Congo (Hansard, 7 February 1963)

§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Peter Thomas)
I believe that it would be for the convenience of the House if I were briefly to explain why we feel it right to ask for a supplementary sum of over £4 million under Class Vote 2, for the purchase of United Nations bonds and if there were to be a short debate. With the leave of the House, I will reply briefly, at the end of the debate, to the points raised.
I also believe that some of my hon. Friends will initiate debates on other subjects.
At the time of the 16th Session of the General Assembly, in 1961, the United Nations was heading rapidly towards bankruptcy. It was expected that by the end of the year its deficit would reach 100 million dollars. It was in these circumstances that the Secretary-General made his proposal for the issue of United Nations bonds. Her Majesty's Government voted for the resolution authorising the Secretary-General to issue bonds and on 29th January last year my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal announced Her Majesty's Government intention to buy bonds within a maximum of 12 million dollars.
Parliament passed the Appropriations Bill containing token provision and authority for our purchase of bonds at the end of July last year and the bonds were bought in October out of moneys provided by the Civil Contingencies Fund. The first repayment of principal and interest has already been made by the United Nations to us in accordance with the terms of the resolution and this Vote is, therefore, required to enable repayment to be made to the Civil Contingencies Fund.
As the House knows, the bond issue was intended to meet the crisis in the organisation's finances caused by the failure of so many countries to pay their 678 assessed contributions. Her Majesty's Government participated in the bond issue because, despite reservations we may have had about certain aspects of United Nations policies, we remain one of its most loyal supporters. The bonds were the only means of saving the United Nations from bankruptcy and impotence. It was not in our interest or that of the world that that should happen and we regarded it as a duty on ourselves, as upon other Governments, to contribute to it.
In deciding the amounts and the timing of our purchases, we took into account the cash requirements of the organisation at the time and the extent to which other countries had contributed. In October last, when we made the purchase, it was estimated that by the end of 1962 the organisation's deficit would be almost 200 million dollars. At that time 54 members had bought bonds or had announced their intention to do so; and 45 million dollars worth had been purchased. These countries included three members of the Commonwealth—Australia, Canada and New Zealand—which, between them, had already purchased an amount almost equal to the total United Kingdom commitment.
The two considerations which attached to the United Kingdom undertaking to purchase had been met and we therefore honoured our pledge. The present situation is that bonds to the value of over 120 million dollars have so far been purchased and if all the pledges made are fulfilled it is anticipated that the total will be 170 million dollars.

§ Mr. John Biggs-Davison (Chigwell)
My hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs knows that when my hon. Friends and I tabled an Amendment to reduce by £4 million the Foreign Office Supplementary Estimate in connection with the purchase of United Nations bonds we were not making our first protest. We made our protest from the very beginning and we have held to our position.
My hon. Friend has described how it comes about that the House is now asked to fall in with his suggestion. He says that this bond issue was necessary if the United Nations was to be saved from bankruptcy. I would inform him that there are thousands of taxpayers 679 in this country who are unwilling to relieve the financial bankruptcy of the United Nations until it shows some sense of recovery from its own moral bankruptcy. This is the burden of our protest.
I find in my constituency—and I have no doubt that other hon. Members find similar feelings in their constituencies—the greatest concern at the actions of the United Nations in the Congo and Katanga. I addressed a branch of the United Nations Association in my constituency some time ago, and at that meeting there was revealed to me the most deep anxiety and grave concern at what had recently been happening in the third United Nations offensive against Katanga.
I am grateful for this opportunity of raising the matter because, whatever hon. Members opposite may say about it, this subject deeply worries a great number of people in this country, without distinction of party. I appreciated the introductory remarks of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. I am sorry for him, however, because he has come here to defend the indefensible. Britain's Congo contributions, whatever the niceties of accounting, have gone towards the undermining of British and European interests.
They have gone towards the subversion of good African friends of the West. They have gone towards unscrupulous and cruel attempts to destroy a small African State and its nationalist leaders. British financial contributions which have been devoted to the Congo effort of the United Nations have done as much towards these undesirable ends as the ammunition which the Admiralty supplied to the United Nations forces or the transport aircraft supplied by the Royal Air Force.
I have no personal interest in the matter, although I have been flatteringly described in a weekly organ as one of the founder-members of the Katanga Lobby. I have no shares in Tanganyika Concessions or in any other African concern, but I would say this about Union Minière. It is really to Union Minière that Katanga owes the prosperity that has become, literally, the envy of others, and if we proceed on the not unreasonable assumption that this great concern pur- 680 sues its own business interests, what does the Union Minière want?
I submit that it wants peace and stability, in which prosperity can grow and social progress can proceed, and I fully concede that it is up to African leaders to see that so great an enterprise contributes fully to African development by taxation or by whatever other means these leaders have in their power. Whatever the future of Union Minière, it is certainly a rich European legacy to advancing Africa.
The concern of Union Minière has surely been peace. Let those who attribute to it all sorts of conspiratorial undertakings, and condemn it without very much knowledge or consideration, reflect whether there might not be other interests which, in contradistinction to Union Minière, have profited or sought to profit from war in Katanga. When one asks who may have benefited from three acts of aggression—the turning of Elisabethville into a "Budapest", the bombardment of hospitals, communications and utilities, and the slaughter of innocent civilians, African and European, one should look for those who would profit either by an "Abadan" of the European interest there, or, in times of over-production of copper, by bringing its mines to a stop.
I will not delay the House by going into this in great detail, but I would commend to hon. Members a speech that is in the Congressional Record of the United States of 12th December—

§ Mr. H. Wilson (Huyton)
By Senator Dodd.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
Not by Senator Dodd, as the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) says from a sedentary position, but by Representative Bruce, a member of the House of Representatives who, by penetrating research, voluminously documented, has disclosed possibilities and ramifications of hideous fascination, which have in large measure been confirmed as to the facts, although obviously he could not comment on the conclusions by the Belgian Foreign Minister, M. Spaak, who is certainly not pro-Tshombe, in a speech in the Belgian Senate. Hon. Members can find these sources for themselves if they are interested.
681 It appears from these allegations—which at least are worthy of investigation by those who are so anxious to investigate European interests in this part of the world—that in June, 1961, a group of private Swedish and American financiers formed and incorporated in Switzerland a new company—to do what? To exploit the natural resources of Katanga. These were hard-headed businessmen. They could only have formed the company on the assumption that the existing state of affairs in Katanga would soon be broken. This company, as I understand—and if I am in error I shall be glad to be corrected—was formed in June. 1961, and in the autumn of 1961 there followed the second United Nations offensive.
I think that sometimes too much emphasis is placed on the economic interests at stake in Katanga. There are also important strategic interests of concern to those who want to subvert British, European and Western interests in the whole of Southern Africa; those who want, above all, to discredit the idea that a partnership between Africans and Europeans can be practised, and not merely preached.
The base of Kamina in Katanga is a key position from which the subversion, or even the conquest, of other territories of Southern Africa could conveniently take place. Even at this moment, armies are being trained in the Congo for the invasion of Portuguese territories—the armies of Holden and Andrade. If it is possible, I should like to hear from the Under-Secretary whether the United Nations, which is concerned with peace and security, is doing anything to request the Government in Leopoldville to bring the training of those armies to an end.
Shortly before the House rose for the Christmas Recess, I put it to the Leader of the House that many of us would not go quietly or comfortably away for our holidays if we thought that Christmas was to be desecrated by a third United Nations offensive in Katanga. It was on Christmas Eve that that offensive began—that offensive whose professed purpose was to secure freedom of movement for United Nations forces—

§ Mr. Humphry Berkeley (Lancaster)
Who does my hon. Friend think started it?

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
It is difficult to distinguish how the fighting began. The communiqué issued by the Katanga authorities will give one picture, and that issued by the United Nations will give a slightly different one.
I will give it to my hon. Friend, if he wants it, that the fighting began on the side of the Katanga gendarmerie who were at the time without those European officers who kept better discipline than some other officers. But, from an incident that should have been stopped, and which the British Consul and others made valiant efforts to stop, arose the third United Nations offensive.
We heard a lot about the securing of freedom of movement. That sounded plausible to many, but it became very clear that a full-scale campaign had been launched once again in full contravention of the Security Council's express assurance—which was quoted yesterday in another place by my noble Friend the Foreign Secretary—that United Nations Forces will not be a party to, or in any way intervene in, or be used to influence the outcome of, any internal conflict, constitutional or otherwise. I freely admit that there are other hon. Members who are greater enthusiasts for the United Nations than I am. I am sure that they will be the first to appreciate how tragic it is that an organisation dedicated to peace and self-determination should make war to deny selfdetermination—and particularly tragic for us in these islands that Irish troops and Commonwealth troops should have been involved. It is not surprising that grave misgivings have been expressed in the Dail and Senate across the water. When one considers the history of Britain and Ireland, and thinks, perhaps, of the "Black-and-Tans" who were used to prevent, or to try to prevent, the secession of Ireland, one feels sorry that Irish soldiers should have been put in such a position.
It is tragic that Commonwealth troops have been involved, but I say with pride that none or hardly any of these serious allegations against the conduct of the United Nations forces referred to the forces of the Irish Republic or of any Commonwealth country. But not only in the latest offensive, but in the offensives that preceded it, there have been levelled, and not investigated, the gravest allegations of breaches of common decency, 683 military honour, the laws of war and international conventions.
Millions of people saw on television what happened to one victim, and what happened to one Belgian lady happened to countless Africans. The Vicar-General of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Elisabethville has given to the United Nations Command a report of what he said his own clergy in the African parishes of the city witnessed when Ethiopian troops of the United Nations put to death more than 100 civilians. He went on to report that two women and a girl were disembowelled with bayonets after being repeatedly raped. This is a statement by a respected religious leader which requires investigation.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
I will give way after I have finished this point.
The Vicar-General continued: The Commanding Officer of an Ethiopian unit visited the Benedictine monastery at Lubumbashi where there had been looting and the Ethiopian officer said, 'They are children; one must make allowances for them'. These are the soldiers of the United Nations.

§ Mr. Holt
We all know that there have been regrettable cases. Is it the hon. Members view that, had the United Nations not been there, there would have been fewer of these cases? If that is so, would he explain to the House how he would have brought about in this explosive Congo a more peaceful settlement?

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
If the United Nations forces had not entered Katanga there would have been no war. There was no war before they entered. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I know that at the beginning there were disturbances in Katanga, but nothing like the anarchy in other parts of the former Belgian Congo. The United Nations first agreed, and the late Mr. Hammarskjold gave his word that there would only be a token United Nations force in Katanga. President Tshombe agreed to it. That undertaking was not kept. We know that there have been three offensives and these incidents took place during those three offensives.
684 I merely say that it is about time that all these allegations—and if there are any those against the Katangese gendarmerie—were investigated. All allegations should be investigated whether arising from the latest offensive or from the two preceding offensives. There have been no investigations so far. If any hon. Member says that he would be content with an investigation by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, whose integrity I respect, I would not regard that as impartial. We require an impartial international investigation and we should make that a condition of continued support for the Congo operations.

§ Mr. Berkeley
Will my hon. Friend allow me?

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
I want to continue with my argument.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. This is not Katanga.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley) is trying to catch Mr. Speaker's eye. I do not know whether he will be successful, but in the interest of other hon. Members I should like to continue.
There are these terrible allegations. Let them be investigated by an impartial international body. Perhaps it might be thought the International Red Cross cannot do it.

§ Mr. Berkeley
Why not?

