CONGO (SITUATION) (Hansard, 2 March 1961)

§ Mr. Fell

Mr. Speaker, I beg to ask your leave, and that of the House, to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 on a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the massacre in Luluabourg yesterday and the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Congo which threatens the lives of British subjects in the Congo and the security of Northern Rhodesia. I will not take more than a moment or two to explain to the House why I believe that this may come under the headings of "definite", "urgent", and of "public importance". In the first place, it is definite. One is always in the difficulty of getting complete corroboration of reports, but the news appears on the tape, and, since the appearance of that message on the tape, the Press has reported a statement of the United Nations concerning the appeal of a thousand citizens of Luluabourg for protection by the United Nations.

Secondly, it seems to me to come well within the heading of urgency when British subjects—Europeans and Africans—stand in suddenly accentuated danger of their lives; when priests have been massacred; when nuns have been raped; when all manner of people are in suddenly accentuated danger of their 1763 lives; and when British subjects are also facing the threat, accentuated by this latest massacre, of a sudden explosion in the whole of the Congo. resulting in a blood bath.

There is the question of public importance. It seems to me that it is always of public importance in this country when the lives and property of any British subject are in danger. In this case, it is not just one life, it is not just the lives of British citizens in the immediate area of the Congo, but the lives of British citizens—Europeans and many others—in Northern Rhodesia.

That being so, I feel, Mr. Speaker, that in all the circumstances, having waited this long for real action to abate this blood bath in the Congo, it is time that we considered the matter as one of the greatest urgency.