The Heart of Darkness

CONGO (See Cover) The tom-tom must beat this night to call our warriors to the fight. Everywhere in the bush the army of warriors must answer this ancestral call.

--Moise Tshombe, on the eve of the U.N. offensive

In the U.S., the tom-tom of headlines, echoing queer names and remote places, was becoming all too insistent. It told of the United Nations' painful effort to pacify a province called Katanga and unify an emerging nation called Congo. To many it seemed a strange and distant venue to win so much of the world's attention. In a sense, it was; the Congo crisis hardly compared with the peril of war in tense Berlin, nor was it as immediate a danger to peace as the furtive Communist advances in the paddyfields of Southeast Asia. In the U.S. and elsewhere, many would have liked to wash their hands of the whole mess and leave the Congolese to fight it out.

But these days political shock waves travel too fast and too far for that: the ugly little Congo squabble was not to be ignored. As Africa's colonial empires crumble, a wobbly league of immature new countries is taking their place. In their midst, like it or not, the U.S. must try to prevent chaos.

For the West, the situation had its divisive ironies. At Washington's orders, a caravan of giant U.S. Air Force Globe-masters was busy hauling Swedish, Indian and Ethiopian soldiers to the U.N. garrison at Elisabethville, there to fight Belgians, Frenchmen and Britons serving with the Katanga forces. The NATO allies, sorely split over the U.N. intervention, discussed a solution for hours at their Paris conference. They were really discussing the fate of one man--Katanga's Moise Tshombe, the crafty, flamboyant black leader who had taken his copperrich province out of the Congo and called it a nation.

Vivid as a Flag. Republic of Katanga was its name, and red, white and green were its colors--"Red for the blood shed for Katanga's freedom, white for purity and green for hope," explained Tshombe in an exultant moment. There also were three Maltese crosses on his banner--in the burnished red-brown of copper. The man was as vivid as the flag. He dressed his mounted honor guard in plumed helmets and blazing tunics bought secondhand from the Garde Republicaine in France, and seated them on broken-down nags sent up from Rhodesia. He was the solemn black defender of white capitalism in middle Africa, a rarity; yet he sneered at his Belgian sponsors as deceitful, and at the U.S. as "cowardly and decadent." He was urbane and charming, with a clever turn of phrase couched invariably in excellent French. But he was also superstitious enough to blame messengers for any bad news they bore, and he was volatile and unpredictable; often Tshombe ended a conference with U.N. officials with a friendly smile, only to walk out and hotly accuse them of all sorts of perfidy.

This man deep in Africa had his loyal list of partisans, and it was growing. Their bitterness focused on the U.S. for its support of the U.N. action against Katanga. Two hundred Katangese youths demonstrated at the U.S. consulate in Elisabethville, some of them breaking into the building before the police finally arrived. In Brussels, university students threw stones and hunks of metal at the windows of the U.S. embassy, shouting "Down with the United Nations!" A deputy in parliament declared hotly that the U.S.-backed Congo operation was "savagery worthy of Mussolini in Ethiopia," and another Belgian likened the U.N.'s U Thant to Goebbels.

Tshombe had his friends in the U.S. Congress as well. One vocal group of U.S. supporters formed a Committee for Aid to Katanga Freedom Fighters; its roster ranged from respectable conservatives to right-wing ultras and included such Southern states' righters as Racist Senator James Eastland of Mississippi. They reasoned that Tshombe is one of the few African leaders who are proven anti-Communists and friendly to the white man. Katanga, continued the argument, has a right to self-determination if it prefers independence from the central government, particularly since it is by far the stablest of all Congolese provinces.

The U.S. Position. Throughout the uproar, and despite grave misgiving (see PRESS), the U.S. Government held to its policy: Tshombe must end his secession and recognize the central government for the greater good of the Congo as a whole, not to mention the peace of Africa.

To the "self-determination" argument, the U.S. replied that Tshombe does not speak for all of Katanga, and that, at any rate, the principle of self-determination cannot be indiscriminately invoked by any territory or province. Neither the Congo nor Katanga is a nation in anything like the modern sense, but, as the U.S. sees it, the Congo as a whole, with its continuous 75-year history as a Belgian colony, has a more sensible claim to nationhood than one of its parts.

