Kwame Nkrumah’s Intervention in the 1960s Congo Crisis: a Pan-African Geopolitics and Personality Trait

Abstract

Abstract Utilizing archival materials and existing literature, the article examines the contending rationales motivating Nkrumah’s decision to support the UN mission in the Congo during the 1960s political crisis. Existing scholarship, to date, appreciates Nkrumah’s involvement from the perspectives of African camaraderie, anti-imperial mawkishness, and regional leadership. However, beyond these elucidations, the optimal focus should be driven by Pan-Africanism geopolitics, the leadership traits and African political unification agenda of Nkrumah. The paper reveals how the UN mission was perceived by Nkrumah as an avenue to forbid the powers of the bipolar system to interfere with the right of “sovereign self-determination” within the domestic affairs of the Congo. The article’s findings and conclusion posit that the UN operation provided a boulevard of latitude for Nkrumah’s grander pan-African geopolitical ambition coupled with his own leadership traits. The failure of his mission was relative, given the normative value of his pan-African dream.