Newspaper Page Text
FEBRUARY 1, 1963
THE MAROON TIGER
Page 7
From The Nation’s Press
FROM THE NATIONAL REVIEW
The Third World War:
Citizens of The Unworld
James Numham
The
United
^/United
^ denied
/
spokemen of the
Nations and the
States have always
that the objective of
the UN Kantanga's seces
sion. They have invariably
insisted that the fighting
started in September 1961
by direct acts of Kantangese
aggression, and that UN
troops opened fire solely in
self-defense. It is easy to
understand why this has been
the official position. No UN
resolution authorizes the ob
jective of ending the seces
sion. With respect to those
objectives (such as “elimi
nation of mercenaires”) that
are named - whether legiti
mately or not - in the govern
ing resolution of February
21, 1961, no use of force is
authorized except to stop
civil war.
After a study of the avail
able documents and a survey
in the Congo, Prof. Ernest
van de Haag, in the report
on the Kantanga fighting that
he submitted last March to
the American Committee to
Aid Kantanga Freedom
Fighters, concluded: “Abun
dant positive evidence indi
cates that the alleged (UN)
aims were but public rela
tions disguises. The actual
objective of the UN attack
was to force Tshombe's sur
render and to establish the
rule over Kantanga bu the
Central Government.'' This
conclusion - which brought
salvos of UN and State De
partment vilification down on
both Prof, van den Hagg and
the Committee-has now been
totally confirmed.
Blowing the Lid Off
Conor Cruise O’Brien-the
“intelligent, cultured, arro
gant, restless and am
bitious’’ (I quote from Smith
Hempstone’s Rebels, Mer
cenaries and Dividends)
Irish journalist, historian
and diplomat who headed the
UN mission in Kantanga from
spring to December 1961 -
has just blown the lid off the
Katanga affair, blown it right
through the roof. No source,
obviously, could be more
firsthand. O’Brien has writ
ten it all down in a witty,
wicked book called To Ka
tanga and Back, published
Novemebr 12, in England.
Lonf excerpys were printed
(Nov. 4, 11, 18) in the Sun
day Telegraph (London).
O'Brien shows that the UN
and State Department ver-
sions-including the official
public documents-are plain
lies on the crucial points.
The key UN document
S/4940, issued 14 September
1961 from Leopoldville while
Hammarskjold was there in
personal command, gave the
official account of tne out
break of the previous day’s
fighting as occasioned by
Katangese arson in a UN
garage and gunfire on UN
troops. S/4940 was simply
and flatly false, and knqwn
to be false by those who
issued it. The fighting, in
truth, “had its origin in
Katanga-Eurpoean resis
tance to a planned action by
the UN”; i.e., the UN was
the military aggressor. This
document, and the subse
quent official statements,
were also “false political
ly, for the great political
objective of the UN was-
and necessarily remained-to
end the secession of
Katanga.”
The UN operational plan
had, in fact, been concerted
in O’Brien's own office in
Elisabethville by Mahmoud
Khiari, deputy of Steure Lin-
ner, then UN chief for the
entire Congo, and Fabry, a
somewhat mysterious U.S.
citizen of Czech origin who
was legal adviser to the UN
Congo operation. The plan
had been given, moreover, a
code name of itself suffi-,
ciently revealing: Morthor.'
O’Brien, after leaving that
curious word tantalizingly
suspended for some dozens
of pages, explains: “Mor
thor is a Hindi word. It does
not mean ‘Sound the alarm;
there is arson in the gar
age’ or ‘Let us now assist
the provincial authorities to
maintain order.’ It means
‘smash.’ ”
O’Brien, who is present
ly vice-chancellor of the
University of Ghana, was
perfectly willing to help
smash Katanga. But he re
fuses to take the sole rap
for the UN’s dismal per
formance. In an Irish sort
of way he seems above all
contemptous of the shoddy
hypocrisies and lies of the
cut-rate Marchiavellis in thef
UN and Foggy Bottom.
The Katange plan was not
the product of any of the
UN’s legally relevant insti
tutions. Neither the Security
Councils nor the General
Assembly nor the Secre
tariat as a whole nor the
Congo Advisory Committee
knew anything about it. The
important telegrams from
the field were shown to none
of these bodies. )“The Con
go Advisory Committee ...
seemed, in the light of the
telegrams, more like a group
of innocent bystanders being
taken for a guided tour,”)
Command was exercised
by what O'Brien calls the
“Congo Club.” This consist
ed of Dag Hammarskjold
himself plus “an inner core
of Americans round Mr.
