Another Round in Katanga?

Although for long months the silence there has left too little to the imagination, one’s full apprehension of the disintegration in Katanga awaits the tattered fact, the rare dispatch, that eludes the censors. One such dispatch recently (interred in the New York Times’ obituary page) reported that the United Nations command had banned all civilian traffic from the road between Elisabethville and the Rhodesian border. Travelers could proceed only by joining a military convoy, protected by armored cars, which made a single round trip daily. This drastic action was necessary because the area is “bandit infested” and because “highway robbery and other violence is common on the road.”

Here in two and a half column inches of presumptive obituary were insights into three key aspects of the Katanga tragedy. First, and perhaps the most portentous, the United Nations has extremely limited control of Katanga.

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Chris Scott

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Although for long months the silence there has left too little to the imagination, one’s full apprehension of the disintegration in Katanga awaits the tattered fact, the rare dispatch, that eludes the censors. One such dispatch recently (interred in the New York Times’ obituary page) reported that the United Nations command had banned all civilian traffic from the road between Elisabethville and the Rhodesian border. Travelers could proceed only by joining a military convoy, protected by armored cars, which made a single round trip daily. This drastic action was necessary because the area is “bandit infested” and because “highway robbery and other violence is common on the road.”

Here in two and a half column inches of presumptive obituary were insights into three key aspects of the Katanga tragedy. First, and perhaps the most portentous, the United Nations has extremely limited control of Katanga.