Safeguarding White Minority Power: The South African Government and the Secession of Katanga, 1960–1963

Abstract

On 11 July 1960, the governor of Katanga, Moïse Tshombe, announced that his province would secede from the newly established Republic of Congo. Soon after Tshombe's announcement, the white minority government of apartheid South Africa was accused by some political leaders and commentators of having formed an ‘unholy alliance’ with the secessionist state of Katanga, which lasted from 1960 to 1963. This alliance, described contemporaneously as a conspiracy between South Africa, Portugal, the Central African Federation and Katanga, was understood to have been intended to protect southern Africa's white settler societies from the spread of African independence and to safeguard the region's mining interests. The unholy alliance hypothesis has, however, never been substantiated. Based on archival material from South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, this article examines the ‘unholy alliance’ between South Africa and Katanga – it asks how and why the South African government operated as a regional power and decided to support the secession of Katanga. The article concludes that Pretoria acted on its own in a more cautious and ad hoc manner than claimed by the unholy alliance hypothesis.