Kanza Discusses Congo 'Tragedy'

An important figure in the Congolese Government mourned the death of Patrice Lumumba and spoke bitterly on the "Tragi-comedy of the Congo" last night at Quincy House.

Thomas Kanza, the representative at the U.N. of Antoine Gizenga (Lumumba's chief deputy and now the leader of his party) "paid homage" to the broad popular support that Lumumba commanded.

Non-Lumumbist deputies have at most only 40-50 seats out of 137 in Joseph Kasavubu's government, Kanza claimed. Most of these have been "bought off:" they have betrayed Lumumba for "financial reasons" to Belgian mining interests and other "neo-colonialist forces."

Without Lumumba's help, Kanza insisted, Kasavubu could have formed no government and was only able to do so when the recently murdered leader solicited deputies' votes for him.

During their temporary alliance, Kanza said, the Congolese President and Premier sent a joint telegram to Nikita S. Khrushchev stating that the Congo might soon have to request Soviet aid in driving out Belgian troops. After September 5 of last year, when Lumumba and his friends (excepting Kanza himself) were thrown out of office, Kasavubu published the telegram but left his name off it.

Continuing his description of this "new process of neo-colonialist methods," Kanza suggested that Moise Tshombe's soldiers had murdered Lumumba as soon as the arrested leader entered Katanga province. "It is impossible that Tshombe would allow his mortal enemy to escape," he said.

Kanza added ruefully that when he arrived in New York last week a reporter asked him: "What do you think of the liberation of Lumumba ?" He replied at the time that the fate of Lumumba was in the U.N. Security Council's hands.

Kanza maintained that the "last chance" of the U.S. in the Congo was to realign its policies along anti-colonialist "wave-lengths." He was cautious about evaluating the success of the U.N. in the Congo, saying only that Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold ought to ask himself, "Yes or No--did he follow the instructions of the Security Council?