Diplomacy and death in the sun: Ireland, the United Nations and the Congo

Ireland, the United Nations and the Congo

Author: Michael Kennedy and Art Magennis

ISBN-13: 978-1846825231

Publisher: Four Courts Press

Guideline Price: €45

In many respects, this book is a catalogue of woe, documenting the story of the UN’s disastrous mission in the Congo in the early 1960s, the Irish involvement in that mission, and the politics and lies that engulfed it. As a military and diplomatic history it has many strengths, principally its showcasing of original and highly revealing archival material, and an admirable clarity in providing a more robust and honest version of the mission than has been available to date.

This is partly due to the book’s joint authorship. Michael Kennedy has long been established as an impressive historian of Irish foreign policy, while his collaborator, Art Magennis, undertook two tours of duty in the Congo. Magennis was in Elisabethville, Katanga in 1961 as second-in-command of the Irish 35th battalion’s armoured car group. Katanga, a mineral-rich state backed by Belgian and other western mercenaries, proclaimed its independence from the Republic of Congo in July 1960 after the Congo had achieved independence from Belgium.

Few emerge from this saga with any credit. The authors are scathing about the level of deception and incompetence that marred the UN mission. It resulted in what is described as the most serious foreign policy challenge for Ireland since the second World War, as the Irish government struggled to come to terms with the reality of what was erroneously labelled a “peace enforcement mission”. This, the authors insist, was a euphemism “for war”, during which 26 Irish soldiers were killed, including nine at Niemba in November 1960.

From 1960 to 1964, just over 6,000 Irish troops served with Organisation des Nations Unies au Congo (ONUC), the Irish defence force’s first experience of active service since the end of the Irish civil war. This book focuses on events from July 1960 to December 1961, a crucial period for the UN that did much damage to its reputation. It also holds a particular interest for Ireland because Irish diplomat Conor Cruise O’Brien headed the UN mission in Katanga and Lt Gen Seán Mac Eoin became overall commander of the 20,000 UN troops in the Congo.

The crucial issue for ONUC was that “it lacked a clearly defined mission and followed a changing mandate”. Despite the somewhat saintly reputation of Dag Hammarskjöld, the UN secretary general, as one presiding over a mission to prevent civil war, he emerges from the UN archives as “a calculating, pro-Western and at times Machiavellian operator – a side of his personality rarely commented on by his biographers”.

The Irish troops were engaged in a number of small unit operations in Elisabethville during 1961; they were ill-equipped and lacked experience. Once they had been dispatched, the Irish government washed its hands of them beyond “declaratory rhetoric” to underline Ireland’s commitment to the UN at a time when Frank Aiken (minister for external affairs) and Seán Lemass ( taoiseach) were keen to expand Irish foreign policy and did not want to be seen as “disloyal to the UN”. This is described here as an idealism that was “commendable but ultimately naïve”.

Whether it was commendable idealism, however, is debatable; the government did not assert itself about the compromised mission or seek reports from Irish officers due to its concern about irritating Britain, France and Belgium as it anticipated EEC membership. The Department of External Affairs provided a monthly analysis of events in Congo for senior politicians but not for Irish officers actually in the Congo.

There is no shortage of detail about military tactics and equipment, as well as information on battalion structure and staffing issues, which appears quite dense and specialist, but the correspondence of the diplomats provides a fascinating dimension.

Cruise O'Brien was described by the Observer as "charming, slightly pugnacious", which, on the basis of his letters in the archive of the UN, was something of an understatement. The authors' initial charitable comment is that "his mood verged on arrogance", but Cruise O'Brien never remained on the verge when it came to his own ego and, as is later suggested, he displayed an attitude "not dissimilar to Congo's former Belgian overlords". He became more aggressive towards Katanga and believed "the people here will do nothing without being squeezed and to some extent frightened", a reminder not just of his preferences, but the implications of a UN resolution to authorise "the use of force as a last resort".

Operation Morthor was designed to seize vital points in Elisabethville and round up foreign personnel, but Cruise O'Brien and Mahmoud Khiara, the Tunisian diplomat in charge of the civilian operation in the region, also saw it as an opportunity to end Katanga's secession. Cruise O'Brien's version, as peddled in his book To Katanga and Back (1962) deliberately excluded critical events and underplayed his involvement with the operation by implying it was Khiari or Strure Linnér, "Officer in Charge" in the Congo with authority over all soldiers and civilians in ONUC, who took the lead. But the archival material belies this.

Notwithstanding Cruise O’Brien’s correct assertion in his book that there was a cover-up after Operation Morthor, he sent Kihari letters that are not mentioned in his book, which included the assertion “we want to finish it once and for all with ‘Katanga independent’ and it seems to us useless to beat about the bush”.

Archival material also illustrates that, despite assertions to the contrary, Hammarskjöld “knew in advance that the UN was about to take action in Katanga and he authorised Khiari to take that action”. Hammarskjöld also permitted O’Brien to act on his own initiative, which enabled Hammarskjöld “to exercise plausible deniability should Morthor go wrong”, which it certainly did.

Hammarskjöld not only misjudged the active resistance of the government of Katanga’s president, Moise Tshombe, but also the strength of opposing forces and, crucially, the “unsuitability for heavy fighting of UN troops equipped for purely police operations”. UN strategists also failed to take account of the recent departure of the Irish 35th battalion’s A company to Jadotville, where its members were dangerously isolated and “in a trap that would spring once Morthor began”.

The descriptions of the military operations from the Irish troops’ perspective are vivid, compelling and disturbing; the actions of the Indian troops in ONUC were described by Irish Trooper Mick Boyce as “pure murder”. The UN engaged in a cover-up and Cruise O’Brien and the UN began to spin the story to save face, which Frederick Boland, Ireland’s ambassador to the UN, was well aware of.

Cruise O’Brien was self-serving in maintaining he was “not qualified” to deal with violence as a “total citizen”. This was the same man who wrote a letter to Munongo to the effect that ONUC was prepared to execute prisoners, hardly appropriate for an international civil servant during a peacekeeping mission: “It suggests instead that O’Brien was being sucked deep into the lethal realities of Katangese vendetta politics.”

The Irish government still sought to keep its distance, but this was complicated by the situation of Irish troops in Jadotville. Increasing consternation at home led to Lemass taking a strong line with Aiken about the need not to be seen to be losing enthusiasm for Irish involvement, but there was the added complication of Cruise O’Brien’s increasingly untenable position. Britain’s ambassador to the UN, Patrick Dean, reported that the UN delegation told him “the best way to get rid of O’Brien [whom incidentally they all hate] is somehow to get beyond Aiken and to see that Lemass knows about the trouble”.

Aiken’s hand was forced, but the UN made him appear responsible for recalling Cruise O’Brien, who subsequently resigned from the department of external affairs, he maintained, to speak out more freely. He also claimed Britain wanted an independent Katanga and was bringing the UN into disrepute (relevant here was the fact that Katanga held 60 per cent of the world’s cobalt reserves and a large supply of uranium).

The UN mission remained in the Congo until 1964; great power scheming continued, during which ONUC troops were too frequently pawns, though it is suggested some of the hard lessons learned were later put into effect by the Irish troops in the Cyprus and Lebanon peacekeeping missions.

It is to be hoped, in time, that the truth of those missions will be equally well served by historians and veterans.