KATANGA CRISIS PDI 2020 ​ CONTENTS Letters from the Staff…………………………………………………………………………….....2 Committee Description…………………………………………………………………………….4 Historical Background……………………………………………………………………………...6 Current Situation………………………………………………………………………………….11 Questions for Consideration………………………………………………………………………13 Character List……………...……………………………………………………………………....14 References………………………………………………………………………………………...18 1 KATANGA CRISIS PDI 2020 ​ LETTERS FROM THE STAFF Dear Delegates, Welcome to PDI, I’m Adam Elkins and I’m one of your chairs for the Katanga Crisis committee. I’m a first-year student here at Princeton, originally from Chicago, and I’m planning on majoring at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, hopefully with certificates in Linguistics and Urban Studies--we’ll see how the next few semesters go first. I’m on the Model UN team here (what a surprise, I know), and I’ve been, counting high school, staffing and competing at Model UN conferences now for five years. Outside of that you can find me knitting at the Wilson knitting circle or working at Firestone library, albeit two floors underground. Here at the Katanga Crisis, we purposely chose a historical situation not often done in Model UN as a challenge, to see how you react to a hopefully novel committee. There’s absolutely no requirement, or even suggestion, to match historical events in history as they actually occur. I’m so excited to see what you come up with for our simulation, with creative solutions taking into account all the complexity of the crisis. Please feel free to email me at [email protected] with ​ ​ any questions about conference specifics, how committee will be run, etc. Good luck to you all, and I’ll see you on February 28th! Sincerely, Adam Elkins Dear Delegates, Hello! I’m Ritvik Agnihotri, one of your chairs for the Katanga Crisis committee. I’m a sophomore majoring in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering planning on getting certificates (minors) in Robotics Systems and Engineering Management. I have staffed and competed in more MUN conferences than I can count, and I am always impressed by the level of debate and passion I encounter at each new conference. Outside of MUN and school, I play the guitar and love to golf. Feel free to reach out to me to discuss anything–MUN or otherwise–at [email protected]! For the committee, we hope that our selection of the Katanga Crisis allows delegates to explore atypical solutions and resolution tactics that are rare to find in other MUN conferences. We look forward to engaging delegates in involved, advanced, and intricate plot lines. Please do not hold back from trying out unique and far-fetched solutions. I can not wait to meet you all and to see how the committee unfolds! Regards, Ritvik Agnihotri 2 KATANGA CRISIS PDI 2020 ​ Dear Delegates, I am very happy to be serving as your Crisis Director at this year’s PDI! I am a freshman and prospective politics major, looking to concentrate in political economy and earn a certificate in statistics and machine learning. I have been involved in MUN since high school and am currently on Princeton’s MUN team. When I am not pretending to plot world domination, I am also on the Executive Board of Princeton’s chapter of Young Democratic Socialists and a staff writer for the Princeton Progressive (aka The Prog), a left-wing student newspaper. In my free time, I enjoy vibing with my friends over multiple cups of berry tea and barbeque chips. As your Crisis Director, I am so can’t wait to see the intricate plots you will be hatching behind the scenes. The Cold War is my absolute favorite period of history, so I look forward to becoming absolutely immersed in it. With the involvement of ideologically opposed major world powers, business interests, and revolutionaries, there is so much room for creativity in this simulation. If there is a way to make the Cold War even more crazy than real life, I know you guys can do it. If you have any questions, you can contact me at [email protected]. See you in committee! Regards, Mary Alice Jouve 3 KATANGA CRISIS PDI 2020 ​ COMMITTEE DESCRIPTION It’s July 1960 and the Congo Crisis is in full swing. Having just declared independence from Belgium on June 30th, two weeks earlier, the country was already in disarray. Almost no mechanisms for a peaceful transfer of power were put into place, and within days after independence, the Belgian-created Congolese army, the Force Publique, ​ ​ had revolted against its white commanders and attacks on white civilians culminated in a mass exile. Belgian intervention had led to civilian deaths as they were not ready to relinquish full control, and a rift was already growing between Prime Minister Lumumba and President Kasa-Vubu.1 Then, on July 11th, the economically integral mining province of Katanga seceded from the new country to form the State of Katanga, led by the political party Confédération des associations tribales ​ du Katanga (CONAKAT) and its leader, Moïse Tshombe. He