As for the anti-Communist argument, the Washington reply went as follows: the central Congo government of Premier Cyrille Adoula, already shaky enough, cannot survive much longer if Tshombe's defiance of its authority continues indefinitely. And without Adoula, whom Washington regards as the Congo's ablest, most reliable leader, the way would be wide open to the Reds. In that event, Tshombe's anti-Communism would be of little help, even if his opposition to the Reds were as solid as advertised (which the U.S. doubts).

History of Failure. U.N.--and American--involvement in the Congo was all but inevitable the moment, in 1959, when Belgium hastily and irresponsibly agreed to withdraw from a colony it had never prepared for independence. Into the resultant vacuum were swept a bewildering array of 65 political parties. One dominant--but erratic and unstable--figure emerged: Patrice Lumumba. Head of a shaky coalition regime that took control of the Congo, after free elections, in June 1960, Lumumba favored strong central government. This was anathema to Tshombe. who had no intention of sharing the wealth of his mineral-rich province with the central government and the Congo's poorer provinces. "The Katanga cow." his followers said, "will not be milked by Lumumba's serpents."

Lumumba's inability to cope with the raping and looting turmoil that immediately followed independence gave Tshombe the excuse he needed. On July 11, 1960, Katanga seceded on the pretext that it was the only way to prevent the disorders from spreading into" the province. Ever since, both the U.N. and the central government have tried to get Katanga back under the wing of Leopoldville. At the Coquilhatville Conference last April, Tshombe was put under house arrest, kept until he agreed to join the central parliament. But back home in Katanga, he reneged on his agreement. Tshombe continually defied U.N. orders to get rid of the Belgian and other white soldiers (see box, p. 20) who were his major support. Finally last August, U.N. troops began an ill-fated action to force Tshombe ,to end his secession--an action that ended in a humiliating cease-fire maintaining the status quo and in Dag Hammarskjold's fatal air crash.

Against this background of frustration and failure, the U.S. decided to back the U.N.'s latest move against Katanga, for all its undoubted risks. Last week Washington refused to go along with the demands of Britain and France for an immediate cease-fire at any cost. From the White House and the State Department came the line: No cease-fire until Tshombe agrees to negotiate a satisfactory settlement with Adoula. This did not 'mean that the U.S. wanted to destroy Moise Tshombe. He has a following and a talent for leadership too rare to dispense with. But to survive, insisted the U.S., he would have to use that talent for the Congo, not just Katanga. By week's end the U.N. was in the center of Elisabethville, and Tshombe reportedly had fled to the Rhodesian border.

But before these events, the world witnessed a week of untidy fighting and hasty diplomatic moves.

Toward a Summit. At midweek, sensing the imminent U.N. offensive, Tshombe put out peace feelers. To President Kennedy went a direct personal plea that "as a free man and as a Christian," he name a conciliator and stop the fighting. Kennedy wired back his prompt agreement and nominated his ambassador in Leopoldville, Edmund Asbury Gullion, to take on the task. But the U.N. pressure would not be relaxed unless Tshombe produced hard evidence of sincerity--in other words, until he left Elisabethville and met with Adoula.

Throughout all this, the Congo was a weird mixture of choler and calm. In Leopoldville. the central government's capital in the Congo River basin, life for most went on at its slow-motion pace in the sticky heat; but the Royale, the U.N.'s seven-story main Congo headquarters, was alive with activity. Aides scurried in and out of the office of burly Irish General Sean McKeown, chief of the U.N. Congo military force, who was busy reading reports on the fighting and firing off fresh orders to the air and ground commanders in Katanga itself, 1,000 miles away.

A few feet away, there was a bustle of another kind in the wake of Tshombe's appeal to Kennedy; there, U Thant's special representative, Ralph Bunche. and the regular U.N. Congo civilian chief, Sweden's Dr. Sture Linner, worked to get the agreement of the wary Central Congolese Prime Minister, Cyrille Adoula, on terms for a Tshombe-Adoula "summit" parley. But Leopoldville's key man now would be U.S. Ambassador Gullion, 48. Kentucky-born Ed Gullion was a good choice for the job of conciliator; his talent for analysis of tricky problems had been polished by duty on the State Department's policy planning staff, and later on the U.S. Disarmament Agency; Gullion's skill at handling people matured in long service at a half-dozen posts abroad.