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
Because it has very strong feelings about the murder of M. Georges Olivet and others of the International Red Cross. That is why, and it is not a funny thing, either.
I suggest quite calmly to my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster that a body such as the International Commission of Jurists should be requested to carry out an impartial investigation into these allegations. It conducted an inquiry when there were allegations against the French Army at Bizerta. It seems to me to be a responsible body which could well conduct investigation into these horrible allegations.
I said earlier that the United Nations was dedicated to peace and self-determination and that it made war to 685 deny determination. This was also the opinion of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, who has given fifty years of his life to the service of Africans in a territory not far away from the one which we are discussing. He makes the point that when Belgian colonialism came to an end there remained a number of peoples who had been under the colonial régime and who, juridically, the day after afterwards were independent of each other. He made the point that no foreign State had the right to oblige one of them to submit to another.
Dr. Schweitzer went on: It is, therefore, incomprehensible that a foreign Power is found making war on Katanga in order to force her to pay taxes to another Congolese State. How can a civilised country undertake such a thing? Still more strange, the United Nations has associated itself with this foreign country, thereby losing the respect it enjoyed in the world. It is not the mission of the United Nations to make war. Reason and justice therefore demand that this foreign country, as well as the United Nations, should withdraw their troops from Katanga, and henceforward respect its independence. The independence of Katanga derives from the fact that the empire of the Belgian Congo no longer exists…. I should have thought that a United Nations organisation worthy of its charter would try to ascertain the real desires of the people of Katanga.
I should have thought that a referendum would have been something which could have satisfied the different points of view as to the real feeling of the people of Katanga. I know that it is said that Mr. Tshombe does not have the support of the Baluhas. My impression is that he has the support of a great number of them. These are things which could be found out by an impartial referendum.
It is interesting to recall that at the round-table conference in Brussels in 1960, shortly before independence, the Katanga delegation proposed a referendum with the support at that time of Mr. Kasavubu. The people of Katanga have the right to self-determination. I understand that it has not been the view of the Katangan Government or of President Tshombe that Katanga should break away completely from the rest of the Congo. They have also desired to maintain essential links and to assist in the progress of the whole vast country. We hear of the secession of Katanga. What really happened was 686 that decolonisation was successful in Katanga and unsuccessful in other parts of the country.
It was secession not so much from the Congo as from chaos. Indeed, the same process of secession, if one cares to call it that, took place in other provinces of the former Belgian Congo because, in fact, there is no effective central Congolese Government whose writ runs much outside its own parish.
President Tshombe has always striven to ensure a loose confederation respecting the autonomy of Katanga. He had his own proposals for such a confederation in his hand when he was in Coquil Hatville in June, 1961, and was kidnapped and tortured for his pains. He is described as intransigent. We recall that, much more recently, Mr. Adoula refused to meet him in New York. If President Tshombe is regarded as intransigent, I am not surprised, recalling what happened in Coquil Hatville in June. 1961. Actually, it was Mr. Adoula who said in July, 1962, that A federal régime is the one best suited to a country as large as ours, which offers the best guarantees of stability between the various groups which compose it. It is not only the best suited system; it is the only system which has any chance at all of working.
It is to the credit of Her Majesty's Government, though I fear not very much of the story is to their credit, that Mr. Tshombe, with their help, accepted a new constitution, which, if it had been accepted by others, might well have achieved reconciliation. As hon. Members know, this new constitution was to have been drawn up by the Congolese Government, assisted by United Nations jurists, and presented, after consultation with the provincial Governments—who, under the new constitution, would become State Governments—to the Congo Parliament. This would have taken place in October.
It is another tragic aspect of all this that it was on the eve of reconciliation that fighting broke out again. The United Nations could, I suppose, say that, after having been beaten twice by a little country, it has now scored a victory. I think that it will probably turn out to be something of a Pyrrhic victory. If anyone's object was to deny that there was any Katanga nation or a desire for freedom and independence in Katanga, it is 687 now plain that the people of Katanga have achieved nationhood as a result of fighting together in defence of freedom and their homes. This is how people who may not have a very strong sense of nationalism in the first place do, in fact, achieve it.
The Katanga nation has been born in blood. There are white citizens and black citizens of this Katanga nation. They have fought together side by side. They fought for different reasons, as people always do in wars, but, objectively, they were fighting for a principle of Afro-European partnership which, I believe, is the only hope if Africa is to be saved from being a pawn in the East-West game.
Those who used to say that President Tshombe was a "stooge" of the mining company or of the Belgian colonialists have seen him in struggle and in disaster, and they have seen that he has always kept the support and affection of his people. He is not a "stooge". Many of my hon. Friends know him better than I do. I have met two of his able Ministers, Mr. Kimba and Mr. Kibwe. They are able men, able leaders of a nationalist State. At Kolwezi, the other day, where President Tshombe preferred peace and moderation to prestige and guerilla war, he said, addressing his gendarmerie: For two and a half years, you have fought three times bravely against overwhelming odds. Lift your heads high. These foreigners will not be here for ever. That is a message which we can echo and address to President Tshombe himself.
I have said that President Tshombe preferred peace and moderation to prestige and guerilla war. I believe that credit goes also to Her Majesty's Consul in Elisabethville, Mr. Dodson, to whom I pay a personal tribute. I pay a tribute also, in this sorry affair, to the personal efforts of my noble Friend the Foreign Secretary.
In conclusion, I put a few questions to my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State, who has been good enough to say that he will reply. With reference to the Secretary-General's speech which was announced yesterday, when may we expect the withdrawal of the United Nations forces from Katanga? Secondly, what progress is being made 688 in the fulfilment of the U Thant plan for reconciliation? Thirdly, what is the position of the refugees and how many of the refugees who fled from the United Nations forces remain? There has been a report that the Northern Rhodesian Government asked for United Nations help to pay for their relief and were refused. I hope that that is not true.
Now, a more general question on the future of the United Nations, for which we have been asked to purchase bonds. The Security Council, under the Charter, is mainly concerned with peace and security. When is it to meet to discuss the question of the Congo and Katanga? Of late, not only have we seen a usurpation of the functions of the Security Council by the General Assembly, but we have seen a usurpation of the functions of both the Security Council and the General Assembly by the Secretariat.
It is partly our fault. It is the fault of the Western Powers. When they thought, after their experience in Korea, that they might not always get their way in the Security Council, they agreed to back Mr. Dean Acheson's "Uniting for peace" resolution. In the United Kingdom, that was the responsibility of the Socialist Government. I would say that the record of the Socialist Government in regard to Article 2 (7) was very much better than the record of Her Majesty's present Government. That was another example of lawlessness within the United Nations. It was an example of trying to make up the rules to suit oneself at any moment as one goes along. It was lawlessness within the United Nations, an organisation supposed to stand for international law.
The United Nations has given to the Congo a good deal of civil assistance, at heavy cost. The Belgian colonialists were much cheaper. The United Nations military intervention in Katanga has, in my opinion, been a series of bloody crimes and costly blunders, for which we pay in every sense. Her Majesty's Government have been compounding an international felony. By buying United Nations bonds we finance our own undoing.
I beg the Government not to underestimate the feeling on this side of the House and throughout the country. I believe that, by continuing to support things such as I have described, we shall 689 show ourselves unworthy of those we represent and steep our country in dishonour.

§ Mr. Harold Wilson (Huyton)
I rise on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends to draw a mantle of protection over the Government from the kind of speech to which we have just had to listen. If that speech is the nature of the quality of the views of a substantial number of Conservative back benchers then we, for our part, can understand very clearly some of the wriggles and vacillations of the Government in the whole Congo business over the past eighteen months.
Personally, I doubt whether our support will be needed on this, whether in a debate or a Division, but the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) warned the Government that the views to which he has just been giving expression represented those of a substantial number of people in the Conservative Party in the House and in the country. If that is true he had better show how substantial it is in the Division Lobby when we come to decide about this £4 million bond issue. I do not think that it will be necessary for the Government to rely on our votes to save them from the hon. Gentleman and his Friends, but let him make good that boast by leading his troops into the Division Lobby.
Although there are few things I regard with greater aversion than marching through the Division Lobby with hon. Gentlemen opposite, if it is an issue of the United Nations against the kind of attack that we have heard from hon. Gentlemen opposite we shall not care who goes through the Division Lobby.
As far as we can tell, there are about three back benchers opposite who hold these views, and if there is one thing which should satisfy all Members of the House it is that all three of them represent highly marginal seats and, therefore, we shall not have to put up with them much longer.
I will say to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling), knowing the depth of his feelings on many things, that I do not expect to hear from him a speech of the squalor that we have just heard from the hon. Gentleman opposite. May I say to the hon. 690 Gentleman that if he wants to sink to the level of his hon. Friends, and make a speech like that, he will regret it. One thing we can be certain of is that when other hon. Members have spoken we shall not have to put up with this sort of speech in the House much longer.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
Let us hear the right hon. Gentleman's speech.

§ Mr. Wilson
The hon. Gentleman will. The hon. Gentleman said that he had no financial interest in this matter, that he held no shares in the Tanganyika Concessions or the Union Miniére. Of course, we accept that statement from him. He does not need to have a financial interest if he has a mind so twisted and out of tune with this century as to make the sort of speech that he has made.

§ Sir Kenneth Pickthorn (Carlton)
Let us hear the right hon. Gentleman's speech.

§ Mr. Wilson
If the hon. Gentleman wants to get up and support the speech we have just listened to, we shall be very glad to hear him.

§ Sir K. Pickthorn
If I want to get up and support a speech, and if the Chair allows me to I will, but I am bound to say that on a matter of this serious aspect and importance it begins to be a little boring to hear so long a time wasted on personal abuse before the speech begins.

§ Mr. Wilson
This is not a question of personal abuse, because, as I understand it, and the Parliamentary Secretary will correct me if I am wrong, the two sides of the House are in agreement in voting this money; but what we must not allow to go out from the House is any suggestion that any substantial number of Members on either side of the House could possibly agree with what we have had to put up with this afternoon.

§ Mr. Paul Williams (Sunderland, South)
The right hon. Gentleman did not have to listen to it. He could have gone out.

§ Mr. Wilson
I am not going out and leaving the hon. Member in command of the Chamber, having made a speech of that kind. It will be answered and voted down.
691 The hon. Gentleman referred to those who had profited from war in the Congo. Those who have profited from what he called "free United Nations aggression". Who are the people who have profited? The mercenaries? Does anyone in this House, in this day and age, really defend soldiers of fortune, some of them the most squalid riff-raff from the North African Fascists who were not allowed by the French to stay in Algeria during the war? Does anyone defend them? They have done very well out of the war, but surely no hon. Member will defend this system of mercenaries in this particular age.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the Black and Tans. I have never thought much of them, heaven knows, but nobody in this House would want to blacken their memories by comparing them with the mercenaries in the Congo.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
I did not do that. I said that if I were an Irish soldier I would be worried because of the memory of what had happened at the time when a British Government were trying to prevent the secession of the Irish.

§ Mr. Wilson
If that is what the hon. Gentleman meant, all right. I am only giving so much attention to the hon. Gentleman's speech—and I do not think that many people will feel it is worth much attention—because he put in articulate form a great deal which has been gossiped and whispered about by a number of interested parties in this country for a long time past. I think that the reason for the bad record of the Government on this is due to the fact that they thought these pressures put on them by public relation firms, by some back benchers and by financial interests had more substance than they really had, Therefore, I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not feel that we are in any way over-valuing the contribution which he made to our debate.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
I do not mind what the right hon. Gentleman thinks of my speech, but I would invite him to refer to the Congressional Record. He thought I was referring to a senator; I was actually referring to a member of the House of Representatives. It is a tremendously complicated matter. He may find the facts set out there are not worthy 692 of reply, but I would invite his attention to the important facts, which were also quoted by the Foreign Minister in the Belgian Senate, and we can all make our conclusions.

§ Mr. Wilson
I am very well aware of what has been said in the American Congress, both by Senator Dodd and in the House of Representatives by Representative Bruce, I am sure that we are all aware of the American Katanga "lobby", it is a highly financed body, and also the speeches put out by it, but I now intend to come to the points in the hon. Gentleman's speech.
The hon. Gentleman—and here he was thinking of views which have been expressed rather more by the Foreign Secretary—was dealing with a point, and I accept that it is a fair point to develop, as to whether what has been going on in Katanga has been the putting down of violence by the United Nations or the imposition of a political solution. I agree that this is an important point for discussion.
I think that for all of us it is a matter of concern and regret that the United Nations are forced to act in the rôle of a policeman. Certainly, I agree with the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Holt)—and many of us have said this in the House—that some of the deaths and murders to which the hon. Gentleman referred, from whichever side they come, are utterly to be deplored. Certainly, nobody on this side of the House, or opposite, holds any brief for them and I am in favour of a thorough investigation, but it will have to be a wide-ranging investigation.
As I have said before, we are so used to the cartoons by David Low and others showing the United Nations, or the old League of Nations, in the rôle of a slightly pathetic maiden, spurned by the Governments of different countries, that when we find the United Nations putting on the garb of a policeman, using a truncheon and hitting people, it is a little shocking to us. On the other hand, every one of us knows that if this had not happened in the Congo there would have been civil war and there would have been chaos on a far greater scale than actually happened.
The hon. Gentleman, in one part tit his speech, seemed to be speaking with 693 almost a slightly Marxist tinge. He gave a materialistic interpretation of what has been going on in the Congo, with all these stories about mysterious companies which got "fed up" in Switzerland and all these mysterious financiers, and then three months afterwards war breaks out in the Congo. We have read all this before. It was published before the First World War by some of the most violent Communist writers.
Perhaps they had reasons for what they wrote, but I think that the hon. Gentleman is being very imaginative in drawing this picture of a vast capitalist plot, with these mysterious financiers—bearded, no doubt—bribing the United Nations, U Thant, and the rest of them, to embark on these wars or aggression against the peace-loving Africans in the Congo.
But, of course, it is true that people have made money out of it; I agree with the hon. Gentleman. What about some of these people ferrying military aircraft into Katanga for use against the United Nations, against the people of the Congo and, indeed, against some of the people in Katanga? The hon. Gentleman says that Adoula's writ does not run throughout the Congo. He knows that Mr. Tshombe's writ does not run throughout Katanga. The tribal situation in Katanga is such that Mr. Tshombe is to no extent law in that country, nor has he been at any time.
But what about some of the traffickers in armaments who have been buying up military planes and transferring them? There has been ready money for them there. Some of them have been flown in through Africa and some through Portuguese territories, and we understand that some of them were bought in Europe and ferried out there. Somebody has made a great deal of money out of all this, which must have come from somewhere. We know where it came from—from the contributions from Union Miniére, illegally withheld by Mr. Tshombe instead of being handed to the central Government of the Congo.
The hon. Member for Chigwell referred to bringing the Katanga mines to a standstill. He was envisaging sinister copper interests on Wall Street trying to bring the Katanga mines to a standstill. However, we know that that is passing into the mythology of hon. Members 694 opposite. Who sought to bring the Katanga mines to a standstill?—Mr. Tshombe, when he did not get his own way. As long as he was able to get the money from them, that was one thing, but once M. Spaak came out in favour of a reallocation of the Union Miniére revenue and as soon as the U Thant plan of last autumn came into existence, Mr. Tshombe turned against the people who had been feeding him.
Mr. Tshombe turned against Union Miniére and threatened to blow it up. One thing which held up the implementation of the United Nations plan last autumn was the fear of the Union Miniére, of the Belgian Government and of the United Nations that they would not be able to prevent Mr. Tshombe from sabotaging the installations in Katanga.
The hon. Member referred to the stories about atrocities. I agree that some of them are very serious, and no one would seek to defend them. However, I am bound to say that further investigation of some of the atrocity stories that hon. Members were peddling a year ago have not shown the results that they might have expected.
During earlier debates that we had on the Congo we heard of stories put out by a chairman of the Red Cross in Katanga. I should have thought that anyone would accept his statements about atrocities at their face value, but when it was discovered that this particular chairman of the Red Cross was a displaced Belgian financier who had been sent back home to Belgium by his own Government, the Belgian Government, one became more disposed to question his bona fides as an independent authority on these atrocities. However, I would support an investigation into some of the more recent cases. We would want such an investigation to be wide-ranging. We would also be prepared to support the Government in a proposal for an increase in our purchase of bonds and to agree to whatever money is necessary to have investigations into these matters and the facts made available.
One thing that I would want to be investigated is the whole record of Mr. Tshombe's promises, and the broken promises, of last year. Another thing I should like to be investigated is the complete record of Mr. Tshombe's relationship with Sir Roy Welensky throughout the whole two-year period.
695 Another thing I would want to be investigated is the instructions given by Her Majesty's Government to our consul in Elisabethville. Another thing I should like to see investigated is the rôle of the Katanga propaganda organisation and not least the activities of some of the public relations firms, with which our public life is becoming more and more infested, during this whole operation.
We know perfectly well who is behind all this propaganda—a former official of the Conservative Central Office who is making big money representing in this country not only the Union Miniére and Tanganyika Concessions, but the Spanish and Portuguese Governments and the whole record of Portuguese aggression in Angola and Mozambique. This should be brought to light. It would be a revealing commentary not only on what goes on in darkest Africa, but on the seamier side of our political life in this country, and on the question whether the United Nations should have intervened in the first place.
The Congo was in a state of chaos after the Belgians handed over. If this proves anything at all, it is that the Belgian record in colonial administration has been very different from our own. When we gave self-government to Tanganyika, it was a different story because successive Governments in this country—[Interruption.] I know that there have been difficulties in this country over the 700 years' march to democracy. It is obvious that there are difficulties yet.
Successive Governments, Conservative as well as Labour, have worked to bring the people of Tanganyika to the point at which they could safely be given self-government. This was not done in the case of the Congo, and the reason it was not done was that there were too many people in the Belgian Parliament and too many Belgian financial interests with the same attitude and approach to these problems as two or three hon. Members opposite.

