What shaped future of Sabah, Sarawak
Published on: Sunday, August 14, 2022
By: David C C Lim and Syn Chew
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Coffin bearing the tooth relic of Lumuba (inset) given a ceremonial burial in Congo in June 2022.
The IGC Report purported to articulate among other constitutional matters, safeguards for the Borneo territories. However, it did not go to the extent of delineating the right of these territories – as prospective equal partners – to secede from the proposed federation despite a strong representation made to the Cobbold Commission for such right (Para. 47, Report of the Commission of Enquiry, North Borneo and Sarawak, June, 1962).
In response to the call for an “exit clause”, Lansdowne was reported to have replied that it was not necessary, as “any state voluntarily entering a federation has an intrinsic right to secede at will.”
Lansdowne
The above was contained in a letter to The Times from a C.W. Dawson of The Forge, Sussex, and the response to this letter, a Mr. P. Jenkins from the Colonial Office, clearly siding with Lansdowne, explained that “the Malaysians (sic) quickly made it clear that they would not tolerate any right to secede.” Both letters can be found on pages, 83 and 84 of “Sarawak, The Real Deal”, (copyright, 2013 Lina Soo).
The omission was to have ramifications which are acutely felt in Sabah and Sarawak to this day. If that right had instead been spelled out in writing, any negative consequences could have been easily preempted, and political headaches avoided altogether.
Lansdowne’s reply to the request for the right of secession carried with it a deep conviction on the thorny issue in the midst of which he found himself the year before. In September, 1961 he was the British Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs and was in the Congo where the secessionist state of Katanga was fighting the central Congolese government.
The British, together with the Belgians and the French were on the side of the secessionist state. Given the context, Lansdowne’s insistence in 1962 that a state could secede from a federation at any time is thus understandable. It was, however, a stand that in Congo (Leopoldville) in 1961 could be viewed as going against the state’s integrity and, was in fact lending assistance to an overt rebellion.
The region known collectively as the Congo in the fifties was split into the French colony known as Congo (Brazaville), and the Belgian colony next door as Congo (Leopoldville) or Belgian Congo.
Belgium had shamelessly exploited its colony for decades. Before its status as a colony, “The Congo Free State” had been the personal fiefdom of the Belgian King, Leopold II, who so mercilessly exploited the Congolese that the population of the country was reduced by half at the end of the period.
In Leopold’s Congo, natives were forced, on pain of amputation of limbs to bring in quotas of rubber latex which they had to tap and then carry smeared on their skin from the forest. Public opinion, due in no small measure to the work of Edward Morel and Roger Casement, forced the King to relinquish the colony to the state of Belgium. Exploitation however continued well into the fifties under the Belgian state; as the famous journalist and author, John Gunther, aptly puts it:
“The Belgian State not only extracts taxes from the corporations [in which it holds up to 40pc shares] but also dividends as well. The Congolese cow is milked both ends at once.” John Gunther, “Inside Africa”, (Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1955). The granting of independence by the French to Congo Brazaville stirred up the nationalist sentiments next door fomenting social unrest, and spurred the Belgians to hastily grant independence to their colony on the 30th, June, 1960.
The result was pandemonium. Belgium had kept the Congolese subdued and contented with some moiety of shared material wellbeing. They were however deliberately kept ignorant of the conditions in their parent country.
No Congolese was allowed to visit Belgium without permit, and few were granted the permit. The exuberance from the sudden release of authoritarian colonial rule swept away all social constraints together with the respect for law and order.
The new government headed by its charismatic Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, a beguiling orator described as a “firebrand nationalist”, was immediately beset by intractable economic and security issues. Abruptly cut off from Belgian funds, the country soon found itself with a mutiny of its armed forces on its hands. Disgruntled with the sudden drop in living standards, and resentful of its white officers who remained hostile to the black population, the soldiers rioted.
The riots prompted an exodus of Belgian civilians fleeing to safety. That gave Belgium the excuse to send troops in, ostensibly to restore law and order and to protect its people, but covertly to support the anti-Lumumba faction, and to protect its interests in the mineral-rich secessionist state of Katanga. Big power intervention was inevitable.