The Airlift. Meanwhile, 15 miles outside Leopoldville, at Ndjili Airport, the big U.S. airlift of troops and equipment continued. One day a battalion of sweating Ethiopians trudged silently into the gaping mouth of a U.S. Air Force Globemaster. Crammed into the plane with them were 45,000 Ibs. of ammunition and rations and 14 gleaming white Jeeps. Another day, the troops might be Swedish or Irish, the scene otherwise the same. Said Ambassador Gullion: "The Congo government leaders recognize that the U.N. effort is the salvation of their country, and that within the U.N. effort the U.S. airlift is vital. The size itself of the Globemasters has an effect on people here --we reckoned on that too."

It was one of the longest airlifts the U.S. had ever run; to haul a company of Irish troops from Dublin, for example, was a 5,000-mile hop. TIME-LIFE Correspondent Judson Gooding flew the final lap, from Leo to Eville, with a planeload of 76 Swedish reinforcements. The plane kept to 9,500 ft., just in case of an unknown antiaircraft gun in the hands of the Congolese below, but the young Swedes did not seem concerned. One had bought some U.S. insignia at an American PX and said: "I look like a Yankee now, and Yankees are very tough guys. I want to go over there and see what it is like to fight. Besides, the money is good--double what we get paid in Sweden." As the big bird neared Elisabethville, one of the crew broke out .45s for the officers, carbines for the enlisted men; there might be trouble on the ground. Landing guidance came from another nearby bird, which was heading back the other way. "Make a real steep approach and stay north of the field to avoid the town," he radioed. There was no sign of trouble on the ground, but in 23 minutes flat the Globemaster was unloaded and airborne again.

Something Unreal. In Elisabethville, peppery Indian Brigadier K.A.S. Raja and his civilian counterpart, Australia's George Ivan Smith, for most of the week had been content to secure and hold islands of strength around the city. Two were at the old and new airports on the northern outskirts; another was east of the city, at a camp where 30,000 restive, Tshombe-hating Baluba tribesmen were kept in protective custody by Swedish and Irish troops. As reinforcements arrived to fill the gaps, these and other strongpoints formed a solid crescent around the northern outskirts.

The U.N. patrols seldom strayed far from these redoubts; the rest of Elisabethville belonged exclusively to Katanga's soldiers, black and white, who wandered the streets or stood guard. There was something unreal about the whole thing. As the U.N.'s General McKeown put it, after a flying visit to Elisabethville early in the week, "We are not fighting a battle in the usual sense." It was masterful understatement.

The Katanga struggle had been a wacky if bitter war with no front line, no clear victories or defeats, and not even very many deaths (13 U.N., 30 Katangese before the U.N.'s major drive). But there was plenty of shooting, especially when the U.N. planes swooped down on the city from their Kamina base, 260 miles away. In a quiet, bungalow-lined side street, where some of the remaining white housewives strolled with their children, the whoosh of a low-flying U.N. jet brought sudden pandemonium as Katanga soldiers and hastily armed civilians jumped from their cars or stepped off the sidewalk to fire excitedly with pistols, tommy guns and rifles.

The U.N. was often using its jets (six Indian Canberras, five Swedish Saabs, four Ethiopian Sabres) as much for the psychological effect as for the physical damage to Tshombe's jittery soldiers.

Atom Smashing. But the planes also had their lethal uses. Out of the blue one morning, the Swedish Saabs showed up with guns blazing over the copper-mining town of Kolwezi, 150 miles northwest of Elisabethville on Katanga's only rail line to the Atlantic Ocean. Within minutes, half a dozen railway locomotives and cars were out of action; then, with a roar, the town's main fuel tanks, filled with thousands of gallons of diesel oil, went up in a leaping column of flame and smoke. Near by was the village of Luilu, site of a big copper and cobalt refinery of Katanga's Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga; there, a few rounds of cannon and rocket fire knocked out the powerhouse transformers and punched holes in some building walls. Next day, U.N. Ethiopian flyers zoomed out to strike at other targets--first Katanga's old uranium mine at Shinkolobwe, which produced the U-235 for the U.S.'s first atom bomb, then at Luena, a coalmining center.

At midweek, the U.N. added up its "kills" so far: five Katangese planes destroyed on the ground, 39 trucks, three armored cars, one helicopter, two fuel dumps, and half a dozen railroad locomotives. Crying economic murder, Moise Tshombe accused the U.N. of planning Katanga's industrial destruction. "This day will be marked with a white stone by the capitalist bourgeoisie to mark the story of its decadence," he cried. U.N. officials retorted that they were striking at the industry and transport that might serve Tshombe's cause. But the question arose in many countries: Whatever the merits of the U.N. mission, was this kind of destruction necessary?

