ONUC : As a Success!!!

The ONUC was a success and as over the four years of help and aid that the UN provided, the task of the United Nations Operations in the Congo was to help the Congolese Government restore and maintain the political independence and territorial integrity of the Congo; to help it maintain law and order throughout the country; and to put into effect a wide and long-range programme of training and technical assistance.

To meet the vast and complex task before it, the United Nations had to assemble a very large team. At its peak strength, the United Nations Force totalled nearly 20,000 officers and men. The instructions of the Security Council to this Force were strengthened early in 1961 after the assassination in Katanga province of former Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. The Force was to protect the Congo from outside interference, particularly by evacuating foreign mercenaries, and advisers from Katanga and preventing clashes and civil strife, by force if necessary as a last resort.

Following the reconvening of Parliament in August 1961 under United Nations auspices, the main problem was the attempted secession, led and financed by foreign elements, of the province of Katanga. In September and December 1961, and again in December 1962, the secessionist gendarmes under the command of foreign mercenaries clashed with the United Nations Force. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld lost his life on 17 September 1961 in the crash of his aeroplane on the way to Ndola (in what is now Zambia) where talks were to be held for the cessation of hostilities.