Add.7.

7 Addendum 6 to Document S/4417 states: a) that the UN force cannot be used on behalf of the central government to subdue the provincial government; b) that UN facilities cannot be used to transport civilian or military representatives under the authority of the central government to Katanga, beyond what follows from the general duty to maintain law and order; and c) that the UN has no right to refuse the central government to take any action of its own in accordance with the principles and purposes of the Charter.

8 See the author's “Sisyphus and the Avalanche,” International Organization, Summer 1957 (Vol. 11, No. 3), p. 446–469CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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10 S/PV.887, August 21, 1960.

11 See Mr. Kanza's statement before the Security Council, S/PV.877, July 20/21, 1960.

12 Document S/4482.

13 S/PV.896, September 9/10, 1960.

14 S/PV.920, December 13/14, 1960.

15 Or by the need to avoid foreign interference, such as Mr. Hammarskjöld's request to Belgium not to send any technical or financial aid to the Congo except through the UN (October 9 and 19; see Mr. Dayal's second report, Document S/4557).

16 Ibid.

17 On this point, see West, Robert, “The UN and the Congo Financial Crisis,” International Organization, Autumn 1961 (Vol. 15, No. 4), p. 603–617CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Holmes, John, “The UN in the Congo,” International Affairs, Winter 1960–1961 (Vol. 16, No. 1), p. 1–15Google Scholar.

18 Van Bilsen, A. A. J., “Some Aspects of the Congo Problem,” International Affairs, 01 1962 (Vol. 38, No. 1), p. 41–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 One should also mention the contradictions between cases of UN action, such as the closing of Leopoldville's airports, and instances of inaction, such as the fact that Elizabethville airport was left open when Lumumba landed there as a prisoner (cf. President Nkrumah's speech to the General Assembly, March 7, 1961).

20 S/PV.912, December 7, 1960.

21 Document S/4531.

22 S/PV.896, September 9/10, 1960.

23 A/PV.957, December 19, 1960.

24 On December 13, Ceylon and Tunisia gave up the idea of submitting a draft; the four-power draft (Argentina, Italy, United Kingdom, United States) would have been accepted except for a Soviet veto, but Tunisia abstained and Ceylon joined the Soviet Union and Poland in opposing it.

25 See UN Review, 11 1960 (Vol. 7, No. 5), p. 33–35Google Scholar.

26 On October 28, Ceylon, Ghana, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Mali, Morocco, and the UAR sponsored a draft resolution for the immediate seating of Mr. Lumumba's representatives (Document A/L.319/Rev.2).

27 The Assembly voted 53–24–19 in favor of seating Mr. Kasavubu. But among the 53 states there was only one of the members of the Conciliation Committee (Senegal); seven members were among the opponents (Ghana, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Mali, Morocco, the UAR); and six abstained (Ethiopia, Malaya, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, Tunisia).

28 Document S/4643.

29 However (see Document S/4606), the Secretary-General had informed Mr. Kasavubu of the strong conviction of almost all the Members that parliament should be convened.

30 See note 14.

31 The seventeen-power draft was endorsed by the Philippines, Thailand, and Japan which had voted against the eight-power draft on December 20; Cyprus, Burma, Lebanon, Jordan, Nepal, Pakistan, Iran, Malaya, Senegal, Somalia, Chad, Tunisia, and Liberia abstained in December, but voted for the draft in April; Ethiopia, Nigeria, Togo, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan voted for both texts; Ceylon, India, Indonesia, Iraq, the UAR, Ghana, Guinea, Morocco, Mali, Afghanistan, Yemen voted for the eight-power draft in December and abstained in April. The ex-Belgian Congo had voted against the eight-power draft in December and abstained in April.

32 Draft by Ceylon, Liberia, and the UAR, Security Council, February 21 (Document S/4733); it dealt exclusively with incidents in Leopoldville, Katanga, and Kasai.

33 Before Lumumba's death, the reconvening of parliament, supposed to be favorable to him, was a substantive move; nows it became merely a procedure.