An Unhealthy Roof. On the ground, the battle in Elisabethville seesawed inconclusively. One minute, the streets were full; next minute, people were scattering in all directions at the sound of incoming shells or a long, looping machine-gun burst from a distant weapon. Often a barrage caught Katanga's loyal whites of the home guard in mid-Scotch or mid-meal at an Elisabethville bistro. "Ah, it is time to go," shrugged one 24-year-old as the crump of nearby gunfire sent the lunchtime customers to the floor at one restaurant. Shouldering his rifle, he left in the direction of the shooting.

One U.N. salvo landed smack in the center of the city, scoring a direct hit on a beauty parlor and shattering the windows of the Belgian airline, Sabena, as well as other offices along the street. U.N. salvos also hit Prince Leopold Hospital. The U.N. troops' performance seemed particularly sloppy, but Katangese fire often was not much more discriminating: many rounds fell into the Baluba camp, killing at least ten hapless tribesmen.

The Katanga gunners'main target was the U.N. headquarters. One afternoon, two Belgian whites in civilian clothes, carrying the tube, tripod and shells of a mortar, walked down a street in the center of town, set up their weapon in a used-car lot; then, casually, they began bombarding the U.N. office building five blocks away. The fire of little, informal squads like this one was remarkably accurate--they were getting instructions from the roof of the tallest building in town, the new hospital, which the U.N. later captured.

Biding Its Time. At first, it seemed curious that the U.N. did not follow up its plane and mortar bombardment with an all-out strike against the positions of the Katangese in the city. But delay had its purpose. Fact was, the U.N. was gathering strength for an attack that could not lose. The U.N. now had 4.500 men to Tshombe's 2,000. More reinforcements were coming in by air, plus 106-mm. and 75-mm. field pieces, as well as bazookas, jeeps, food and ammunition.

There was deep, burning bitterness among the Katangese--blacks as well as the white settlers--at the U.N.'s show of strength. "Photograph the tears. It's the tears you like, isn't it?" shrieked one weeping man to the foreign news photographers at work in the shell-torn streets. And the people of Elisabethville would never forget or forgive the bomb blasts that killed the innocent; a wild-eyed Belgian drove up to a group of foreign correspondents, shouting "Look, look at the work of the American gangsters!" In the back seat were two bloodied civilians and a dead child in its mother's arms.

Tshombe left his pink and white stucco residence to tour the shattered wards of Prince Leopold Hospital, stopping to offer sympathy and thanks to the wounded. Said he: "Your wounds are not in vain." Then he made his last-ditch tom-tom appeal to his warriors: "Poisoned arrows will shower on our opponents; each onusien [U.N. soldier] will be a corpse."

The First Millionaire. In the bush, few if any of the warriors took up their weapons, but this was due perhaps as much to bad communications as to disobedience; although Tshombe has virtually no support among the Balubas in the northern half of Katanga, he is strongly backed by the proud Lunda people of the south. It was there, in the Lulua River country along the Angola border, at Sandoa, that Moise Tshombe grew to manhood, the first son of the region's richest tribesman. His father Joseph was a thriving merchant with a string of 16 village stores that eventually grew into a sawmill, a hotel, plantations, a fleet of trucks, and a proud title for his firm: "J. Kapenda Tshombe et Fils." Joseph Tshombe became, in fact, the first Congolese franc millionaire.

Joseph was determined that his son should build the family firm still bigger.

So, after finishing his course at the local Methodist mission's primary and secondary school, young Moise was sent off to nearby Kanene to win his degree at the Methodist teachers college. He even took a correspondence course in bookkeeping. A gregarious, gay fellow, Moise seemed less interested in commerce than in good times and cars--one big Ford particularly impressed the local girls. The lad first had a go at running the family firm in Elisabethville, the big city itself, then branched out with a group of village stores of his own. But his ventures collapsed.

