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The United Nations and the Congo Financial Crisis: Lessons of the First Year

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Robert L. West
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Extract

Its operation in the Congo has developed into a crucial test of the United Nationsframework for international collaboration. Under the authority of a Security Council mandate the United Nations has assumed an unprecedented range of military and civil responsibilities. To discharge these responsibilities, an executive agent (United Nations Organization in the Congo, ONUC) has been created under the direct supervision of the Secretary General. Within a month of its initiation, the Congo operation became the focus of a virulent stream of criticism from the Soviet bloc and other Member governments; it was soon evident that not only ONUC was under attack, but also the concept of a United Nations executive agent, the independence of the Secretariat, and die institution of die Secretary-General.

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Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , Fall 1961 , pp. 603 - 617
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1961

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References

1 See, in particular, “Introduction to the Annual Report of the Secretary General on the Work of the Organization 16 June 1959–15 June 1960,” General Assembly Official Records (15th Session), Supplement IA.

2 This paper contains no adequate description of ONUC civilian operations in a dozen other fields; interested readers can compensate for this distortion by referring to the monthly “Progress Report on United Nations Civilian Operations in the Congo.” An admirable account of some of these activities, with particular attention to operations of the World Health Organization, is the following: Calder, Ritchie, Agony of the Congo (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1961)Google Scholar.

3 Because this review is concerned with the role of ONUC in management of the financial crisis, the efforts of Belgian technicians, civil servants, and advisers will not receive the share of attention they deserve. The same is true of the group of capable and diligent Congolese university graduates who, at the Congo's accession to independence, were catapulted into the positions of greatest responsibility. In the field of financial and monetary affairs, unlike some other areas of civilian operations, the collaboration in Leopoldville among Congolese, Belgians, and ONUC staff was close and continuous. The record of actions described in Part II. below, is not a record of ONUC activity alone, but the result of collaborative efforts.

4 Or by its predecessor, the Ministry of Belgian Congo and Ruanda Urundi Affairs.

5 Congo public debt instruments compose the bulk of secondary liquidities of Congo financial institutions, public and private.

6 Belgian government support of $10 million for the Congo's ordinary budget had been granted in 1959, the first year since 1932 such a demand had been made on the Belgian Assembly.

7 Including the final tranche of central bank advances to the Congo government permitted by the legal ceiling on such advances. The ceiling was raised after independence.

8 Articles 2 and 11 of the Belgo Congolese Treaty of Friendship of June 29, 1960, which also provided for a Belgian technical assistance mission in the Congo, and contained military provisions. Signed but never ratified, the treaty was repudiated by Prime Minister Lumumba in July.

9 The basic principles are those which appeared in “Summary study of the experience derived from the establishment and operation of the Force: report of the Secretary General” (Document A/3943). The Secretary General recommended adoption of these principles at the thirteenth session of the General Assembly (1958), but no action was taken until the Security Council received the Secretary General's assurance that the principles would govern in the Congo case. The principles composed a code of procedure to govern the executive agent; among other subjects, they defined in operational terms the chain of command over the UN Force, the rights of the United Nations to decide on the disposition of its facilities, the requirement that the UN operation be separate and distinct from activities by host country authorities, and the role of the UN Force in internal conflicts within the host country—all of which subsequently became subjects of sharp dispute between the Secretary General and the Congo prime minister.

10 On the organization and powers of civilian operations in the Congo, see the Secretary General's memorandum of 11 August 1960 (Document S/44i7/Add. 5).

11 About 150 posts in the Finance Ministry central offices were occupied by Belgian administrative and technical personnel at independence; all of these Belgians had left the Congo by the end of August (fewer than ten had returned by the end of 1960). Allowing for consolidation of functions and promotion of Congolese, the survey showed that 65 essential administrative and technical positions could not be filled by qualified Congolese; these 65 positions constituted the primary requirement for recruitment abroad to put the central offices of the Ministry back into operation. About onethird were top-level administrative posts, the balance middle-level technicians.

12 For Stanleyville alone, debits and transfers chargeable against the government account at the central bank assumed a volume more than double the ceiling agreed by the provincial finance ministers' conference and nearly one-fourth of total outlays by all provincial governments and the central government. The transfers financed expenditures for purposes specifically reserved to the central government, e. g., payment of salaries and allowances to the Congo army.

13 See “Introduction to the Annual Report of the Secretary General on the Work of the Organization 16 June 1959–15 June i960,” General Assembly Official Records (15th session), Supplement IA.

14 Resolution passed at Fourth Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly on September 20, 1960 (Document A/L. 202/Rev. I). See also resolution adopted by the Security Council on July 22, i960 (Document S/4405)

15 Document S/4741.

16 A notable exception was the headway made in launching training programs, both of a formal and on the job character, for Congolese administrators and technicians at a scale substantially more ambitious than before independence.

17 This did not, however, significantly impair financial operations, where the technical personnel found it possible to collaborate on a basis of closer confidence than was characteristic of other phases of civilian operations.

18 See the Secretary General's exposition in “Introduction to the Annual Report of the Secretary General on the Work of the Organization x6 June 1959–15 June 1960,” General Assembly Official Records (15th session). Supplement I A.

19 See Ambassador Dayal's first progress report (Document S/4531).