the Congo apart, three critical circumstances – the death of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, a second UN Security Council Resolution, and the increased activity of the ANC – resulted in events unfolding quickly.
In December 1960, through deception and double-dealing, Patrice Lumumba, along with two others (Maurice Mpola and Joseph Okito), were arrested by Colonel Joseph Mobutu and President Kasavubu of the Leopoldville government and delivered into the hands of his tribal and political opponents, resulting in the announcement of their deaths on 13 February by the Katangese minister of the interior, Godefroid Munongo. Seven days later, on 21 February 1961, the UN Security Council adopted a new resolution allowing the ONUC to use force to restore order and take whatever steps necessary to prevent civil war erupting in the Congo. The UN resolution also demanded the immediate evacuation of all mercenaries and other foreign military and political advisors. The authority for ‘the use of force, if necessary, as a last resort’ was a mandate to act, changing the nature of the UN forces’ rules of engagement from passive peacekeepers (opening fire as a last resort and only if fired upon) to active peace enforcers, allowing a more robust, vigorous, proactive posture. Finally, under Mobutu, the ANC increased their activities, particularly along the internal provincial borders of Kasai and Katanga.
Into this turmoil, Irish Lieutenant General Sean McKeown was appointed Force Commander of ONUC in January 1961. From early to mid-1961, the period following Lumumba’s death, order continued to further deteriorate throughout the Congo. Late in August, Lumumba’s replacement, Cyrille Adoula, was elected as the new prime minister of the Congo. He immediately announced his intention to end the Katangan secession effort and special legislation was enacted to allow the government to expel foreign officers and mercenaries. To achieve this, Adoula requested the assistance of the UN force sent in to keep the peace and maintain order. In effect he was requesting a more partisan participation than the UN force and its contributing members had anticipated. He wished them to become more measurably immersed in the internal fighting than they had intended and take on a deeper dimension in the developing drama. Had the innocent UN been manipulated unwittingly towards mission creep, allowing an escalation of its role, or was it simply that this was what maintaining order required? For sure, order within Congo could not be restored until the Katangan secession threat was addressed, and order within Katanga could not be resolved until the menace of the mercenary threat was addressed.
The First Battle of Katanga – September 1961
In the likely event of coming into harm’s way, the first action required is to remove the source of danger. Before daybreak on 28 August 1961, the UN’s Irish, Swedish and Indian battalions were out in force and active in Élisabethville, their objective to pre-emptively oust the foreign military and white mercenaries from the Katangese Gendarmerie’s order of battle. The logic of the surprise UN offensive was to outwit them now rather than having to overpower them later. Operation Rampunch, which became known as ‘Operation Rum Punch’ by the English-speaking peacekeeping forces, was the UN’s first direct response to the ever increasing belligerent behaviour of the Katangese. The UN was taking the mercenary fuel from the Katangan fire to contain the Congolese flames.
All mercenary, foreign military and paramilitary forces were targeted for arrest. It was an attempt to reduce the kinetic-effect potential of Tshombe, his Katangan regime and his mercenary-led military force. By defusing his military power and prowess it was intended to cause him to seek a negotiated settlement more earnestly. For the previous six months (January to July 1961) peace talks had – frustratingly – not yielded the desired results and Irishman Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien, appointed as UN Special Representative in Katanga by UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, was charged to deliver a solution to the reintegration of Katanga back into the Congo. Thwarted by Tshombe’s evident determination to keep Katanga independent, Cruise O’Brien was equally – and as stubbornly – determined to bring the secession to an end. Tshombe and his overseas advisors were hoping to outlast the UN initiative, knowing the UN for its part was in the early days of pioneering its peacekeeping policies, making them match their on-the-ground coordination of military, political and diplomatic strategies. The Katangan secession was backed by European commercial patronage, whose own interests lay in ensuring that Katanga’s wealth did not fall into the hands of Congolese nationalists. A more forceful posture was required to demonstrate that the UN was serious about ending Katanga’s succession and Operation Rampunch was launched.
Well organised and effective, the UN caught many of Élisabethville’s mercenaries off-guard with no casualties suffered or inflicted and very few shots fired. The pattern was the same throughout Katanga and initially it was a resounding success; all of the operation’s military objectives were achieved, the majority of the mercenaries were captured, Godefroid Munongo, the interior minister, was placed under house arrest, and control of a number of installations was wrestled from Gendarmerie hands. In staging a show of strength, the UN had demonstrated their willingness to forcibly implement the resolution of 21 February and – temporarily at least – seized the initiative from Tshombe.
Meanwhile, on 4 August in north Katanga, another Irish unit, the 1st Infantry Group, took over command of Kamina Base. Their tasks were airfield defence, defending the base and its approaches, general administration of the base and protection of the Kilubi Dam and its hydroelectric station, located some sixty miles north east. In pursuance of that task, B Company, 1st Infantry Group, had taken over Kilubi on 16 August. Lieutenant Michael Minehane (later Major General and Force Commander, United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNIFYCYP) 1992–94) remembers:
Things took a serious turn from the 19 August onwards when headquarters in Leopoldville organised what was known as Operation Rampunch. This was [the] UN’s plan to haul in all the white mercenaries in Katanga, detain them and repatriate them. For us, that required the immediate setting up of a Detention Centre in Kamina and it also meant that we must be prepared for the hostility which it would give rise to in the Kamina area. The Detention Centre was prepared and our defences were upgraded in anticipation of the inevitable reaction that it would provoke. Detention started in all of Katanga on 28 August and within days we were hosting 150 men [as prisoners]. Tension mounted in Kamina and in the rest of Katanga. Detaining that many rogues created problems for us and we were happy to see a couple of Sabena 707s airlift them out of Kamina between the 9 and 14 September. By 14 [September] we had serious concerns about the intentions of the gendarmerie battalion in Kaminaville.
Our unit had its first experience of action within days. Nobody in their wildest imaginings could have forecast that an attack would come from the air, but it did! A [Katangese Air Force (FAK)] Fouga jet appeared over the base and indicated to our observation tower that he intended to attack us. The pilot discussed likely targets and his general intentions with the staff of the tower. We had to consider some form of defence against this unexpected threat. The best we could come up with was our Vickers MMGs, which were mounted by our two artillery officers in an anti-aircraft mode for which they were never intended and ill suited. Nonetheless, fire was directed at the Fouga on its next visit. In all, the Fouga paid us about six visits during which he strafed airport buildings and defensive positions. On his second visit to us the pilot indicated that he intended to do damage, that the joking was over. Sure enough he selected a DC-3 on the runway and offloaded his hardware on it. He scored a bull’s-eye and the plane went up in flames. This was pretty serious and we were left to ponder the future without defence against a developing and serious threat. He represented our very first taste of warfare, our first shots fired in anger. It was truly a benign introduction to fighting but for any soldier it was a singular experience.
Katanga Gendarmerie on mobile patrol.
Courtesy of the Military Archives, Dublin
Sporadic fighting had broken out in Élisabethville [and during] the following days there [were] heavy exchanges of fire in the city. At Kamina [Base] we were aware of rumblings to the south in Kaminaville. Troops were assembling and their area of interest