Not One Family. It seemed time to try another field. Turning to politics, Tshombe put to use his two big assets. One was a jovial, easy charm. The other was his father-in-law; young Moise had married the daughter of Bako Ditende, a prominent chief of the Lunda tribe, later to become Mwata Yamvo Ditende Yawa Nawezi III, supreme ruler of all the Lunda. Ditende's influence helped when Tshombe sought and won a seat on the Elisabethville city council (a tame advisory body under the thumb of the Belgian provincial governor) in 1947, then moved up to the Katanga provincial council.

In the ferment for Congolese independence, it was only natural that Moise Tshombe would be in on the founding in 1959 of Katanga's first full-fledged political party, the Confederation des Associations du Katanga (Conakat). The new group was backed chiefly by Tshombe's (and his father-in-law's) own fiercely independent Lunda tribesmen, who were happy enough to win freedom from the Belgians but had no great desire to be part of one big Congo family, since most of the vast mineral deposits were located right down in Katanga's southern tip--Lunda country.

Uncle Tshombe. Thus Tshombe, now Conakat's president, held out fiercely against the idea of a tightly unitary central government when all the Congo's African leaders sat down at the famous 1960 Round Table Conference in Brussels to discuss a future independent Congo. It was there that his colleagues first began to notice the array of white advisers who were constantly at Tshombe's elbow, passing him notes, whispering suggestions. Some were from Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga, the huge, Belgian-controlled corporation that mines and processes Katanga's rich veins of copper and cobalt; other advisers were from Katanga's powerful white settler group; they, like Tshombe. had a large stake in an independent, or at least partially autonomous, Katanga.

Noting his reliance on whites, a U.S. newsman nicknamed him "Uncle Tshombe." The advisers soon became a cause of controversy at the parley. Yelled Patrice Lumumba, a skinny,young firebrand from Stanleyville whose histrionics were already grabbing headlines: "I demand the immediate withdrawal from this conference room of all white advisers! Tshombe doesn't dare open his mouth until he has received a slip of paper from the European behind him!"

The "unitarians" won at the conference, and Tshombe lost; but even as he packed for the trip home, the stubborn Katangese was muttering a word that later would echo far: Secession.

Tribal Traditions. In his policy of secession, no one could say with accuracy that Tshombe spoke for all Katanga, or even half. But Tshombe's supporters, including the Lunda, make up no more than one-third of the population; he would risk his life by traveling in some regions of the Baluba north, where he is hated for his tribal affiliation and for the murderous, plundering raids of his Lunda army units against opposition Baluba villages last summer.

But Katanga's President--the title he took after formal declaration of the Republic last July--was widely admired by most southern Katangese not only for his stout resistance to the onusiens but for his gracious, smiling manner and for the dignity of his somber grey suits. He is never late for an appointment, often arrives five minutes early, then waits outside, homburg in hand, until the hour. He is no playboy; often, at a conference of African bigwigs. Tshombe will retire to his room with a book while the rest of the boys go out nightclubbing.

Secession swelled his ego. Elisabethville is plastered with Tshombe portraits distributed by his aides; they are usually emblazoned with a slogan: "II sotiffre pour vous; soyez digne de lui [He is suffering for you; be worthy of him]."

Mining Money. In his five months of "independence," Tshombe was rightly credited with heading the slickest, tidiest and best policed of all the fragments of the old Congo. He paid the police, paved the streets and repaired the waterworks from a source of cash no other province enjoys. It is the cut Tshombe gets from Katanga's Union Miniere, the firm that produces 8% of the world's copper, 60% of its cobalt, as well as cadmium, zinc, silver, etc. Union Miniere this year is due to hand Tshombe's regime some $52 million in dividends, mineral export taxes and other fees, enough to cover at least 80% of his entire budget. More than that, Union Miniere is the Congo's biggest employer, paying salaries to more than 30,000 Katangese workers, who enjoy free hospitals, model homes and many other welfare benefits. It also produces the electric power for all of Katanga.

When the Congo got its independence last year, the portfolio of 18% of Union Miniere stock, once "held in trust for the Congolese people" by the Congo's Belgian colonial administration, was supposed to be handed over to the new central government; somehow the transfer never occurred. Once Katanga declared itself independent, all the payments flowed into the National Bank of Katanga; Union Miniere shrugs and says it was forced by Tshombe's government to hand over the money.