§ Sir William Teeling (Brighton, Pavilion)
Tanganyika was not British originally. It was originally German. We were in the hands of the United Nations in this matter.

§ Mr. Wilson
Originally, Tanganyika was German territory, but we have had responsibility for it for a long time. Both 696 Governments had a mandate from the League of Nations at first and then from the United Nations. What matters is not the form of the control, but what we did with that form.
I have said, fairly, that Conservative and Labour Governments in this country have a record of which they can be proud in respect of Tanganyika. The same cannot be said of the Belgian Government in relation to the Congo. What would have happened in the Congo if the United Nations had not intervened? The answer is absolutely plain. It would have become a cockpit for conflict between the major Powers. Does anyone think that Russia would have stood aside if there had been civil war in the Congo and fighting between the central Congolese Government and, for example, Gizenga? Of course, the Russians were watching for their chance to move in there.
The one thing which the United Nations has achieved—it has had to do a very dirty job, and no one wished it to have to do it—is that it has prevented this very dangerous situation from exploding into possibly a third world war, or, at the very best, into something rather like what happened in Spain in the 1930s.
I come, finally, to the references which have been made not only by the hon. Member for Chigwell but, in his usual silent P.R.O. fashion, by the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary during the Recess. Statements were put out through his public relations department about the responsibility for the outbreak of the fighting. We have had debates about what happened a year ago after the cease-fire was broken by Mr. Tshombe. There was fighting and road blocks were built. There can be no doubt about the responsibility for the outbreak of the fighting just after Christmas in 1962.
Mr. Tshombe promised a cease-fire. Even the Daily Express, which, like the hon. Member for Chigwell, is not noted for its enthusiasm for the United Nations, printed a report—I have not looked it up today, because I did not know that I should have to reply to a speech such as that which we have heard today—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] We on this side have the right to reply because our hands are clean in this matter.
I was referring to the Daily Express, which carried a report saying that Mr. Tshombe was taken round and shown 697 who were doing the firing. He knew that the firing was being done by his own people. He promised to order a cease-fire, but firing did not cease. What happened? Did he not carry out his promise? He has so often failed to carry out promises that that is a conceivable explanation of what occurred. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us.
Did he, in fact, give a promise that he would order a cease-fire, or did he, having issued an order for a cease-fire, quietly go and countermand it by other channels? What was the story I heard about the secret telephone call?—that after he had given the order for a ceasefire he went into the bedroom in the particular house where the meeting took place and was heard to say, "Take no notice of the order I have just given".
I am not asking the hon. Gentleman to give us the facts on this. He will have had the reports from both sides.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
Does the right hon. Gentleman assume that I was in that room?

§ Mr. Wilson
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was in that room, but, certainly, the Under-Secretary should have had reports from our ambassador on that point and I want him to tell us what was said.
Or perhaps Mr. Tshombe, in good faith—if I can use that phrase in connection with that particular gentleman—gave the order and did not countermand it. Perhaps it was simply a question—I am prepared to believe it was—that his writ did not run with the gendarmerie and the mercenaries; because there have been many occasions during the past two years when he has given orders which were not carried out and when there was evidence that he wanted them carried out. This may be the answer, but, certainly, a cease-fire did not occur and it was not until the United Nations had ended the fighting and got rid of the road blocks that it was possible to make peace in Katanga.
The hon. Gentleman may call that imposing a political solution. I do not. I call it the imposing of peace when peace was being broken wantonly by a small gang of people who have been breaking the peace in the Congo for the last three years. One result has been 698 that certainly there will now be much better hope of a political solution there. For one thing, there is a real hope that Mr. Tshombe will start to carry out his words. The number of promises he has made about sharing the revenue and has then broken, suggest to us that one wants some clear guarantees before accepting his word again.
What happened? He threatened to blow up the Union Minière. He mined bridges in Kolwezi and it needed the fullest vigilance on the part of the United Nations and a great deal of generosity by United Nations political leaders in the Congo before Mr. Tshombe finally agreed not to blow the whole place up and bring it down with himself.
The last thing I want to say is this: the hon. Gentleman quoted with almost a catch in his voice the message given by one of the leading Katangese, authorities, one of the generals or ministers, when he addressed the gendarmerie and referred to the hope he had that there would be a day when all the foreigners were out. The implication of what the hon. Gentleman read was that he looks forward to the time when the United Nations pulls its forces out of the Congo and the gendarmerie are free to do what they were doing before. The hon. Gentleman associated himself with that particular message. I want to warn hon. Gentlemen who may share that view—and I do not think there are many of them—against the danger of that course.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that Africans in Katanga do not want a continuance of foreign domination?

§ Mr. Wilson
The majority of them do not want this situation to continue. They do not want these road blocks set up. No one wants a continuation of the United Nations military force for a day longer than is necessary but let us be clear on this. The United Nations now have a much bigger job of social and economic reconstruction than even the job they faced in the military sphere two years ago, and the speech of the hon. Gentleman will not help to create the conditions in which that can be done.

§ Mr. Eric Lubbock (Orpington)
Would the right hon. Gentleman agree that as far as African opinion has been able to 699 express itself it has been anti-Tshombe, as has been proved by the letter signed by six chiefs, including relations of Mr. Tshombe himself?

§ Mr. Wilson
Yes, I recall that. I gather that his relations are not quite so cohesive as the relations of certain Ministers on the Government Front Bench, although, personally, I would not myself base a complete case on those particular letters. All I would say is that there is no evidence at all that Mr. Tshombe is accepted throughout Katanga; indeed, all the evidence is to the contrary.
What we are debating is the purchase of bonds from the United Nations. We support the Government in purchasing these bonds. We pressed them to buy these bonds last year, when they were afraid to face hon. Gentlemen opposite on this question. We have pressed at various times that they should have bought a larger quantity.
I should be out of order if I were to state now the arguments for my suggestion that more bonds should have been bought, but when hon. Gentlemen opposite denigrate the United Nations, and it is clear from the hon. Gentleman's speech that he would not have supported any form of United Nations organisation in which there was a majority of foreigners—

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
On the contrary, I would support a United Nations in which the Charter, in its original and legal form, was properly applied and the functions reserved under the Charter to the Security Council were returned to that body.

§ Mr. Wilson
The hon. Gentleman can show his support for those pious words by voting for the purchase of the bonds, because that is the situation which exists.

§ Mr. P. Williams
That is not the situation.

§ Mr. Wilson
It is, but no one would accuse the Foreign Secretary of being over-enthusiastic either for the idea of collective security or the United Nations. In his time he has made some tough speeches against the United Nations and his actions have shown great disloyalty to the United Nations.
But I want to be fair to the Foreign Secretary and I wish we had him here to be fair to, because when he went on 700 television at the time of the Cuba crisis last year he paid a most moving tribute to Mr. U Thant and the United Nations for the part they had played in bringing about a settlement of the Cuba question.
When we have all paid tribute to Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Khrushchev for the restraint they showed during that weekend, we must accept that without the work of Mr. U Thant at that time peace over Cuba would have been infinitely harder to secure; and if that is so, then I believe that the purchase of the bonds is a small token of thanks for what has been achieved.
I cannot make a case for increasing the purchase, for that would be out of order, but at least I can make a case for opposing those who hope to vote against it. I hope that when this debate ends hon. Members who speak with the violence of which the hon. Gentleman was capable will back that violence with action and show how many there are to go into the Division Lobby.

§ Sir Wavell Wakefield (St. Marylebone)
Before the hon. Gentleman sits down, would not he agree that those countries which are in default in the payments which they ought to make to the United Nations ought not to be allowed to take part in the operations of the United Nations without first making their payments? And does not the need for these bonds arise because of default by other nations in the payments they ought to make?

§ Mr. Wilson
In part that is true, but, of course, a number of nations, including particularly the Communist bloc, had exactly the same kind of argument about the Congo operations as the hon. Gentleman. They were opposed to the United Nations, perhaps for a different reason; and because of that they argued that the financing of such operations did not fall within the ordinary finance of the United Nations.
Hon. Gentlemen on both sides supported the reference of this question to the International Court and that Court has given the reply which many of us hoped and expected—that there was an obligation on all members of the United Nations to finance the special operations as well as the ordinary day-to-day work of the United Nations.
701 As to the question whether certain nations should be deprived of their right to vote and to take part in collective decisions of United Nations until they have honoured their financial obligations, that is a matter which is provided for in the Charter.

§ Sir William Teeling (Brighton, Pavilion)
I shall try not to get carried away by some of the tantalising points raised by the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) in various parts of his speech. I should, however, like to point a few things with regard to the £4 million given or loaned and to remind my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State that it was exactly eleven months ago—on Wednesday 7th March, last year—that I had an Adjournment debate on the subject of various people, almost all of them British subjects, some of them British subjects who were Rhodesians, who were either murdered or raped or had their property attacked. I asked my hon. Friend whether, instead of paying out money to the United Nations, he would try to allow some of it to be paid back to the people who had been so attacked and molested.
The right hon. Member for Huyton has rather insinuated that the remarks I then made in March, which I will not elaborate in detail because they are to be found in HANSARD, have not been properly answered by the Foreign Office and, therefore, were perhaps untrue. All that my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary said at the tame was that he would go into the remarks I had made and see what could be done. We do not know the answer, but, no doubt, we will get it today.
Yesterday, on the tape last night and again in the news this morning, we read what U Thant had said with regard to the future of the Congo and especially about Katanga. To my mind, he is super-optimistic about how well things will go in the future. After having heard U Thant speak to Members of both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall and after having seen and had long talks with Tshombe on these matters, it seems to me that U Thant is strongly briefed on one side and very little briefed on the other side.
702 For example, U Thant told us at that time in Westminster, or at least gave me the impression, that what worried him most about the whole Congo question and especially about Katanga was the financial question. He felt that unless the money that hitherto was provided by the Union Miniére and other organisations—not only, mind you, by the Union Miniére—to the Katanga Government was paid direct to Leopoldville, the Adoula Government would probably collapse unless, again, the United Nations was able to find the difference and help it to carry on. I was one of those who pointed out to U Thant that the sums that could possibly come from Katanga through the Union Miniére or through any organisation would only, at most, reach about one-third of the total amount which the Adoula Government needed to balance its budget.
All that forgot also the fact that by taking the money from Katanga to Adoula, there would be nothing left for running Katanga, for the gendarmerie or the general organisation of the country, and that if the amount of all this were to be reduced still further it would be of even less use to Adoula.
That being so, it seemed rather a surprise to U Thant. He had a vague idea that if one could get everything away from Tshombe, if one could get all the Katanga money, the position would be reached whereby Adoula would be almost certain to carry on; he probably could carry on for two or three months longer than the United Nations felt that it could itself cope with the gap. U Thant kept on saying, as others have said subsequently, both privately and even publicly, that if Tshombe could be got to share an interest with Adoula in running the Government in Leopoldville, all would go well.
I asked U Thant whether he realised the distances between Elisabethville and Leopoldville. It seemed more or less to him as if it was roughly the same as speaking of California and Washington, whereas, as Tshombe pointed out to me, the distance between the two is roughly the distance between Yugoslavia and London. In addition, whereas it is easy to get from California to Washington by air and also by road, it is almost impossible to get from Elisabethville to 703 Leopoldville except by air, which nine-tenths of the citizens of Katanga could not possibly afford. All those areas of the country are not, and never have been, in touch.
Tshombe spoke to me about what might happen if he went to Leopoldville, as he had done once before. Tshombe reminded me that but for the protection given by certain Members of Parliament in this House and as a result of their publicity, he would certainly have been murdered at that time in Leopoldville. He was left for three weeks in such a condition that his legs were completely swollen, he had practically nothing to eat and he was hardly allowed to sit down or to speak. Now, however, he is asked to go back and to become deputy-Prime Minister.
If there is any form of democracy in Leopoldville, a person does not become deputy-Prime Minister if he is unknown in the country and is so hated there that the British Embassy has all its windows broken for trying to support him. Nobody in Leopoldville connected with the local rêgime has any affection for Tshombe—let us face it—or for the Katanga people.
We talk about democracy out there, but we realise, I hope, that three times recently the Parliament in Leopoldville has voted against Adoula by a majority, not the legal two-thirds majority, but by sufficient of a majority to show anybody in this country that it certainly was not a governing majority in power. In the end, the Parliament of Adoula has been disbanded for three months so that he can get on and do what he is told from New York.

