Atlanta Daily World

Congo Urges U. N. To Enter Katanga

LEOPOLDVILLE, The Congo - (UPI) - The Congolese Cabinet appealed Saturday to United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold to send U. N. troops to secessionist Katanga Province despite warnings from the Katanga premier that "it will mean war."

The U. N. forces themselves were reported having internal difficulties. Reports in this capital said nationalist elements in the Ghana army detachments here were trying to remove their British officers on grounds that the presence of white officers tended to discredit the Ghanaians in the eyes of fellow-black Congolese.

The Congolese cabinet, meeting under deputy premier Antoine Gizenga, who is government chief here while Premier Patrice Lumumba tours America, drew up a memorandum calling for units of the U. N. force to enter Katanga. The cabinet held a joint session with U. N. officials and reliable sources said the proposal was raised to Hammarskjold.

Katanga Premier Moise Tshombe, who wants his 306,000 - square-mile territory to become independent, has Belgian troops in Katanga for protection and has insisted that U. N. troops stay out. "It will mean war" if they enter, Tshombe has warned.

Hammarskjold has decided against visiting Katanga himself so as to prevent giving an impression that he favors the Katanga claim to independence. Loss of Katanga would be a disastrous blow to the new Congo Republic, since Katanga accounts for 60 per cent of the Congo's vast mineral resources.

Nationalists in the cabinet, who want a strong central government with Katanga just one part of it, were said to be disappointed at Hammarskjold's hands-off attitude. He told them the U. N. had no intention of running headlong into Katanga.

Hammarskjold was considered unlikely to change his attitude.

since Katanga is calm while looting and pillaging continues in other provinces.

A bitterness toward Belgium continued, sources said the cabinet was planning to bring home the 300 Congolese now studying at Belgian universities and send them elsewhere, probably to France to finish their educations.

Belgium appeared to be friendly to the aspirations of Katanga Premier Tshombe. During his stopover in Brussels on Wednesday en route to Leopoldville, Hammarskjold was told by Premier Gaston Eyskens to keep U. N. troops out of Katanga.

However, Belgium has not recognized Katanga independence, nor has any other nation, although Tshombe has called for such recognition.