Katanga's Threatened Giant

Though its mines provided the uranium for the Nagasaki and Hiroshima A-bombs, the durable giant known as the Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga had never been so preoccupied with explosives as it was last week. Outside the southern Katanga town of Kolwezi, unruly "gendarmes" in the service of Katanga's President Moise Tshombe had wired demolition charges to two huge Union Miniere power dams and threatened to push the plunger.

Destruction of the Kolwezi dams would unleash huge floods, wipe out at least one-fifth of Union Miniere's $600 million investment in Katanga and cut off 80% of the province's power supply. Some engineers doubted that the Katangese were expert enough to destroy the Kolwezi dams. And on the basis of the past track record of the Union Miniere (which is controlled by Belgium's all-pervading Societe Generale), many another observer was prepared to bet that the Kolwezi dams would survive.

Single Policy. In 2 1/2 years of Congo turmoil, Union Miniere has demonstrated a remarkable talent for survival. By paying Tshombe $30 million to $40 million a year in taxes, royalties and duties, and by shipping its exports out through Rhodesia and Portuguese Angola, Union Miniere throughout the Congo crisis has maintained its rank as the world's third biggest producer of copper and its biggest producer of cobalt. The company's sales did fall some 20% last year, but that was because of the slump in world metal markets. Union Miniere actually raised its production of copper from 308,000 tons in 1959 to 324,000 tons last year.

Union Miniere defends the fact that it has paid taxes to Tshombe rather than to the Congo's central government with the realpolitik argument that up to now Tshombe has been the effective power in Katanga. Last week, with Tshombe's star apparently sinking, the company began negotiating with the central government over future payments. To charges that the company has been meddling in Congolese politics. Union Miniere Director Herman Robiliart snaps: "The policy of Union Miniere is to produce copper."

Diversionary Actions. Just now the Union Miniere is not producing any copper; its installations at Elisabethville and Jadotville, now under U.N. control, have been temporarily damaged, and its Kolwezi facilities are occupied by the Katanga gendarmerie. But with its usual instinct for survival, the company has labored to appease both sides. At the big Jadotville copper and cobalt plant, Union Miniere officials thwarted the "scorched earth" tactics of Tshombe's men by directing them to relatively easily replaceable facilities which were damaged with much fanfare. Shortly later, the same officials, many of whom had long praised Tshombe, turned out to receive the oncoming U.N. troops.

Even Union Miniere, which might be expected to exaggerate in the hope of dissuading the Katangese from doing any more damage, says that the Jadotville plants could start rolling again in two to four months. Most outside observers figure that Union Miniere will again be producing full blast well before that--provided the Kolwezi dams are not blown.

*After the U.S.'s Kennecott Copper and Anaconda.

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