§ Mr. H. Wilson
I am sure that we all deplore the treatment given to Mr. Tshombe when in Leopoldville. Will the hon. Gentleman be good enough, at an appropriate part of his speech, to say what he thinks about the treatment given to Mr. Lumumba in Katanga?

§ Sir W. Teeling
Yes, indeed; later, I will talk about Mr. Lumumba, Tshombe, however, was asked to go and to put himself once again in the hands of Adoula. That was a little more than anybody could expect of him.
Again, we seem to forget a tiny bit about history. The right hon. Member 704 for Huyton spoke rather as if the Congo affair has gone on for a long time or as if the question of its independence is of long standing. Does he realise that until 1959, only four years ago, there was practically no question of this? There is no need for his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) to look this matter up. I can give him the details of the last four or five years. Perhaps the hon. and learned Member would be good enough to listen to me for a moment.

§ Mr. G. R. Mitchison (Kettering)
I am much indebted to the hon. Member for this intervention. I have heard every word he has said. Whether it was worth it is quite another matter.

§ Sir W. Teeling
At least, I should like to know whether the hon. and learned Member was really listening and not telling his right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton what he felt about it, as, I am sure, he was.
I know that hon. Members opposite think that it is monstrous to go back as far as 1880, but that is when it was first decided that Stanley and Brazza and King Leopold's representatives and various others went into the area to try to bring these tribes together in some way, in order to open up the rivers and the whole area. It took a lot of doing, and a long time, and when they eventually succeeded they found that the tribes in the area absolutely loathed each other, and had no trust in each other. They gave in to the Europeans only through bribery and generous offers of good food and clothing, and promises to develop the rivers, and so on.

§ Mr. Mitchison
I hope that the hon. Member will not cease from this practice of going back into history. One finds some very interesting cases. One can go back nine centuries, to the occasion when Harold got one in the eye from France.

§ Sir W. Teeling
I am going back only to a time ten years before the hon. and learned Member was born. I was trying to describe what happened at the time when Rhodesia, South Africa, and Tanganyika were being developed.
At the beginning of the century one found that Katanga was a completely different area. It had nothing to do with the rest of the Congo. It was moving 705 towards the East and South. The Katanga area was linked far more closely with Tanganyika, Uganda and Rhodesia than it was with the Congo. But it was taken over by Leopold of the Belgians and thrown into the same group as the rest of the Congo, about which nobody knew anything except Rhodes. He knew that there were some very valuable mines in Katanga, although they had not then been proved. Bismark agreed to Leopold having Katanga because it did not affect his idea of Tanganyika becoming German.
Only after that time did Katanga become of real importance. It is necessary to consider the psychology of Tshombe and the people running Katanga. Tshombe's number two is the grandson of the man who murdered many whites in the area when it was taken over. He was the chieftain of the area.
We must remember that this tremendous wealth came suddenly to Katanga, and that the country was directly ruled from Brussels and never from Leopoldville at all until the early thirties. That is why the Katangese have never wanted to be linked up in any way with the rest of the Congo. Tshombe is about forty years of age, and when he was being brought up there was no link, official or otherwise, with Leopoldville. His father-in-law and his brother-in-law were both chieftains of large tribes in Angola, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Katanga. Katanga's links are with the southern and not the western area.
That is why the people who support Tshombe do not want anything to do with the rest of the Congo. That is why Tshombe keeps on saying, "If only you will allow me to run my country properly, in the way I was trained to do by the Belgians, there will be no warring, shooting or murders, as there has been in all the troubles connected with Mr. Adoula and that side of the Congo".
I spoke earlier about U Thant's feeling that the Congo budget would be balanced by the money coming from Katanga. But in the old days the money never came into Leopoldville. The Congo round Leopoldville is roughly the same type of area as the French Congo, just across the river. There is no possibility of its achieving the high standard of living enjoyed by Katanga. If only the people 706 of Leopoldville would try to live as is done by the people of Brazzaville and French Congo, and the people around Mr. Adoula would be less extravagant, they could balance their budget a little better.
That is why Mr. Tshombe and his fellow Katangans feel that it is unfair that they should be linked with the area connected with Leopoldville. I understand why they have some difficulty in explaining their point of view to the English people. Hon. Members opposite are bored stiff at the suggestion that anybody should pay regard to the historical background of the matter. They expect the Katangans to be as well up in the latest news, from television and radio broadcasts, as are the English people. But the Katangans know nothing about the news. They happen to be tribesmen, and they want to be linked up with the people with whom they were linked before. They cannot understand why this place called the United Nations, in New York, should say that Nyasaland must be independent, and that Ruanda must be independent—and that country is practically next door to them—while Katanga should not be independent. Nobody here can be bothered to tell them why this should be so.
Mr. Tshombe thinks that he knows the answer, as do those who are connected with him. They say that the issue is being determined by a large capitalist system in the United States, which is closely connected with a former United Nations representative in Katanga and, indeed, with the Kennedy family itself as well as Anaconda Mines and the mines of Chile. They may be wrong, but that is what they believe. This may make the right hon. Member for Huyton laugh, but this is a form of sinister international capitalism, and there is no question but that the Socialist Party in this country has fallen for it hook, line and sinker. It is supporting the United Nations action all the time.

§ Mr. H. Wilson
What I am perhaps permitting myself to smile at is the extraordinary repetition of this Marxist interpretation of history that we keep getting from hon. Members opposite. This is not their usual approach to these matters.
Of course, we must always be on the look-out for sinister interpretations. I indicated one or two myself, today. But 707 I have discussed this matter very fully with senior members of the United States Administration whom I know and respect—and one of whom I have known for twenty years—as well as with the chief officials of the United Nations. I do not believe that this situation has had any effect upon the conduct either of the American Government or the United Nations. If it had, or if it was found that concessions were being given to these firms, I should be the first to oppose it.

Sir W. Teeing
I realise that the right hon. Gentleman is not in touch with big business in the United States. He is obviously in touch only with the Administration. I am sure that he agrees that our Administration is not in touch with big business, either. But big business in the United States has an especial connection with the Congo, and is very anxious that the rich mines in Northern Rhodesia and Katanga should be controlled by big business in America—although not used by it—as are the Chilean mines which had their development curtailed in order to ensure that the United States should not have too much competition.
The right hon. Gentleman would do well to watch that point in future, because it would improve his knowledge of the international financial world, which he says he has nothing to do with but which he is convinced that I do have something to do with. I can only tell him that I know a little about it, and I am telling him what I am fairly certain is right.
The right hon. Member criticised the mercenaries. I do not mind him criticising mercenaries as such. There are, of course, mercenaries on both sides. No one could suggest that Ethiopians whom the Emperor has been glad to keep out of Ethiopia—those who rebelled against him and are wandering around the Congo—are not mercenaries. But the mercenaries to whom the right hon. Member referred are in many cases Belgians. Some of those Belgians felt that Leopold II behaved wrongly in taking over all that land.
He having done so, and the Belgian Government having walked out as they did in 1959, other Belgians have gone there—many, by the way, have relatives living in the country—to try to do all 708 they can to make it possible for black and white to work together, which is something which the right hon. Member does not seem to want.

§ Mr. H. Wilson
Of course I want it.

Sir W. Teeing
If so, why attack the one man, Tshombe, who is the only one educated by the Belgians who already had control of this area in Katanga before the Belgians left? When the Belgians left in 1959 a federal Parliament was promised within a very few years. That then became impossible because of Lumumba and what happened in Leopoldville. When it was shown to be possible to carry on a black and white régime in Katanga everything was done to get rid of those people. Anyone who knows Africa says that there are very few Africans who are really linked up with the whites and are capable of working with them, and the others are jealous.
We should not forget that one of the chief things which these mercenaries have done—I hope this is of interest to the right hon. Member—has been to fight pretty hard to try to defend our missionaries there. Not so very long ago I was in the Parliament in Salisbury. I still have the HANSARD from Salisbury of that date containing a speech by a coloured Member of Parliament who said, "We must not be too hard on these different tribes in Katanga." He said that it was quite true that a tribe about three weeks before had murdered eleven Roman Catholic Italian missionaries and nuns and sold their bodies for meat the next day in the streets. He said, "This to my mind is all wrong. You must not consider that all tribes do that sort of thing. My tribe would not do that. They would kill them, but they would not eat them."
I have got that from the HANSARD of the day in Salisbury. Those are the type of people one has to deal with. They are the type of people whom Tshombe is doing his best to suppress, but they do exist. The mercenaries have done their level best to make sure that these areas are protected and kept in the old traditions they were in under the Belgians. Now they are being pushed out as a result of what has happened in the last few weeks. We shall be left with United Nation troops who, according to U Thant, will probably not last for more than 709 about six months. We do not know what will happen after that, but I cannot believe that they will not have to stay there, whether they come from Ethiopia, India or Ghana. They will go down to the borders of Rhodesia and Angola.
Earlier I said that Tshombe pointed out that the distance between Leopoldville and Elisabethville was equivalent to that between London and Yugoslavia. I remember well when the Socialist Party was in power in this House, just after 1945, my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) said one evening how different were the beliefs of of people in Yugoslavia from those of people in London. He had just received a letter from a lady in Yugoslavia who, having heard that the Socialist Party had won the General Election, wondered if my right hon. Friend would have to "take to the hills".
There is the same sort of thought at present in Katanga about what the people in Leopoldville would do when they control Katanga.
Coming nearer to Elisabethville, if we are to have Ethiopians and others who obviously are anti-British, ant Rhodesian, anti-Portuguese and anti-Angolese on the southern border, a very worrying position will arise in trying to protect the border which is one long jungle.
Yet we are still being asked to pay money to the United Nations so that these United Nations troops can patrol these borders. One country has been very practical about these matters. I mentioned earlier Brazzaville and other poor countries which France has helped in many ways. We have to be practical, whether we approve of de Gaulle or not. The French have pointed out that they are not going to help the United Nations in Katanga. Not only that, but they do not intend to give the equivalent amount of money which probably would be switched from ordinary United Nations funds to a fund for running the Congo. That may be of some help to my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary, who seemed to have a little difficulty in answering me the other day when I asked why we did not do something similar. He said that it could not be done. Obviously it could be done, for the French have succeeded in doing it without anyone being able to stop them.
710 Eleven months ago I raised with the Joint Under-Secretary the question of British subjects and British people with interests in the Katanga area. He then spoke very well in detail and at some length, saying that everything would be done to help to make quite sure that if it were the fault of the United Nations we would ask the United Nations to try to pay back the money. I asked him if from the money were were then giving to the United Nations, this extra loan, he could make sure that, in addition to paying our own British subjects, we could get money from the United Nations for this purpose. I have had no reply to that. It is worth remembering that many British subjects—who, of course, include Rhodesians—have been badly treated because of war and trouble in that area, which would never have taken place if the United Nations force had not gone there.
I therefore ask my hon. Friend what he can do to try to get compensation for these people. I beg him to consider whether it would not be far better, instead of handing all this money to the United Nations and obviously having no control over it as the United Nations is doing things which at least some of my hon. Friends feel should not be done—that that money should be put aside for other things, possibly to give a little extra in pensions to widows at home.

§ Mr. Arthur Henderson (Rowley Regis and Tipton)
I support my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) in speaking in favour of the Government's proposal that we should buy £4 million worth of United Nations bonds. I have listened carefully to the speeches by the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling) in opposition to this expenditure. I was shocked by the speech of the hon. Member for Chigwell. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion introduced the machinations of some of the mining interests in the United States, but he adduced no evidence whatsoever. He made a number of assertions which smeared the officials of the United Nations, because it would be useless for the mining interests of the United States, or anywhere else, to seek to obtain concrete results unless they were able to 711 influence the United Nations officials in charge of operations and administration in the Congo.
If the hon. Member has any evidence, I hope that he will send it to U Thant, or our own Foreign Office, because if it were true this would be a matter which should be thoroughly investigated. Until he does, I hope that he will forgive me if I assert that we should take absolutely no notice of what he has said about that.

§ Sir W. Teeling
I sent the evidence as long as nearly a year ago.

§ Mr. Henderson
Perhaps the Under-Secretary can tell us what has been done with it.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
Hear, hear.