Hammarskjold (principally
Andrew Cordier, Ralph Bun
dle and Hans ?? Wieschhoff),
with an outer casing of neu
trals, mainly Afro-Asians.
(The Communists were) not
represented in the Club, and
care was taken to see that no
member of the Secretariat
who was a citizen of a Com
munist state saw the Congo
telegrams.”
The Hammarskjold Way
And what, dear reader,
was the motive of this dis
crimination, which perhaps
surprises you on first hear
ing?
“This state of affairs was
justified on the following
grounds:
“A Soviet citizen, it was
argued, was in an entirely
different position from men
like Cordier, Bunche and
Wieschhoff. They could re
sist pressure from Washing
ton; he could not resist re
sist pressure from Moscow.
They were governed by the
high, Hammarskjoldian con
ception of loyalty to the
international organization
alone; he (the Soviet repre
sentative, any Soviet repre
sentative) was ideologically
committed ... to the politi
cal outlook prevailing in one
group of countries and he
would be obliged, in terms
of that outlook, to continue,
while serving the UN, to give
his first loyalty to the cause
of Communism.”
Our Comment
Freedom My Kind
There is an element on this campus (composed of
certain members of various organizations) that has
some very strange ideas on freedom-that type of “free
dom for all” that Americans had died for over the past
200 years.
These individuals do not represent one faction alone
nor does any organization advocate this.
These people would preserve our freedom by taking
away one of our most precious freedoms—freedom of
speech. They hold that the safest way to keep our coun
try free is to deny the freedom of speech to all who do
not go along with their ideas.
“It was speakers of thy type (leftist) that paved the
“It was speakers of'tms type (leftist) that paved the
way for the Communists’ take-over in Cuba,” one Rev-
olution-it was a group of leftists and radicals who vio
lently disagreed with the legal government in the colonies.
Remember the Man in biblical times Who preached a new
world philosophy and chased the money-changing repre
sentatives of the established order out of the temple?
He was a radical.
Are your principles and convictions so weak that you
are afraid to let someone challenge them and compare
them with other philosophies? Are you afraid to let
people see the other side of the coin? If you are right,
people will recognize the fact no matter what they are
exposed to.
You don’t fight Communism with communistic methods.
As long as people are free to speak up and support what
they believe is right, this nation will remain on firm
ground.
-1
SCEF News Report
NEW ORLEANS, La. — “Three children were cut by
flying glass and twenty-five narrowly escaped death when
their church and parsonage were bombed in Birmingham,
Alabama, on December 14. The Federal Government must
help to stop this violence and bring the culprits to justice.”
worth is a director of SCEF,
This was part of a tele
gram sent to U.S. Attorney
General Robert F. Kennedy
by Methodist Bishop Edgar
A. Love, Baltimore, presi
dent of the Southern Con
ference Educational Fund
(SCEF), after the latest act
of terrorism in Birmingham.
The bishop urged Kennedy
to “act at once.”
The bombing was the third
in recent years at Bethel
Baptist Church, formerly
pastored by the Rev. FredL.
Shuttlesworth, militant inte
gration leader in Alabama.
The minister and his family
barely missed being killed
or seriously injured in the
first bombing in 1956.
The Rev. Mr. Shuttles-
a Southwide integrationist
organization with headquart
ers in New Orleans. He has
sparked the civil-rights
drive in Birmingham as
president of the Alabama
Christian Movement for
Human Rights (ACMHR).
Mr. Shuttlesworth called
the most recent bombing “an
act of vengeance and retalia
tion.” He said the segrega
tionists are “frustrated be
cause of the gains being made
by Negroes in Birming
ham.”
“We have been having
many victories and Negroes
are going places where they
never went before,” he
pointed out. “Our economic
withdrawal from the down
town area has been effective.
The Federal Court is about
to decide the suit to open
the schools. The parks are
closed because of a court
order to integrate them.
“More Negroes are re
gistering to vote and are
voting. The Negro vote was
crucial in changing the form
of city government from
three-man rule to control
by a nine-man council and
mayor. The present city
commissioners, including
Police Commissioner Bull
Connor, are angry over this
because it will mean loss of
power for them.
“Negroes have suffered
more in Birmingham than
in any other spot on the
globe outside of South Africa.
I have always been a sym
bol of the Negro freedom
movement here and that is
why the church where I used
to be pastor has been bomb
ed again.