Log or Stork
THERE is a lesson to be learned for the Congo from Dr. Banda : to repudiate him on the grounds that he is not to be relied upon would be to fall into the same error that has been made over Patrice Lumumba. There could hardly be a less desirable African leader than Lumumba- even discounting what has been written about him in those papers who would have disparaged anybody in his position. But it simply is not possible for the West to dictate to Africans whether they should elect as their ruler King Log or King Stork; and in view of some of the rulers currently established in Western countries it is unwise to be too pompous about the need for good, sound men. As 1'. R. M. Creighton warned in the Spectator a month ago, the attempts to set up the estimable but weak Kasavubu as the legiti- mate governing authority in the Congo were bound to delay a settlement there; they have also deeply offended African opinion in the rest of the continent, and given the Communists the opportunity to discredit the United Nations as an organisation and Mr. HammarskjUld as its chief executive.
As things now stand, the dwindling UN forces have been placed in an impossible position. If they intervene to protect law and order they are accused of interfering in the internal affairs of the State; if they do not intervene, the conse- quences may be that people are massacred before their eyes. Precisely how the UN forces can pre- vent themselves from being regarded as a band of mercenaries employed to shore up an unpopu- lar administration is not easy to determine; but that it must extricate itself is now obvious—quite apart from the fact that the effort to hold on in the Congo is bankrupting the organisation.
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