Katanga and Ireland
Sir: In the course of his interesting review of my book, Herod: Reflections on Political Violence, Mr Alan Watkins says: `Dr O'Brien, as a UN official, tried to coerce Katanga into staying in the Congo. Would he refuse to coerce Northern Ireland into joining Ireland? The answer to the question is yes. As regards the implied inconsistency, I do not regard the question of Katanga as analogous to that of Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland, a sizeable majority of the population have, in free elections over the years and in a recent referendum, made clear their wish to remain in the UK and not to join a united Ireland. The people of Katanga, on the other hand, were never consulted about whether they wished to secede.
The often forgotten sequence of events which produced the secession of Katanga is that on 10 July 1960 Belgian paratroops seized Elisabethville, capital of the Province of Katanga, and that on 11 July Moises Tshombe, Provincial President, declared that Katanga had seceded from the Congo. Tshombe made this declaration with the Commander of the Belgian paratroops at his side. The entity which later came to be 'coerced in Katanga' was not the people of Katanga, but the government and military apparatus including foreign mercenaries, set up in consequence of the transactions of July 1960.
Conor Cruise O'Brien Whitewater, Howth Summit, Dublin
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