Transnational Anticommunist Networks in the Third World: Moise Tshombe and Katangan Independence during the Congo Crisis, 1960–64

Crisis gripped the Congo for six years following its independence on June 30, 1960.  Moise Tshombe has long been cast as the antagonist during this period. Contemporaries and scholars alike have blamed him for the country’s failure to achieve a “genuine independence,” one free from foreign control, claiming he carried out the secession of Katanga, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, and the ensuing war against leftist rebels on behalf of Western capitalists. This paper challenges such a characterization, arguing instead that Tshombe sought to implement his own vision for the country. Central to this was his anti-communism. As his writings and correspondence indicate, Tshombe viewed the socialist utopias that many Congolese politicians claimed independence would bring as fantastical, and desired instead to continue the development of the Congo that the Belgians had begun by partnering with the West and white Africa. He both drew his support from and became an important leader in a transnational anti-communist network that believed stamping out Marxist-inspired radicals was the only way to ensure meaningful development and prevent the chaos that had befallen the country from spreading across the rest of Africa. Delineating the agency and vision of Tshombe therefore not only informs our understanding of the Congo crisis, but also how non-state actors, especially those in the Third World, shaped the Cold War and decolonization on their own terms for their own interests.