was backed up by their former Belgian overlords as they fought to remain in control of the region. This added to the chaos and violence beginning to engulf the region. This moment is where we leave you, delegates. This committee consists of stakeholders from the Congolese and Katangan governments, multiple ethnic groups, the military and mercenaries, Belgium, and even the United Nations. Together, you face the hard task of rectifying 1 Image Source: Congo Crisis 1960-64, Mercenary-wars.net, https://www.mercenary-wars.net/congo/map.html. ​ ​ 4 KATANGA CRISIS PDI 2020 ​ your opposing viewpoints and perspectives to create peace in the region, in whatever form that may take. Of course, however, many delegates may have personal motives that differ drastically from such lofty idealism… 5 KATANGA CRISIS PDI 2020 ​ HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The area that would become known as Katanga2 has long seen itself as separate from the larger Congo. Even before European imperialism and colonization reached into the area, the Yeke Kingdom, founded in 1856 by the warrior-king Msiri, gained control of Katanga--in fact, the name Katanga derives ​ from Msiri’s father-in-law.3 For a while, the entire large region of the Congo saw little European intervention due to a malaria-ridden, wet and hot environment combined with hostile local populations. However, a quarter century later, European intervention in the region began in earnest. At a 1876 conference, King Leopold II of Belgium formed the International ​ Association for the Exploration and Civilization of Central Africa, often known as the International ​ African Association, created with European explorers as members and with a stated purpose to “discover” the already-populated land in the African interior and “civilize” its people. Under this guise of charitibility, Leopold began to essentially annex the Congo for himself. The Belgian king hired a renowned British explorer, Sir Henry Morton Stanley, who had previously traveled throughout the Congo for the British without attracting much support from his own country. He shifted allegiances to King Leopold II, and to gain control of the region he 2 Creative Commons 3 Petit, Pierre. “Petit, P. 2005. Luba 17th & 18th Centuries / Msiri Yeke Kingdom.” Academia.edu - Share Research, ​ ​ ​ www.academia.edu/34111606/Petit_P._2005._Luba_17th_and_18th_centuries_Msiri_Yeke_kingdom. 6 KATANGA CRISIS PDI 2020 ​ followed a similar strategy to how the United States treated the Native American tribes. Stanley signed countless “treaties” with local leaders, written in a language they could understand, giving up rights to their land with horribly inadequate compensation. Following this initial contact, Stanley built military posts and a road network to keep control. In this way, the Congo lost its independent status to European imperialism. Around the same time of Stanley’s expeditions, Leopold was campaigning in Europe for the other European powers to recognize himself as the rightful ruler of the Congo.4 This was happening at the start of the Scramble for Africa, a short period at the end of the nineteenth century when European powers all fought one another for control of large sections of the continent. Thus, Leopold wishing to control such a large, central area was, needless to say, controversial. For years he played various monarchs off one another, and even convinced the American president, Chester A Arthur, to support his claim. He founded another organization, this time specifically as a governing body under his control, called the International Association of the Congo (AIC). As a result, at the Berlin Conference, in November 1884, where European powers partitioned Africa among themselves, 905,000 sq mi of Congolese territory was given to the AIC, explicitly under the personal rule of Leopold and without any connection to the Belgian state. This was by far the larger portion of the unclaimed area, and the AIC guaranteed free trade for all European powers and the 4 Creative Commons 7 KATANGA CRISIS PDI 2020 ​ abolition of slavery (the first one would happen, the second not so much). Thus was formed the Congo Free State (CFS). Still, however, throughout this conquest, Katanga under the Yeke Kingdom and Msiri maintained its independence. It controlled important trade routes between Africa’s east and west coasts and was a major player in the international slave trade, and as such was quite powerful. However, King Leopold II wanted full control over the entire Congo Basin and the CFS under his control still didn’t constitute this entire area. And given Katanga’s massive mineral deposits, particularly that of copper ore,5 it faced the resource curse, also known as the paradox of plenty: countries with the most natural resources are often subject to the most violence and turmoil, over the control of those very resources. Following this pattern, Leopold sent William Stairs to lead the aptly named Stairs Expedition to conquer Katanga for him.