§ Mr. Henderson
I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Chigwell. He spoke with great emphasis and conviction and he made allegations which should be thoroughly and impartially investigated. No one would justify atrocities, whoever committed them, whether the United Nations Force in the Congo, or our own well-respected police forces in this country. There must always be some kind of investigation of that sort of thing.
On the other hand, he used extravagant language. He talked about the moral bankruptcy of the United Nations, of the gravest concern about the action of the United Nations in the Congo, of the aggressions of the United Nations, of bloody crimes and of the compounding of felonies. One would think from that that the United Nations was an entity with its own responsibilities and not under the control of any outside body, and that even our own Government had no responsibility for it. But that is not the position.
Let us examine the course of events in the Congo in the past two or three years. The first action taken by the Secretary-General followed resolutions and decisions by the Security Council and the General Assembly. The resolution in the General Assembly had the unanimous support of the Assembly, and one of the governments voting in favour was our own, the Government supported by hon. Members opposite. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton pointed out, the world was faced with a 712 grave situation. The Belgian Government had left the Belgian Congo without setting up an administration and there would have been chaos and anarchy if the United Nations had not taken action. We all know that the Communists were preparing to fish in troubled waters, and even if the Congo had not become a scene of conflict between East and West we would probably have had a civil war there on the lines which characterised the so-called non-intervention of the Spanish Civil War. In those circumstances, the United Nations decided to take action.
We have been told that the United Nations has been employing soldiers, perhaps not well trained, from Ethiopia, and some of them have been accused of atrocities. It is to be hoped that that allegation can be probed. But what was the United Nations to do? There is no United Nations permanent force, and so it had to improvise. It had to secure the co-operation of a number of governments, and we must remember that soldiers came from countries other than Ethiopia, from Sweden and Ireland and other civilised countries. A United Nations temporary force had to be improvised.

§ Mr. P. Williams
The right hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson) said that he hoped that certain things would be investigated. How substantial is that view? I do not doubt the right hon. and learned Member's honesty, but is he now agreeing with some of us that an impartial investigation should be set up, not under the United Nations, but an outside impartial investigation, to get at the facts on both sides?

§ Mr. Henderson
I do not want to be technical, but what investigation could there be outside the United Nations?

§ Sir W. Teeling
French.

§ Mr. Henderson
The United Nations is not a separate entity. It is an assembly of 103 nations, including our own, and unless we are to go outside that number, which we cannot do, all that we can do is to ask the Security Council to appoint some independent lawyers. If that is what is meant by an independent investigation, it would be acceptable to me. However, we must not forget that the United Nations is not something separate from the world's nations and governments, but 713 is composed of them. If it is suggested that there should be independent investigators who are not paid officials of the United Nations, that is a different matter.

§ Mr. Lubbock
Should not any such investigation include a similar investigation into atrocities committed by Mr. Tshombe and his minions?

§ Mr. Henderson
Not only the atrocities committed by Mr. Tshombe and his henchmen. I agree that we should go into the question of the financial operations of the Union Minière. Let us face the fact that if the Union Minière had withheld £10 million or £12 million a year from the Government of Katanga Mr. Tshombe would not then have lasted three months. Mr. Tshombe has been financed and has been enabled to engage mercenaries. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion did not seem to see much difference between mercenaries employed by President Tshombe and the enlisted soldiers of the various contingents sent to the Congo by the Security Council. His argument was a travesty of the position. If we take that view, there is no difference between employing d number of mercenaries at £40 or £50 a week and operating the machinery of the Charter, to which the hon. Gentleman for Chigwell paid homage, although he said that his difficulty was that the Charter was not being operated properly.
The original decision to send U.N. troops into the Congo was taken by the General Assembly and the Security Council under the terms of the Charter, of which Article 41 authorises the Security Council to take any action which it thinks necessary, even to the employment of force, to preserve the peace of the world in any part of the world.

Sir W. Teeing
Peace?

§ Mr. Henderson
Yes. If we take our minds back to the records of the time, we will find that there was great anxiety in the United Nations about the prospect of the situation in the Congo developing into a situation which might lead to world war. I think that it is to the credit of the United Nations that it took this action. It has prevented a conflict in which any outside Power is involved.
Now let us consider the allegation of the three aggressions, as I think the hon. 714 Gentleman called them. Those who have followed the course of events know that fighting started because road blocks were established which were cutting the communications of the United Nations forces. What else could they do in the circumstances, after they had repeatedly asked for the road blocks to be removed, but take the necessary military action to remove them? If that is aggression, it makes a complete farce of the use of the word. It means that every time a police force, be it national or international, has to take action to preserve law and order and preserve its authority to act effectively as a police force, that is aggression. Surely the hon. Gentleman is not serious in making that charge?
I believe that U Thant and his predecessor, Dag Hammarskjold, have carried out their responsibilities in accordance not only with the instructions they received from the Security Council, but those they received from the General Assembly. One must admit that there has been ambiguity in the terms of some of the resolutions and instructions which have been issued by the Security Council, and it may well be, in the light of our experience in the Congo, that if, unhappily, on any future occasion the Security Council has to take similar action, it will seek to avoid the use of ambiguous terms which I think place an unfair responsibility on the Secretary-General and his officials.
I am also prepared to admit that the United Nations commanders in the Congo may have made mistakes. Those who have wartime experience of commands and military officers know that just as politicians can make mistakes so can military commanders, especially when one gets right down to the company commander. After all, there is no staff. The logistics of it have had to be improvised. There is no trained General Staff behind this force. It comes from half-a-dozen countries. Of course there have been mistakes, and it would be wrong and futile to deny it, but the test we have to apply is whether the United Nations has played a part consistent with the responsibilities set out in the Charter in the settlement of the situation in the Congo, and I believe that we have every right to be grateful and thankful not only for the existence of the United Nations, but for the action it has taken.
What would have happened three years ago if there had been no United Nations? 715 What would have been the position in the Congo? There would have been a repetition of what took place in Spain, but with even worse consequences.

§ Sir W. Teeling
What does the right hon. Gentleman feel about Dr. Conor O'Brien's remarks?

§ Mr. Henderson
I have said that mistakes were made. I do not think that Dr. O'Brien has made a complete case. He has made various charges, and I have no doubt that it would be possible to substantiate some of them. It would be futile to suggest that with a situation such as has existed in the Congo for the last two years there have not been mistakes, but we are entitled to ask what would have happened if there had been no United Nations? What would have been the situation if the United Nations had refused to deal with the problem of the Congo?
On the other side of the coin, what has the United Nations, through its actions and operations, succeeded in achieving? I believe that it has prevented the Congo being dissolved in a welter of bloody anarchy. It has stabilised the position to the extent that it has given time for negotiations to take place. One of the difficulties is that President Tshombe has not been prepared to keep to his word. He has been a very slippery customer in the negotiations which have taken place during the last two years.
The United Nations has not sought to impose any political settlement on the Congo. Its objective was to prevent civil war, and by and large it has done so. Parallel with that the Secretary General has put forward his proposals for reconciliation, and anyone who has examined those proposals must agree that they would give a square deal to all sections of the community in the Congo. Tshombe accepts one day and goes back on his word the next. What can one do with an individual of that type? I believe that U Thant, who has shown himself to be not only a great administrator but a man of peace, has not only made a great contribution to the ultimate solution of the Congo, but has done a great deal to establish the prestige and moral influence of the United Nations and to maintain and strengthen its organisation. I believe that the Government's proposal to purchase twelve million dollars worth of 716 bonds will help along those lines, and I support it.
The hon. Member for Chigwell is ranging himself with the Governments of the Soviet Union and France who do not want the United Nations to be effective in territories such as the Congo. I think that the people of this country believe in the Charter of the United Nations and the work it is doing, and I believe that this House, if it comes to a Division, will show that there are only two or three Members who distrust the United Nations and criticise what it is doing.

§ Mr. Humphry Berkeley (Lancaster)
I find myself more in agreement with the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the right hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson), and the right hon. Member for Huyton, (Mr. H. Wilson), than with my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) and my hon. and venerable Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling).
I suppose one ought to pay at least some polite deference to the Supplementary Estimates we are discussing, and I therefore say that I support the purchase of these United Nations bonds. In fact, I wish that the sum was somewhat larger.
I was sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell did not feel strong enough to take some of the interruptions which I was proposing to make. I should be delighted to accept any interruptions that he cares to address to me. Quite frankly, I felt that there was a certain Alice in Wonderland quality about his speech which made me wonder whether, at the ripe old age of 36, my ears were beginning to deceive me. He started by referring to the third United Nations offensive, the third time the United Nations had committed aggression in Katanga since the operations started. He was kind enough to allow me about 15 seconds in which to put a question to him in the course of his speech. I asked whom he thought had started the fighting this Christmas. He said that the Katangese forces had probably started it.
Early last month I spent about 10 days in the Congo. I had the opportunity of speaking to a variety of people both 717 in Elisabethville and Leopoldville. I stayed in Elisabethville in a guest house which belonged to the Union Minière. Therefore, I had the opportunity to speak to many people and. I found only one person out of approximately 50—

§ Mr. P. Williams
My hon. Friend would have found a "Katanga lobby" there.

§ Mr. Berkeley
I prefer to avoid slogans and try to get down to some of the facts.
I found, out of about 40 or 50 of whom I asked the question, "How and why did the fighting start?" only one who alleged that the fighting started on the United Nations side. It seems to be recognised by British, Belgian, American, French and United Nations sources that the fighting started on the Katanga side. In fact, I travelled in a helicopter which earlier and without any provocation had been shot down by Katanga forces and an Indian officer and an Indian soldier lost their lives.
For my hon. Friend to talk about a third United Nations offensive is totally inaccurate. I do not think that anyone who has been to that area in the last month could accept it. After all, an offensive can start only if it is planned, and there can be no doubt that the firing started, and was sustained for some time, from the side of the Katangan gendarmerie. My hon, Friend is obviously dying to interrupt me and I will now extend to him the courtesy which he was not prepared to extend to me.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
The hon. Gentleman has said that I allowed him to interrupt me. He has challenged me and so I respond to his challenge. I think that there was a prepared offensive, although I concede that in a state of great tension between the two sides it looked as if the first shot might have been fired from the Katanga side. There was an incident and from that an offensive proceeded.

§ Mr. Berkeley
My hon. Friend is simplifying the position. It was not just a question of one shot but about nine hours of sustained firing.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
An incident.

§ Mr. Berkeley
I do not think that nine hours of sustained firing can be described as an incident. There were at least 10 718 United Nations soldiers injured and two were killed. That I regard as being more than either a shot or an incident. In those circumsances it seems to me totally inaccurate to talk about the United Nations starting an offensive.
The next point made by my hon. Friend was that the United Nations has destroyed a State. I think that that was the word he used.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
It attempted to.

§ Mr. Berkeley
It attempted to. That does not make much difference. I wonder by what definition my hon. Friend arrives at the word "State" in relation to Katanga.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
By the definition of "State" in the new Constitution which was prepared, and in which the provinces of the former Belgian Congo are described as "States".

§ Mr. Berkeley
On the contrary. The United Nations has made perfectly plain that at no stage was it prepared to impose conditions of reintegration on Katanga. It regards itself as the instrument of a legitimate central Government of the Congo, and therefore, I think, would regard itself as under an obligation to intervene to prevent a totally unconstitutional secession. But when my hon. Friend talks about the destruction of a State, if he is merely substituting the word "State" for a province, he must remember that throughout the United Nations authorities have recognised the position of Mr. Tshombe as the provincial President of the Katanga Province. If he was broadening that definition—as I assumed he was—to take account of the possibility of Katanga secession altogether from any kind of Congolese Federation, I would say that I cannot see by what democratic process Mr. Tshombe claims any kind of mandate to fulfil these aims. In fact, in the elections of 1960, immediately before the granting of Congolese independence, his Conakat Party got 91,000 votes, as opposed to 135,000 votes which went to opposition parties.
Mr. Tshombe's party never had more than a minority of the seats in the Katanga Provincial Assembly. The issue of secession had never been overtly raised in the elections of 1960 and therefore, to equate, as my hon. Friend 719 and some of his hon. Friends have done, the position in Katanga with the position in Nyasaland—

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
I did not do that.

§ Mr. Berkeley
I know that my hon. Friend did not do it, but some of his hon. Friends did, including, I think, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion and the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams). Incidentally, it is curious that my hon. Friends should feel so strongly about the right of Nyasaland to secession, because I can remember that about a year ago they were signing Motions deeply deploring any possibility of bringing the Central African Federation to an end. But now, apparently, Nyasaland secession is absolutely right and the principle should be applied to Katanga.
Let us see what comparability there is in the case of Nyasaland. Dr. Banda fought his election in 1961 and got 99 per cent. of the votes. The principal if not the only platform of his party was to take Nyasaland out of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. His principal objection to that Federation was not that of a political association between the Territories, but the subjection of Nyasaland to a Federal Government which rested upon only 11,000 European votes. I am not discussing whether Dr. Banda was right or wrong. I am merely saying that, this was the issue upon which he fought the election and on which he obtained 99 per cent. of the votes of the people of Nyasaland.
As we have seen, Mr. Tshombe, on the other hand, got approximately one-third of the votes in Katanga, substantially less than half the seats, and at no stage in his election campaign was secession ever even mentioned. So how is this mandate for Katangan independence to be justified and compared with Nyasaland? The answer, of course, is that there is no comparability whatsoever.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell talked about Mr. Tshombe having achieved a situation of peace and quiet in Katanga which was interrupted only by the intrusion of United Nations forces. He also referred to recent events in Elisabethville as having brought that city almost to the state of affairs which existed in Budapest. I think that Buda- 720 pest was the actual description which my hon. Friend gave. A few weeks ago I spent three or four nights in Elisabethville, and I must confess that Welwyn Garden City would, to me, have been a more appropriate description than Budapest. Certainly there were no signs of destruction visible.
I stayed with people who, on the whole, were most likely to be prejudiced against the United Nations. Most of them were deeply prejudiced and perhaps they had reason to be. But I heard only one specific allegation of atrocities, and I will come to the question of atrocities in a few moments. My hon. Friend talks about this oasis of peace and quiet—

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
I did not say that.

