Under the Gun

This time the Congo tragicomedy had the locale to fit its zany plot. It was little Coquilhatville, a cluster of dilapidated huts and buildings on the hottest, wettest spot along the whole 2,900-mile Congo River. Here the Congolese dignitaries had chosen to gather for their latest round of unity talks, perhaps on the assumption that the sheer discomfort of the place would force an early settlement.

The 280 sweating delegates and aides were gaveled to order by President Joseph Kasavubu. But order is not easy to come by in the Congo. The talks had hardly begun before Katanga's proud, stubborn Moise Tshombe exploded with wrath at a deal that Kasavubu had made with Tshombe's archenemy, the U.N. The deal: to help clear foreign military advisers--including Tshombe's--from Congo soil.

Storming out of the crowded hall, the 41-year-old Tshombe ordered his plane prepared for departure. Next day, he called in the press, fell to his knees to demonstrate for the benefit of photographers how "vassal" Kasavubu "bowed to the U.N." Then he announced he was leaving for home, and that the other Congo leaders were not worth talking to anyway. "For the last ten months, while we in Katanga have been working to build up our country, they have been loafing around chasing power, cars and women," sneered Tshombe. With that, Tshombe headed for the airport, where his private DC-4 waited.

But the local garrison of Congolese soldiers had no intention of letting one man wreck the talks--particularly the one with most of the money. As Tshombe and his aides drove up, a squad of angry, shouting troops with submachine guns hauled them from their limousines and pushed and cuffed them back to the airport terminal. Soon several of Kasavubu's cabinet ministers were on the scene, urging Katanga's boss to return to the talks. "If that's the way you run the Congo, good luck," retorted Tshombe. He sat down in an old wicker armchair and refused to budge or even to eat until he was freed. "I am a prisoner," he declared hotly.

Kasavubu's army commander. Major General Joseph Mobutu, flew in from Leopoldville and dropped by to greet Tshombe jauntily. "What's all the trouble?" he inquired pleasantly of the sullen prisoner, who sat sipping soda water as six of his Belgian aides were loaded into a plane and flown back to U.N. headquarters for questioning.

After two foodless days in the wicker chair, Tshombe agreed to accompany one of Kasavubu's aides back to town. But he insisted stoutly he would not return to the conference table. Mobutu's soldiers just shrugged. They surrounded Coquilhatville with machine guns and roadblocks, blandly advised all the politicians that not a single one of them would leave town until they reached some kind of agreement.

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