Holding Companies. Control of Union Miniere is at the Brussels headquarters of Belgium's huge Societe Generate, the giant holding company with interests in many other parts of the Congo. But a little-known fact is Britain's big interest in the firm through the London-dominated Tanganyika Concessions Ltd., which holds 14 1/2% of Union Miniere shares, in 1959 enjoyed $45 million in dividends. This explained at least part of the noisy protests in Britain's Parliament (many M.P.s frankly admitted personal financial interest) and last week's .pressure on Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to back Moise Tshombe and stop the U.N.'s Katanga intervention.

During the Katanga fighting, there has been little doubt that the bomb racks for Tshombe's Dornier bombers were fitted in Union Miniere's big machine shops. Tshombe also put to, good use Union Miniere's extensive telephone and radio system for his communications and enjoyed its transport facilities. But late last week, even the resources of Union Miniere could now no longer change the course of the Katanga war.

The Blue Helmets. It was raining hard when the U.N. moved out of its stronghold for the final drive against Tshombe's troops; in the van were the little Indian Gurkha soldiers, best by far of all the U.N. fighters. Within hours they had pushed the retreating, disorganized Katangese back to the very center of Elisabethville, where a desperate few set up mortars in front of the Hotel Leopold II in a last-ditch stand. At the" refugee-filled hotel, guests were packed five and six to a room, and dozens more slept on the floor of the lobby; the dining room began rationing its food at the rate of two sandwiches per person per day. Then, abruptly, the lights and water went off all over town; at hospitals, emergency power units were switched on for X-ray machines and operating tables, but nurses had to put buckets out to collect rainwater pouring from the roofs in the torrential downpour.

Katangese snipers operated at every street corner in the downtown area, but despite the danger, people dashed from their homes to nearby shops to buy essentials from the fast-disappearing stocks. Those who had battery radios heard the local U.N. radio station broadcast reassuring bulletins urging the populace to keep calm. "The blue helmets are your friends and are only here to restore order," it repeated every few minutes.

At the other end of town, in the peaceful southern outskirts, the Katangese defenders were readying hasty barricades, certain that the city center would soon be in U.N. hands. Sure enough, word came that Swedish and Irish units had overrun Camp Massart, the main Katanga gendarmerie enclave; the backbone of the resistance was broken, and one by one the Katanga roadblocks at key intersections were cleared away.

U.N. troops were now within a few yards of Tshombe's residence itself. But now Tshombe was gone. From his temporary frontier refuge at Kipushi on the Northern Rhodesia-Katanga line, he could step out of Katanga to safety on a moment's notice. Rhodesia's Sir Roy Welensky had already offered him haven "any time he wants it."

Fear & Reluctance. With the U.N. more or less controlling Elisabethville and with Tshombe in flight, the U.N. had presumably reached its "limited objectives" of freedom of movement in Katanga. But what of the long-range objectives involving a Congo settlement?

Even if there is no further fighting, getting Tshombe and Adoula to meet will be difficult enough. Tshombe is afraid of going to Leopoldville, fearing for his safety, and for prestige reasons Adoula is reluctant to meet Tshombe elsewhere. The terms of an agreement, once a meeting is arranged, will present an even more difficult problem. Even if Tshombe agrees--in effect at gunpoint--to join a Congo federation, the specific degree of each province's independence must be worked out, including the question of who disposes of Katanga's income.

Adoula is under pressure from the U.S. to be generous toward Tshombe, if he is willing to end the secession. The question remains how generous Adoula can afford to be without weakening his own position in the eyes of his supporters and his left-wing rivals. Any major concessions to Tshombe will produce charges from Communist-supported Gizenga that the central government has sold out to the colonial interests. Adoula's prestige has not been helped by the fact that, so far at least, the U.N. has operated against Katanga entirely without the help of the central government's weak, undisciplined army. Adoula eagerly offered this help, but the U.N. declined.

Negotiating an agreement with Tshombe, tempering the bitterness left in Katanga, strengthening Adoula enough to enable him to cope with Gizenga, building a reasonably efficient and civilized administration in the Congo--all these are staggering tasks looming beyond the battle of Katanga. It is inconceivable that they can be carried out by the Congolese without outside help, which presumably will have to come from or through the U.N. Contemplating the travail of the Congo, which has a large Roman Catholic population, Pope John XXIII said last week: "Just as it was about to harvest, from political independence, the long-awaited fruits of comfort and peaceful effort, behold this blessed land is bathed in blood . . . We turn beseechingly to those who can and must intervene with disinterested advice, with light of right, to help in re-establishing peace in this country."

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