§ Mr. Berkeley
My hon. Friend did talk about the peace and quiet which existed under Mr. Tshombe which was interrupted by the intrusion of the United Nations. When he talks about this I think it would be helpful for us to remember that of the many atrocities committed throughout the Congo none have been worse than the atrocities against the Balubas in the northern part of Katanga by President Tshombe and his mercenaries.
People in our embassy at Leopoldville estimate that about 10,000 people have probably lost their lives as a result of these operations. I spent a day flying over certain parts of Northern Katanga in a helicopter and I saw village after village which had been razed to the ground, where there was no sign of visible habitation now, although they were plainly sizeable centres of population a year or two ago. It should be borne in mind that considerable violence and considerable atrocities have been committed by Mr. Tshombe and his mercenaries, and this is the answer to those who speak in terms of the peace and quiet which the United Nations are alleged to have upset.

§ Mr. P. Williams
I hope that my hon. friend can help me on a point of information. The right hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson) asked my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) to adduce some evidence in support of his view, and my hon. Friend stated two points. I do not 721 at this moment see the connection, although there may be one, between there being villages razed to the ground, which my hon. Friend has obviously observed and which we must therefore accept as a fact, and the accusation that this was carried out by Tshombe's forces. At the moment these are two uncorrelated facts.

§ Mr. Berkeley
When I was in both Elisabethville and Leopoldville I was given certain accounts from people, including people in our own diplomatic missions there, which indicated to me that sizeable casualties have been incurred as a result of Tshombe's activities with his mercenaries in trying to bring about the subordination of the Balubas in Northern Katanga. I had visual evidence of sizeable destruction, which indicated to me that there probably had been sizeable casualties. These are matters which I would certainly accept should be investigated along with the many allegations which have been made about the United Nations Forces.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion talked about Mr. Tshombe being maltreated and his ankles being so swollen that he did not know what to do, and all the rest of it. We must not forget that Mr. Lumumba perished at Mr. Tshombe's hands, which indicates to me that trial by jury is probably not practised very much or was not practised very much in the Province of Katanga. We must not forget that Mr. Brian Urquhart and Mr. George Ivan Smith were both beaten up, one of them very badly indeed, by Mr. Tshombe's gendarmerie, which indicates to me that probably the rule of law was not applied in the Province of Katanga in exactly the same way as it might be in Piccadilly Circus or the Palace of Westminster.
We must not forget either that there have always been a large number of political prisoners in Katanga. These are the people who have been in jail for considerable periods without trial under President Tshombe's Government. Therefore, again the fine flower of democracy has not flourished quite so well in the Province of Katanga as it has elsewhere.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell spoke about the atrocities which we have all seen on television. I imagine that he was referring to the tragic case 722 of two Belgian women who were shot by United Nations troops on their entry into Jadotville. I took particular care while I was in Katanga to inquire into this terrible incident, and I was fortunate enough to have a personal interview with Mr. Van Breughel, the driver of the car concerned. I was anxious to do this first, because by any standards this incident was a tragic accident of war and, as portrayed by certain sections of the Press and, I am told, by some of the television companies, it appeared to be an act of brutal inhumanity carried out by United Nations forces.
I accompanied Brigadier Norona to Jadotville. He is the Indian Brigade commander of the United Nations forces in the Congo. Incidentally, he was a major in the Indian Army during the war and won a Military Cross in Burma in 1942, and another one in 1944. I had the opportunity of speaking to many of the officers and men in this splendid brigade, a brigade which made one feel tremendously proud of the contribution which Britain has made towards the Indian Army. The brigade includes not only the brigadier but six other officers and men who hold the Military Cross and two who hold the Victoria Cross. I believe that they are the finest troops in the Congo.
I was taken by the brigadier to the scene of the incident. I also had the opportunity of a talk with Mr. Van Breughel. I have no doubt whatsoever, both on the evidence of Brigadier Norona and also on the evidence of Mr. Van Breughel, whom I saw in private without any United Nations officer being present, that what happened was that the Indian troops were advancing on Jadotville; a van travelling at about 45 miles an hour came towards them and was waved to stop; the van ignored the instructions and drove through; it was shot at and got away. The Volkswagen driven by Mr. Van Breughel, which as hon. Members know is a covered car, so it is very difficult to see what is inside, was corning along behind at about the same speed. It slowed down when a signal was made to it to stop. When the driver saw the van smash its way through, he suddenly accelerated. At this point the United United Nations troops fired.
I specifically asked the question of Mr. Van Breughel, because this seemed to be 723 crucial, "Did you see a signal being given to you to stop?" He replied, "I saw troops waving at me, but I thought they were waving a friendly greeting and not waving at me to stop". This is what he says. I do not believe that any person taking reasonable precautions could assume that troops advancing in a military operation have time to wave friendly greetings at oncoming cars. However, my conversation with Mr. Van Breughel at least established the fact, which the Indians made to me beforehand, that they had made every effort to stop the car, the car had in fact slowed down to stop, and then when it accelerated they fired. This has become a tragic accident of war. I do not believe that any troops under any command anywhere else would have behaved differently, not even British troops. It is very important that the good name of the Indian troops in Jadotville should be cleared in this way.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion, who has now left the chamber, made use of the term "mercenary". I should not have thought that it required a terribly subtle mind to see the essential difference between an Indian Brigade or a Ghananian battalion or a Tunisian battalion or a Sierra Leone company placed at the service of the United Nations by the Government of the country concerned and mercenaries. All the officers in these commands are under the orders of their own Government and they are attached to a United Nations operation as a result of a decision of that Government. The position was precisely the same in Korea.
I am glad that my hon. Friend has now returned, because I do not think it will require a terribly subtle mind to see that there is an essential difference between troops of that kind and people who are really piratical adventurers They are people who went on contract terms to join the illegally constituted gendarmerie of a province in rebellion. I should have thought that by any standards there is clearly an essential difference between the two.
Perhaps some of Mr. Tshombe's mercenaries were men of the highest character—I do not know—but here is no doubt that some were men with a very dubious past. To try to relate them to officers serving with their own troops on the 724 orders of their Governments in a United Nations operation is not terribly helpful nor is it accurate.

§ Sir W. Teeling
I must apologise for not having been present but I had to listen to something upstairs.
I think that it is the Swedish Government who are employing troops only for this purpose, because Sweden is a neutral nation and does not have forces for any other purpose. I have had a letter from the Swedish Military Attaché saying that the Swedish troops sent to the Congo have been specially recruited for that purpose. Surely no one will suggest that the Ethiopian troops in the Congo are any better than some of the very good, worthwhile people from the ordinary parts of Europe who have gone there on Katanga's side. Katanga is not a province in rebellion. It is a federal part of the Congo. There is no rebellion about it whatever.

§ Mr. Berkeley
The question of rebellion is a matter of international law. My view is that it is rebellion. Nor was I discussing the worth of an Ethiopian officer as compared with that of a Katangan mercenary. All I was saying was that it was not very subtle of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion, to pretend that there is no difference between the two.

§ Sir W. Teeling
There is not.

§ Mr. Berkeley
There is. Whether or not an Ethiopian officer is a good officer or a bad officer, he is an officer in his national army and his Government, at the request of the United Nations, have sent his unit to be used for United Nations purposes in the Congo. His rôle in the Congo is not incomparable—whatever he may be like as a person—with the rôle of a British Army officer under the United Nations command in the Korean War. It is exactly comparable in status.

§ Sir W. Teeling
What about the Swedes?

§ Mr. Berkeley
Their position is exactly the same. At the invitation of the Secretary-General, the Swedish Government have made available certain units of their army for use in the Congo. Even if the most splendid man of the highest moral character is personally enrolled as a mercenary in Mr. Tshombe's illegal gendarmerie, his status is entirely different. 725 He is under contract. He is, therefore, in defiance of about six United Nations resolutions and is in Katanga illegally because Mr. Tshombe, as a provincial president, has no right whatever to have his own gendarmerie independent of the central Government. There is thus a quite clear difference in status, whatever the character of the people may be.
I accept that there have been mistakes by the United Nations. I doubt whether Dr. O'Brien was exactly the right man to have in Elisabethville in September, 1961. But I believe that Brigadier Norona and General Prem Chand were exactly the right people to have there in December, 1962. In any operation of this kind one is dependent upon personalities, and military commanders—and even Governments, as my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State knows—make mistakes from time to time.
It is not entirely surprising that, in operations lasting two and a half years, occasional errors of judgment are made. But essentially all that the United Nations Command has done is to carry out its mandate, and I should like to know when my hon. Friends think that this mandate has been exceeded. In the view of the United Nations, Mr. Tshombe is a validly elected provincial president of a provincial administration.
I have with me a 20-franc note with Mr. Tshombe's head on it. I hope it will enrich me in my old age. But clearly the issue of currency is beyond the power of the ordinary provincial president. So is the recruitment of his own private army. These things go far beyond the right of any provincial president, and Mr. Tshombe clearly became in rebellion against the central Government.
To that extent, because the United Nations was invited in by the central Government to maintain law and order throughout the Congo after the removal of Belgian troops, I think that it is wholly within the United Nations mandate to have taken military action there.

§ Sir W. Wakefield
What my hon. Friend is saying is that the United Nations is there to interfere in the internal affairs of another State. Surely if this large area of the Congo wishes to be independent and to secede it should be allowed to do so. What right has the United Nations to interfere in the affairs of this large territory?

§ Mr. Berkeley
I am happy to try to answer. It is this kind of mental confusion that has led to so many erroneous statements. In the first place, the United Nations went to the Congo at the invitation of the validly elected central Government.

Sir W. Teeing
indicated dissent.

§ Mr. Berkeley
It is no good my hon. Friend spluttering. That was the case. We all know how, within a few weeks, the central Government disintegrated, but after over a year of very patient negotiation—particularly by Mr. Robert Gardner, the Ghanaian who is now in charge—a new central Government has been formed. Here I wish to say that Mr. Gardner has done a splendid job and great tribute should be paid to him.

§ Sir W. Teeling
He is against Dr. Nkrumah.

§ Mr. Berkeley
That is beside the point. We are talking about him as a United Nations servant. A valid central Government has been formed under Mr. Adoula. That is a great achievement of the United Nations, considering that within a few weeks of its entry into the Congo there was a break-away government in Stanleyville headed by Mr. Gizenga, another under Mr. Kilongi, in Kasai, separate régimes under Lumumba and Ileo and also the Mobutu régime and the Katangan break-away. There was absolute chaos, but after very patient negotiations the Congo has a central Government whose writ now runs throughout the country, the only province remaining outside being Katanga.
Mr. Tshombe could have come to terms on any reasonable basis if he had beer, prepared to do so in August, 1961, before the Adoula regime was formed. I cannot help feeling that one of the effects of our somewhat ambivalent policy in the Congo has been to encourage Mr. Tshombe in his view that his secessionist aim was feasible and durable.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
My hon. Friend appears to be arguing that it is wrong for someone to have cesessionist aims. Why does not he apply that to Nyasaland?

§ Mr. Berkeley
I am not saying that it is wrong. But it is wrong illegally to declare the secession of a province when one only has one-third of the votes and substantially less than half the seats in the 727 Assembly, particularly when one really represents only a small tribal alliance centred round the greater part of the mineral wealth of the entire Congo. There is no democracy in that, and I believe—and certainly the figures in 1960 show this—that the majority vote in Katanga at that time was not either in favour of Mr. Tshombe or in favour of secession. Indeed, the Belgian Parliament had to pass a special amendment to make it possible for Mr. Tshombe's minority Government to come into power.
I believe that the United Nations Organisation's position in legal terms is a strong one. I had the opportunity while in Elisabethville and Leopoldville of talking with the American Ambassador and members of his staff. It is their view—a view which I think is probable—that had the Americans not given backing to the United Nations operation in the last few weeks, the Adoula Government would have fallen and, had that happened, we should have had the real possibility of a Gizengist secessionist government in Stanleyville, with General Mobutu controlling a small area around Leopoldville as a pro-western government and a breakaway in Kasai. One could have had in the Congo, had the United Nations not intervened, a complete repetition of the cold war position in Indo-China, which has caused so much trouble in that part of the world.
It must be nonsensical at a time when for once the long-term interests of the West and the emotional interests of Afro-Asian nationalism coincided to oppose this policy. I believe that it was opposed and blocked only by Mr. Khrushchev and President de Gaulle. I believe that we should realise, too, that our long-term interests did lie and still do lie with the maintenance of the authority of the central Government. What we have done—and I know that our voting record in the United Nations is good on the whole, that our private advice was probably less good and that the effect it has had was even less good—by helping to maintain the dubious rights of Mr. Tshombe is to have lost the good will of an entire continent.
If any of my hon. Friends dispute that statement let them go to Nigeria, Tanganyika, Ghana or Sierra Leone and see what our friends there have to say 728 about our attitude in the Congo. Let them talk to the Malayans, Indians, Canadians or Irish who have been involved in the Congo operation and see what they think of our attitude there.
If Mr. Tshombe really deserved this great reputation and was so tremendously pro-West—a great bastion of Western civilisation—perhaps the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, could tell me why it was that he put himself in the extraordinary position of sending his Members of Parliament to Leopoldville—although he thought that he was independent—to vote; and why they engaged in a coalition with Mr. Gizenga's supporters to bring down Mr. Adoula's Government? The answer is because Mr. Tshombe would not mind paying the price of a Communist government in Stanleyville if he could get the loot in the southern part of Katanga and maintain himself undisturbed by outside intervention. That is what he was playing for.
If my hon. Friend can tell me that opportunism on that majestic scale is the sort of policy we should support, I can only say that I believe this to be entirely wrong. I believe, further, that the British Government's overt attitude was right. Of course it was right that Katanga should be reintegrated with the Congo. Of course it was right that we should seek a federal type of government—and the Belgians should have made an attempt to work that out before they made that disastrous rush towards independence in 1960.
However, we should have recognised at least 18 months ago that it simply was not tenable to say that while we wanted to see Katanga reunited with the Congo, we were not prepared to do anything to bring it about. President Tshombe personally signed no fewer than five agreements in which he committed Katanga to reunification of one kind or another with the Congo, but he has shown no disposition to put them into practice. In the end, I believe that action was necessary. I am thankful that it was taken and I hope that the Government will now give their firm support to the United Nations for what it has done.