The UN sent a peace-keeping force to restore law and order in the state. Many Afro-Asian countries sided with Lumumba, and supported the UN initiative, with some volunteering their own troops.
The Conservative government of Harold Macmillan though reluctant to lend support to the UN , gave in to pressure from the Labour opposition.
Tunku Abdul Rahman Prime Minister of the newly independent Malaya, was quoted as saying enthusiastically that he would support the UN operation, “even to the extent of denuding his country of all its troops.”
Lumumba was disillusioned with the UN when it failed to expel the Belgian troops or quell the rebellion. His next move caused serious concern in the west. He called Khruschev and asked the Soviet Union for assistance.
Soviet advisors were soon seen in Leopoldville. The Cold War and the bitter life and death struggle between the ideological antagonists had arrived in Africa. Moves were made to get rid of Lumumba.
The ensuing coup against Lumumba, was carried out with the knowledge and complicity of the CIA, in particular, its Director, Allen Dulles, and with the consent of the President Eisenhower. American journalist-historian David Talbot in “The Devil’s Chessboard, Allen Dulles, the CIA and the Rise of America’s Secret Government,” (William Collins,2015) writes:
“[at the meeting of the National Security Council in August, 1960] Eisenhower gave Dulles direct approval to “eliminate” Lumumba. The person who took the minutes recalled that there was stunned silence in the room for about 15 seconds, then the meeting continued.”
Stephen Kinzer, another journalist, in his book, The Brothers, John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles and their Secret World War, (Times Books, 2013) describes the meeting where the order to “eliminate” Lumumba was given:
“Later that morning – it was from 11:10 to 11:23, according to the White House log – President Eisenhower held an “off the record meeting” with Allen, Richard Bissel and six other senior national security officials …….After becoming the first American President to give such order – so far as is known – Eisenhower met briefly with the departing ambassador for Ecuador, had lunch then adjourned to the Burning Tree Country Club in Maryland for eighteen holes of golf.”
In September, Lumumba was dismissed by the President, Joseph Kasavubu with the assistance of the troops led by Colonel Joseph Mobutu. The move was backed by the CIA (with five thousand dollars for Mobutu to buy his officers – Kinzer, 2013).
Lumumba was initially kept under house arrest, protected by the UN , but also surrounded by Congolese troops. Leaders of other independent African nations, like Nkrumah, were outraged, and protested loudly, and some advised Lumumbu to stay put and wait out the adversity.
However when he learned of the recognition of the Kasavubu government by the UN he escaped. It was later revealed that the MI6 had a hand in staging the “escape”, so that he could be killed. (BBC News, “MI6 and the Death of Patrice Lumumba,” 2nd April, 2013.)
Trying to make it overland to his supporters at Stanleyville he was so often stopped by villagers who rallied to him that his enemies soon caught up with him. At a river crossing he had made it to safety, but went back for his wife despite pleas for him to run. He was taken back to Leopoldville, beaten savagely, and flown to his enemies in Katanga. Lumumba’s fate was sealed.
Brutally beaten again in the plane, en route, he was eventually shot by a small firing squad of Belgian mercenaries and Katangese gendarmes, among whom was his enemy Moise Tshombe. His body was cut up and dissolved in acid.
Recently a tooth said to be his and kept by a Belgian mercenary was returned to Kinshasa (Leopoldville) capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire) by Belgium for burial. (The Guardian, 30th June, 2022).
Strong ideological and political forces set loose by the murder were moving events beyond UN control. In the General Assembly, UN Secretary –General, Dag Hammarskjold was roundly criticized for failing to protect Lumumba from his enemies. Chief among his detractors was Khrushchev. It would be easy for him to resign, Hammarskjold told the Assembly, but he preferred to carry out his duties. He then decided to go to Leopoldville to discuss aid to the new nation.
The stage was thus set for the extraordinary events that were to follow from the visit of the UN Secretary-General to the area and for the entrance of Lansdowne in the scene.