34 Document S/4940.

35 See his two articles in the Observer, December 10 and 17, 1961.

36 Lord Landsdowne reported that Mr. Hammarskjöld denied that the operation had been undertaken on behalf of the central government (Observer, December 10, 1961).

37 See International Organization, Autumn 1961 (Vol. 15, No. 4), p. 562Google Scholar.

38 S/PV.982, November 24, 1961.

39 See UN Review, 01 1962 (Vol. 9, No. 1), p. 6–7 and 44ffGoogle Scholar.

40 See ibid., February 1962 (Vol. 9, No. 2), p. 27.

41 “The International Civil Servant in Law and in Fact,” SG/1035, May 29, 1961.

42 On April 15, 1961, a Guinean amendment aimed at deleting the words “by the Secretary-General” in one part of the seventeen-power draft was defeated by a vote of 83–11–5.

43 See “An Evaluation of the UN,” Ohio State Law Journal, Summer 1961 (Vol. 22, No. 3), p. 477–494Google Scholar.

44 “The Precedent of the Congo,” International Affairs, 04 1961 (Vol. 37, No. 2), p. 181–188CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 See International Organization, Autumn 1961 (Vol. 15, No. 4), p. 561Google Scholar.

46 “Introduction to the fifteenth Annual Report of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly,” UN Review, 10 1960 (Vol. 7, No. 4), p. 27Google Scholar.

47 See Claude, I. L. Jr, “The UN and the Use of Force,” International Conciliation (No. 532), 03 1961Google Scholar.

48 See Virally, Michel, “Vers une Réforme du Secrétariat des Nations Unies?” International Organization, Spring 1961 (Vol. 15, No. 2), p. 236–255CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Statement to the Security Council, December 13, i960. On this issue, see Miller, E. M., “Legal Aspects of the UN Action in the Congo,” American Journal of International Law, 01 1961 (Vol. 55, No. 1), p. 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Karabus, Alan, “UN Activities in the Congo,” Proceedings of the American Society of International Law, 1961, p. 30 ffGoogle Scholar.

50 A/PV.906, October 17, 1960.

51 La Guerre et la Paix, Vol. 1, Paris, Dentu, E., 1861Google Scholar.

52 Notably in the Security Council debates of February 1961.

53 See his press conference of April 11, 1961.

54 “Popularity and Power in the UN,” New Leader, 02 19, 1962, p. 22–23Google Scholar.

55 See note 38.

5 Sec Tucker, Robert W., The Just War, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1960Google Scholar. The reports of the officer-in-charge of UN operations explained that among ONUC objectives there was a very broad range of objectives in and around Elizabethville [see UN Review, 01 1962 (Vol. 9, No. 1), p. 45 ff]Google Scholar.

57 One of the aspects of those conflicts is the slowness and heaviness of the procedure in New York: suggestions about good offices or any reorganization took weeks to mature. In the Security Council, invitations to non-members to present their viewpoints as interested parties also led to delays. As for the military and administrative weaknesses of the Secretariat, see the introduction to the fifteenth annual report, and my remarks above, p. 346–350.

58 See Virally, Michel, L'ONU, Paris, Ed. Seuil, du, 1961Google Scholar.

59 Similarly in November 1961 the Soviets voted against a United States proposal which would have authorized the Secretary-General to assist the central government in the reorganization of Congolese armed units—the kind of measure which the Soviets advocated some months earlier.

60 See Ball, George W., “The Elements of Our Congo Policy,” Department of State Publication 7326, 12 1961Google Scholar.

61 Quoted by Dallin, Alexander, “The Soviet View of the UN,” International Organization, Winter 1962 (Vol. 16, No. 1), p. 36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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63 “Congo Crisis: The Role of the New States,” in Neutralism, Washington, D. C, Center of Foreign Policy Research, 1961Google Scholar.

64 See note 31.

65 The two-power draft, on December 20, 1960, received 43 votes in favor, among which were those of Malaya, Iran, Laos, China, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan.

66 See note 31.

67 A/PV.871, September 26, 1960.

68 Nicholas, Herbert, “United Nations?” Encounter, 01 1962, p. 8Google Scholar.