§ Dr. Donald Johnson (Carlisle)
I rise to support the opposition of my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) to the buying of United 729 Nations bonds. I do so for two reasons. The first is the moral case which my hon. Friend stated so ably and about which the Joint-Under Secretary will recall I raised an Adjournment debate on 2nd March last year. The second is on the basis of the slogan which is familiar on the other side of the Atlantic, "No taxation without representation," which does not seem to have found the same acceptance on the East River as it once did in Boston Harbour.
We pay the highest tribute to the aspirations of the United Nations. The ideals which it represents, its humanitarian mission in the sphere of health and education throughout the world demands the highest tribute. Here, indeed, is the virtuous Dr. Jekyll, whom we can all admire. However, we are all too aware that there is another, alternative, side to human nature. A change has taken place in the political sphere of the United Nations, making it a body which is clearly motivated by anti-colonialistic spite, Afro-Asian vindictiveness and the neo-imperialism of the United States. That represents the other face. It is the face of the wicked Mr. Hyde, of whose activities we are unfortunately the natural victims.
I submit that the average man in Britain is bewildered and apprehensive about what is happening in the United Nations. I was attracted by the challenge thrown out by the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. Wilson) when he mentioned a number of my hon. Friends and myself having marginal constituencies. Whether or not he is to lead his party, I hope that he will come to my constituency at the next General Election and tell the electors that he wishes to increase the amount of money, as he has said, for the purpose of keeping Ethiopian troops in the Congo. Although the right hon. Member for Huyton is not in his place, I trust that these words will find their way to him and that he will accept this acceptance of his challenge.
One does not have to be a shareholder of Tanganyika Concessions or be associated with Union Miniere to feel alarmed at recent United Nations action. Though I am totally unacquainted with either of these bodies I must say that when I reflect on these matters after reading the numerous 730 attacks on them, I associate them with the well-known French saying: Cet animal est méchant. Quand on l'attaque, il se défend. That seems to me very much to describe the position in which these people have found themselves.
There are two things which cause me particular concern and which have really occasioned my intervention today. My brief on this subject will be narrower than that of previous speakers. The first is the organisation of the United Nations. It is interesting in these large institutions, both international or here at home, to find out where the power exactly lies in their working. It is a fascinating game for those interested—a sort of cherchez la femme, or spot the lady. Originally, the power lay with the Security Council, but it does not lie with the Security Council any more, because in answer to Questions my hon. Friend has told me that there have been 70 meetings of the Security Council over the past fifteen months or so at which the Congo has not been discussed at all.
We have been told that the power has apparently passed in a somewhat vague way to the Assembly and the Secretary-General. If we had to content ourselves with that statement we would still not feel very much further forward, but we owe it to an historical accident that we have a little more information. The historical accident is that we had a literary man in charge of the operations in the Congo. Being to some extent in the business myself, I should not entirely denigrate the efforts of a literary man in politics. But even my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley) did not consider Dr. Conor O'Brien as a latter-day Napoleon.
Nevertheless, Dr. O'Brien has written an excellent book on the subject, and the most important thing in his book is his analysis of the power structure of the United Nations. In relation to the Congo, he tells us that the power lay with what he happily called the "Katanga Club", which was a cabal of the Secretary-General and three American citizens on, I think, the 37th floor of the United Nations building who, in effect, from the inception of the intervention, took all the effective decisions on the Congo.
I pass from cause to effect, about which we have heard much in this debate. It 731 was the matter of what I will call the second intervention that I raised in the Adjournment debate of 2nd March last year. I have to thank my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for information in his reply about the discipline of United Nations troops, and I cannot help thinking that some of the interveners on the other side of the House had not seen the report of that Adjournment debate before speaking today.
On this question of discipline and the inquiry, my hon. Friend gave some very full answers, and made it clear, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster today, that the commander of the United Nations forces has military command of those forces, but no power to court-martial—no power of discipline. Then, having spoken about the lack of United Nations civilian control over the military, my hon. Friend said, as he will himself remember: I do not want to give the impression that the Government have heard with equanimity the various allegations made, that we have adopted the attitude of Pilate. Despite what has been said by the right hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson), the previous atrocities were fully admitted.
My hon. Friend went on to say: On the contrary, our disquiet at the reports which have reached us, both in September, 1961, and in December, 1961, have repeatedly been brought to the attention of the United Nations. I do not in any way doubt that that was a fully honest assurance, but those representations must have been entirely ineffective. Though we are subscribing to these bonds, apparently no one in this building on the East River listens to what we say because, we have had the identical type of maltreatment and atrocity against a civilian population in circumstances similar to those which led to my previous protest.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster talked about one incident as though it were the only one, but there were others. He will have seen the letter in the Daily Telegraph on Monday from a M. Dister, writing from Belgium, alleging that his wife was shot in front of him by Ethiopian troops. So there have been further incidents of just the kind that I raised in that Adjournment debate.
Whatever point of view we may have about Mr. Tshombe or Mr. Lumumba, 732 we all appear to want this matter to be investigated. Unfortunately, in that Adjournment debate my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary stated that … much as we deplore some of the events which have occurred in Katanga … Her Majesty's Government do not believe that it would be useful to call for a general inquiry into the events of September, 1961, and December, 1961."—[OFFICIAL RFPORT, 2nd March, 1961; Vol. 654 c, 1804–15.] I therefore support my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell, in whatever he does in this matter, because I want to hear the Under-Secretary reverse that decision, and so let us have an investigation on all sides.
We have had history quoted throughout this debate, and I must say that history has been very much in my own mind as I have thought and read about these matters. It is, of course, the history of our own civilisation in Europe. It is all very well for troops to be under national command when the command is that of a nation that has hundreds of years of civilisation behind it, and has a proper code and proper discipline for its troops, who are themselves naturally humanitarian and kindly people.
It is a very different matter with nations which do not have that advantage. Indeed, the system of whistling contingents of troops from whatever authority is willing to provide them reminds one of only one thing, and that is the condition in Europe in the Middle Ages. This is exactly what happened in a previous stage of the development of our civilisation. This king or that prince was asked to provide a number of troops, who then ranged wide throughout the countryside at will.
We have gone further than that in our organisation in Europe by several hundred years. These were times which we thought we had forgotten. But the revival of this system—this system of calling on these loosely controlled and undisciplined agents is putting the clock back. One fears that unless something is done and a proper investigation is made, that unless this whole system of control is tightened up, and unless we in this country have more say in the matter, which we earn by the way we pay for it, we are not going forward with the United Nations. We are putting the clock back by centuries. This is why I oppose the voting of the money for the purchase of United Nations bonds.

§ Mr. Victor Goodhew (St. Albans)
I am prompted to intervene in the debate mainly by the speech by the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), which seemed to me to have a degree of personal abuse against my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) which was quite offensive and unacceptable.
I am comparatively new to the House, but I always thought that it was essential to its smooth running and, indeed, to its dignity, that we should all accept that those hon. Members who hold views different from our own hold them with the same honesty, conviction, sincerity and depth of feeling as we hold our own. I therefore deplore that type of speech and hope that we shall not hear too many of them in future.
I also resent the suggestion which is made from the benches opposite that those of us on this side of the House who speak in support of Mr. Tshombe are members of a mysterious Katanga "lobby" and have a sinister and secret interest in Katanga. I want to make it clear that the only interest I have in this matter is to try to see justice done.
The right hon. Member for Huyton made, as many hon. Members have made today, some sweeping statements without producing any evidence to support them—from Portuguese oppression in Africa, without any evidence to support it, to Mr. Tshombe's not having support in his own country. And the only evidence offered for that was a letter mentioned by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), written by six chiefs. People should try to be a dittle more moderate in their statements when discussing matters of this kind.
This gives me the opportunity to express my own dismay and disgust at the action which has been carried out in the name of the United Nations in Katanga. Whatever hon. Members may say, it is quite impossible to accept any view other than that the United Nations has behaved in a manner in complete contravention of its own Charter. It is not fair for those who do not share my view and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell to say that we are against the United Nations and do not support the Charter and its meaning. Those of us who protest today do so 734 because we feel great concern that the Charter might disappear in the background and that instead of it we shall see the rule of violence and force, which my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley) seemed to welcome.

§ Mr. Berkeley
My hon. Friend must apply to me the same standards as those he was asking the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. Wilson) to apply to my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison), that is to say, he must assume good faith and must not assume that I or that anybody else is in favour of breaking law and order or in favour of violence.

§ Mr. Goodhew
I must apologise to my hon. Friend if he thinks that I was accusing him of dishonesty in any way, but he said at the end of his speech that he welcomed the United Nations intervention and its result. To me, that meant that he welcomed the use of force to enforce a political solution in Katanga. I am sorry if I did not say that at the outset. I hope that my hon. Friend now understands that I was not accusing him of dishonesty, but merely doubting the wisdom of his views.
It is easy for people to talk about the responsibility for the outbreak of fighting in Katanga. When people say that the Katangese were the first to fire I would remind them that there is such a charge in English law as causing a breach of the peace. It is possible to rouse somebody to violent action by one's own action. When my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster said that there was no plan for this offensive in Katanga he was quite wrong. The details of an offensive were known to some hon. Members here some weeks before. It was known that the plan was to capture Elisabethville, Jadotville, Kolwezi and Kipushi and that the excuse would be that this was to procure freedom of movement for United Nations troops.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell and I made representations to the Government to warn them of this. All the United Nations troops had to do was to provoke an incident in which the Katangese Army fired the first shot so that they could carry out plans which had been prepared for some time. I wonder whether those who support United Nations action so wholeheartedly 735 understand what could happen in Africa as a result of this.
It is a fact that the central Congolese Government run a school for terrorists at Thaisville near Leopoldville, where they are trained to carry out terrorist actions in Angola. They make no secret of it. The terrorists arrested during the so-called uprising in Angola were found to be French-speaking Africans and not Portuguese-speaking, which tended to bear out that they had been trained for some time in the Congo.
If this is to happen, where will it end? When they have produced chaos in Angola, as they may do, are they going to move into Northern Rhodesia, Mozambique and Southern Rhodesia? There are people in Africa who want to see complete chaos in those parts of Africa, and when the chaos comes it is the ordinary Africans living in these territories who will suffer the misery and unpleasantness of it.
Hon. Members should not try to make out that when we are criticising United Nations action we are doing so because we want to protect European rights alone. We must understand that there are greater implications to this whole episode than merely the suppression of President Tshombe, and I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Government will be watching this very closely, because it seems to me that we can contemplate the whole future outlook in Africa with the gravest anxiety.
On the particular subject of the bonds, I do not know whether the Joint Under-Secretary can answer an important question. I understand that they are redeemable bonds. This presumably assumes that at a later date funds will be available with which to redeem them. I should like to know where those funds are to come from. Normally, when there are redeemable bonds there is some concern which has assets and sources of income from which it can accumulate funds to redeem them. It does not seem sensible if we are to be asked for these millions of pounds today to buy bonds and then asked later to accept other redeemable bonds in repayment of them and so say goodbye to those millions of pounds which will have gone down the drain.
736 Unless a really satisfactory answer can be given on this subject I must express complete support of my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell, who is opposed to the whole idea of Britain taking up these bonds.

§ Sir Wavell Wakefield (St. Marylebone)
We are discussing tonight a financial contribution to the United Nations. We are doing that because of the bankruptcy of the organisation. Why is the United Nations bankrupt? it seems to me that there are two major reasons. One is because of the costly operations in the Congo and the other because of the failure of certain countries to make the financial contributions which they are required to make under the Charter.
The whole question of Katanga has been very fully discussed tonight and I do not want to say any more about it now. What I wish to stress for a few minutes is that there is considerable anxiety in the country about taxpayers' money being contributed to the United Nations to bolster up that organisation because of the failure of other countries to make their payments. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that other countries are making the payments which they ought to make?
Earlier in the debate, in reply to an intervention by me, the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) pointed out that there were in the Charter rules governing the failure by countries to make financial contributions. What is the present position? How many countries have defaulted? When they default, are they stopped from taking part and voting in the proceedings of the United Nations? What is happening? What action are the Government taking, or have they taken, to ensure that these countries do make their contributions in due course?
Will these redeemable bonds be repayable when, if ever, other countries pay up? What action is the Government pay up? What action are the Government taking to try to ensure that the requirements of the Charter are fulfilled and that these other countries, if they do to participate and vote?
If we are to contribute through these bonds, other countries may just say that, since the United States, the United Kingdom and certain others are willing to 737 "cough up" and go on "coughing up" extra money, they will not make any payments at all. This is something we ought to know more about. Constituents have written to me about it. While fully supporting the United Nations and all it stands for, they feel quite strongly that it is wrong that we should make our contributions when other countries are failing to do so.
I should be grateful if my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State would give us more information on these points than he has given so far to justify the substantial contribution which the taxpayer is required to make to bolster up the bankrupt United Nations.