Dr Connor Cruise O’Brien, Hammarskjold’s trusted subordinate in charge of the UN peace-keeping force in the Congo, started an all-out offensive against Katanga without his knowledge or approval. The UN forces (ONUC) launched what they called, “Operation Morthor” (“twist and break” – in Hindi) against the Katangese forces in an attempt to expel the mercenaries from Katanga. That brought the UN into a direct conflict with Moise Tshombe. Vision of an all-out war between the UN and Katanga loomed.
Britain, Belgium and South Africa were behind Tshombe with their support. The Katangese Air force was provided with aircraft from France and Britain, notably, the Fouga Magister fighters, and controlled the air over the province.
Within the British government, there were Conservative backbenchers who supported the secessionist state, and who were part of the “Katanga Lobby” whose members include rich industrialists with commercial interests in the province.
George W. Ball, U.S. Under Secretary of State under President Kennedy, in his memoirs “The Past has Another Pattern,” (George J Mcleod Limited, Toronto, 1982) observed:
“The British government, under Prime Minister Macmillan, sympathized with Tshombe. It had its own colonial interests to consider…Key members of the British government saw an independent Katanga as a buffer against the more radical elements in Leopoldville.
“Furthermore, some of the more cynical of us suspected, rightly or wrongly, that certain members of the British government might have a financial interest in Tanganyika Concessions, which owned 30.78 percent of Katanga’s Union Meniere.” ( The Union Miniere du Haut Katanga was an Anglo-Belgian mining giant which operated in Katanga between 1906 and 1966.)
As a whole the Conservative government harboured a dislike for Hammarskjold. Britain was humiliated in the Suez Crisis when the Americans decided not to lend their support to the British and French attempt to take over the Canal with the help of Israel. Hammarskjold had sent a UN peace-keeping force to the area to keep the combatants apart.
Ball recounted the story told by the French Prime Minister that the French would have pushed on but for the British; “the French would have gone ahead even against American disapproval had not [Anthony] Eden succumbed to a protracted sobbing spell when faced with the displeasure.”
It would appear Britain never forgot the humiliation over Suez, and the role played by Hammarskjold in the national fiasco. Even so, by the late 50s, it could do little as Britain’s might was on the wane while America’s was on the rise. It was felt especially deeply by the British secret service:
“Collaboration between the MI6 and the CIA virtually collapsed after the Suez crisis and they found themselves increasingly in conflict, not just in the Middle East but in the Far East and Africa as well. Many of the old guard found it hard to accept that their wartime control of the Anglo-American intelligence relationship had long since given way to junior status.” (Peter Wright, “Spycatcher”, (Viking Penguin Inc., 1987))
Summoned to the FBI headquarters to explain the defections of Guy Burgess and Donald McLean, Wright was given a dressing down by the Director, J. Edgar Hoover:
The British secret service hobbled by lack of funds, and permanently weakened by its propensity to recruit from its “old boy” network, was by the late fifties overshadowed by its American counterparts. Espionage was no more a gentlemanly sport.
British prestige fell several more rungs when its attempts to join the European Common Market were rebuffed. Macmillan, in July, 1961 went to see General De Gaulle cap in hand to negotiate entry. He triumphantly told the General that he had “cleared it with Kennedy,” and the American President had given his blessings. It was a faux pas with De Gaulle who was not enamoured with the United States (Don Cook, Charles De Gaulle-A Biography, (Putnams, 1984))
By then was clear that Britain was content to play a secondary and subordinate role to that of the United States’ in foreign affairs, a political factotum, so to speak, and continues to do so today. Macmillan himself said as much when earlier he compared their relationship that of the Greeks and the dominant Romans, and willingly assumed the position of an acolyte to the new president.
The website ‘Intel Today’ on a page devoted to materials on the Hammarskjold tragedy published an enigmatic quote purportedly made by Harold Macmillan on 13th September, 1961:
“It will be necessary to find some way of pulling Hammarskjold up short.”
- In this series that will appear over the next few weeks, David CC Lim and Syn Chew look at what happened on the world stage when colonialism was being dismantled to understand the decisions that also had a bearing on the future of other colonies like British North Borneo (Sabah) and Sarawak.
- The views expressed here are the views of the writer David and Syn Chew and do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Express.
- If you have something to share, write to us at: [email protected]
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