§ Mr. P. Thomas
If I may have the leave of the House, I should like to reply to some of the points which have been raised during the debate.
When I put shortly before the House the reasons why Her Majesty's Government asked it to vote the Supplementary Estimate, I had not expected that we should have such a very interesting debate, which has concentrated mainly on the United Nations activities in Katanga.
I have listened very carefully to all that has been said. At the outset, I say that, although I may disagree with much of what was said by several of my hon. Friends, I certainly cannot agree with the strictures passed by the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) on what was said by my hon. Friends, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison).
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) when he says that there is no doubt about the sincerity and conviction of view of my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell and other hon. Members who have spoken in his support. I say that because my hon. Friend knows that Her Majesty's Government hold a slightly contrary view.

§ Mr. Christopher Mayhew (Woolwich, East)
Slightly?

§ Mr. Thomas
A contrary view. I said that on a note of humour, and, therefore, lest there should be any misunderstanding, I will stay quite emphatically that our view, which is well known, is wholly different from that of my hon. Friend.
738 In reply to some of the questions I have been asked, I will say a few words about the United Nations activity in Katanga, but I know that the House will not wish me to speak at length about the whole Katanga operation. There has been a great division of view during the debate, not just a division between that side of the House and this but a division of view, very forcibly expressed, among my hon. Friends. Therefore, I do not think that I need do more than add a few words about the Government's attitude.
Our attitude was very forcibly expressed yesterday in another place by my noble Friend the Foreign Secretary, so I need not say very much, apart from this. It is true, as the right hon. Member for Huyton and the right hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson) said, that, when the United Nations went into the Congo, a chaotic situation existed. The United Nations representatives and forces went in, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley) said, at the invitation of the Central National Government.
The purpose of their intervention was to avoid conflict between the big Powers. There was the danger that big Powers might intervene in the Congo. Their purpose was to avoid the importation of the cold war into that part of Africa. We supported them in that purpose. Their role was to prevent civil and tribal war and to help the Congolese to settle and shape their own economic and political future. We supported them in that rôle.
It was quite apparent that there might be some occasion when force would have to be used. U Thant said that, in his view, the United Nations forces would be entitled to use force in three eventualities: one, in self-defence; two, f3r the prevention of civil war; three, for the removal of mercenaries. We supported the United Nations in that view of the eventualities which might result in the use of force.
It is only right to say—this is well known to the House—that we have had considerable misgivings about the interpretation of these three eventualities. In particular, we had misgivings about the interpretation that force could be used for a political settlement. I need not go into that. Our views are well known 739 and we have debated them in the House Her Majesty's Government have always recognised the central Government in Leopoldville as the Government of the Congo. We have hoped and worked for a settlement by consent because we knew that it was only such a settlement which could be permanent. That has been our policy.
It is not profitable at the moment for us to engage in a post mortem. I think that it is important at the moment for us to concentrate the whole of our energy behind U Thant's plan for reconciliation, and if it proves a success, as I hope it will, I would like to say that in large measure it will have been brought about because of the activities of our British consul during that very difficult time when the United Nations troops were moving into Jadotville and other towns just after Christmas.
I say that because of what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Huyton said. He said he would like to have an inquiry which would go into the instructions given to Her Majesty's consul in Elisabethville. I can tell the House that the instructions to Her Majesty's consul were consistently directed towards bringing Mr. Tshombe to accept the Secretary General's plan for national reconciliation in the Congo. Throughout that difficult period I think it is generally appreciated how important was his work in contacting Tshombe, and indeed the work of the Belgian consul.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell asked me certain questions. Perhaps I may deal, first, with the question he asked about the plan for national reconciliation. In our view, this plan continues to offer the best prospect for a lasting settlement based on agreement and cooperation between all the parties concerned. U Thant has confirmed that the plan is still valid and will remain in operation. Arrangements are now going on for the implementation of the monetary provisions of the plan and yesterday General Muke, commander of the Katanga gendarmerie, and a number of his officers took the oath or allegiance to President Kasavubu, in Leopoldville.
My hon. Friend also asked about refugees on the Northern Rhodesian border following the outbreak of hostilities at Katanga at the end of December. 740 It is true that a number of refugees made their way towards the Northern Rhodesian border. At one time I am informed their numbers amounted to several thousand, and up to 5,000 Africans crossed the border in the Kipushi area and remained there three or four days. They were self-contained and provided no problem from the point of view of food supplies or medical attention to the Rhodesian Government.
I am told that a further 10,000 stationed themselves along the Rhodesian-Katangan border. It appears many of these people were not true refugees fleeing from the results of military action but were rather awaiting developments in Katanga. I understand that the majority have now returned to their villages and homes. My hon. Friend asked me whether the United Nations refused assistance. I made inquiries and I have no information that they did, in fact, refuse assistance to refugees, but I understand that they assisted in the feeding of 20,000 Africans in Kafubu, a suburb of Elisabethville. They were all African refugees; there were no Europeans.
My hon. Friend also asked about the Security Council. I understand that the Secretary General sent a Report on 6th February to the Security Council on the latest phase of the United Nations operations on the Congo, and no doubt the Security Council will wish at some time to consider the Report.
As far as the British Government requesting a special meeting of the Security Council is concerned, it is our view that no useful purpose would be served by such a request. I feel the most constructive course now would be to bring together all the parties concerned for the implementation of the Secretary-General's conciliation plan. If a request was made for the matter to be discussed in the Security Council I think that there would be divisions, and now is not the time for divisions, and, in any event, I doubt very much whether support could be obtained for a discussion on the actions of the Secretariat.
The other question my hon. Friend asked was about the withdrawal of United Nations troops from Katanga. U Thant announced in New York on 29th January that the United Nations forces in the Congo would be progressively reduced 741 from the present total of 19,000 to about 12,000 by the end of March. He said that the emphasis of the United Nations in the Congo would now be switched to economic assistance, although the force would still have a rôle to play in preventing tribal warfare and preserving law and order. I know that the Secretary-General desires to concentrate the efforts of the United Nations on economic and technical assistance and I certainly hope that that desire can be fulfilled at the earliest possible moment.
Another matter which my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell and other of my hon. Friends referred to is the question of an independent and impartial inquiry. Reference has been made to the Adjournment debates which I answered some months ago. The question of an independent inquiry into allegations of improper conduct on the part of United Nations troops during the events of December, 1961, was seriously considered at the time, when I answered the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling) and my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Dr. D. Johnson). It soon became clear, however, that there was very little chance of obtaining support to bring about such a general inquiry. Inquiries were held by the United Nations into specific accusations and we were assured at the time that any individuals found guilty had been punished.
My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle is quite right when he says there is a difficulty in that the chain of command is such that each national troop has its own national leaders, and investigations must be conducted by them. However, we have been informed that in most cases the culprits not only were punished but they were repatriated from the Congo. Meanwhile, I can assure the House that our permanent representative in New York has certainly brought to the notice of the United Nations Secretariat the views and the concern which have been expressed in this House.

§ Mr. A. Henderson
Would not a useful purpose be served if the United Nations Secretary General were able to publish the details of the investigations that are being made? Is there any reason why they should be kept secret?

§ Mr. Thomas
No, I think that it would be interesting if they were published, and that most people would support such a request.
Various things have been said about matters that occurred in the events that followed last Christmas. I do not wish to say anything about these, except to say that I am told a full investigation has been made in the United Nations into all these matters, but as far as I know no British subjects have suffered any loss or damage during this particular time.
My hon. Friends the Members for Brighton, Pavilion and Carlisle asked about what is happening concerning compensation for British subjects as a result of the events which happened in December, 1961. All that I can tell them is that registration of losses by British or Commonwealth citizens who claim to have suffered injury or damage during the hostilities has continued and reports of all the incidents concerned have been under examination in London. As I say, I have received no reports that any British or Commonwealth subjects suffered harm during the recent fighting in Katanga.
Four cases resulting from the incidents of December, 1961, have been submitted to the United Nations' offices in Elisabethville, and I understand that these claims are still under examination by the United Nations authorities. Meanwhile, 42 forms, registering losses, have been received in London. I understand that two further forms are being submitted, but their arrival is still awaited by our Consul in Elisabethville. When all the forms have been received we will certainly do what we can to ensure that full reports are made and will decide which ones should be submitted to the Secretariat.
My hon. Friend the Member for St Marylebone (Sir W. Wakefield) mentioned the future financing of these matters in the United Nations. The proceeds of the bond issue are expected to keep the United Nations going at its present rate of expenditure until the end of April. The General Assembly endorsed by a very large majority the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the financing of the United Nations operation in the Middle East and the Congo, and the effect of this is to place beyond doubt the legal obligations of members to pay their 743 share of the cost of these operations as assessed by the General Assembly. As my hon. Friend knows, there was some doubt about that, or certainly some doubts were expressed, until the matter was determined by the International Court and adopted by the General Assembly.
In the same resolution the Assembly established a working group of 21 countries, including the United Kingdom, with the task of producing recommendations on future financing. A special session of the General Assembly will be held during the first half of 1963 to consider the report of the working group. The report of the working group is still under consideration and, therefore, I am not in a position to give further details.

§ Sir W. Wakefield
My hon. Friend has spoken about future financing, but can he give us any information about the failure of a number of countries to keep their payments up to date? The thing which is worrying people in this country is the fact that we are financing the failure of other countries to keep their payments up to date.

§ Mr. Thomas
I certainly accept that; what my hon. Friend says is perfectly right.
As I have said, the necessity for the issue of these bonds was the failure of many members of the United Nations to pay their subscriptions and because the United Nations was rapidly rushing towards bankruptcy. I think that it is right to say that no country was in arrears for more than two years at that time on its main subscriptions to the United Nations, but there were many countries which had not subscribed to the special operations.
The decision of the International Court, which has been endorsed by the General Assembly, brings the matter into a different perspective. This is a very important matter which will have to be considered, because if any country is in arrear for over two years I think that it is possible under Article 19 for that country to lose its vote.
My hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans asked how the money would be returned. It is payable over a period of time. We have already received the first payment of principal and interest. As I have said, we have already bought the 744 bonds and the money came from the Civil Contingencies Fund. Therefore, in asking the House to vote this sum of money, the object is to put it back into the Civil Contingencies Fund.
The money will be paid at a small percentage over a period of 25 years. We hope that if all members of the United Nations make their full contributions, as they should—both their normal contributions and their contributions to the special operations—there will be no difficulty whatsoever in the United Nations being able to pay the money back.

§ Mr. Goodhew
How much of this repayment of capital and interest are we paying ourselves?

§ Mr. Thomas
I cannot answer that without notice, but I will certainly try to find out the answer and let my hon. Friend know what it is.
I apologise for having taken longer than I expected. As I say, the purpose of the bond issue is to save the United Nations from threatened bankruptcy. We felt that it was our duty to respond to this appeal because, whatever reservations we may have about certain aspects of the United Nations' policies, we consider it to he of paramount importance for the people of the world that the organisation should be viable and able to sustain the principles of the Charter. We therefore contributed to the bond issue to the best of our ability, taking into account our contributions to other United Nations' activities and the high level of our overseas aid commitment.
I ask the House to say that that was the proper thing to do and to support the expenditure of the money on the bonds.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
Can my hon. Friend give an assurance that this bond issue is once-and-for-all?

§ Mr. Thomas
Yes. It is our intention that it shall be final.

§ Mr. Christopher Mayhew (Woolwich, East)
I had no intention of intervening in the debate, but I think that I must put on record the fact that the tone and content of the Minister's reply to the attacks on the United Nations which have been made in this debate were profoundly disturbing to hon. Members on this side of the House.
745 We have listened to a series of the most highly-coloured and intemperate attacks on the United Nations that I have ever heard in this House. We have heard attacks about the moral bankruptcy of the United Nations. We have heard extremely contentious and, I should have thought, slanderous attacks on some of the actions of the United Nations' servants. We have been told that the United Nations has committed three acts of aggression in the Congo. We have had attacks on the United Nations ranging more broadly than over the Congo operation.
If the Government believed in the United Nations, I should have thought that we should have had a reply on behalf of the Government which asserted their belief in the United Nations and which strongly attacked the speeches made in this debate. Instead of that, the Minister began by saying, "We have had a very interesting debate" and by dissociating himself entirely from the strictures against the enemies of the United Nations made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson). He said, "I will not conceal the fact that the attitude of the Government is slightly different". It was only in response to protests from this side that he then said "somewhat different". In response to further protests from this side he said "wholly different". It needed the Opposition to make him do his duty.

§ Mr. P. Thomas
The hon. Gentleman will want to be fair. I used the words "slightly different" in a humorous way. I thought that they might be misinterpreted, so I made the matter perfectly clear. Her Majesty's Government's view on this matter is perfectly clear, and we have given it to the House on many occasions. Today, in the course of the few words I said, I made clear that we did support United Nations. We are asking the House to vote money to support the United Nations.

§ Mr. Mayhew
I am very glad that, prompted by the Opposition, the Minister should have made clear that he wholly differs from his hon. Friends below the Gangway. I should have thought that It would have come better in a more striking and convincing tone of voice with perhaps a little support for the one member of his party who did support the United Nations in, if I may say so, a 746 most admirable speech, extremely well-informed from first-hand knowledge.
If the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley) were the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the prestige of the Government would rise not only in this country but perhaps in some of the countries where, as he rightly said, the Government have lost a great deal of good will and prestige for Britain by their action in the Congo crisis. I should like simply to place on record our view that the tone and content of the Minister's reply seemed wholly inadequate.
We entirely dissociate ourselves from the vicious attacks made on the United Nations by hon. Members opposite and very much regret that, as it seems, these attacks should have had more influence on Government policy and appear to be taken a great deal more seriously by the Government Front Bench than they deserve. We believe that it is in the interests of the country that we should support the United Nations. We greatly regret that Her Majesty's Government have not made their position clear on this occasion.