Union Miniere Du Haut Katanga Research Articles

Production of Nonferrous Metals in the Katanga Region of the Democratic Republic of Congo: 1906-2012

This paper investigates the production of nonferrous metals in the Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) from the colonial period to the independent Congo. It focuses specifically on the major enterprise known initially as Union Miniere du Haut Katanga (UMHK) in the period of Belgian rule and Gecamines during the independent era. It aims to estimate the economic value of the processed metals from a historical perspective. This study builds on sources that include internal documents, archives of companies, and in-depth interviews with managers. The findings reveal that during the colonial period, the copper industry alone generated a total income of US$ 5.5 billion that represented twice the Congolese nominal GDP of 1960. This revenue financed exclusively Belgian interests. The UMHK provided strategic metals to the Western Allies during the two World Wars making the company a big supplier of metals on the world market. After nationalization of the UMHK in 1967, the copper industry generated a total income of about US$ 52.6 billion under the Congolese ownership and management. Gecamines contributed an average of 11.6 percent to the Congolese GDP per year.

Payment Determines the Status of an Actor

The scenario was quite explicit—local actors and local situations. As part of a daily educational television programme aimed at semiliterate adults living in Lubumbashi in the Congo, it had been decided that not only programmes to teach French and arithmetic should be produced but also certain programmes under the title of general information. These programmes have been based on courses which the Training Within Industry department of Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga had been giving over the last ten years. The main object of this course was to teach an appreciation of such things as elementary notions of economics—the convention of money, insurance—as well as hygiene and safety. To illustrate these programmes film had to be shot.

Politics and Tribalism in the Katanga

HE FOURTEEN MILLION inhabitants of the former Belgian Congo are divided into an estimated 183 culturally distinct tribes and sub-tribes including Pygmies, Nilotics, Sudanese, and Bantu.The 144 Bantu-speaking tribes contain most of the population and inhabit at least two-thirds of the land area. Despite this diversity, the languages and cultures of the Congo are relatively homogeneous, and extend north and south of the political boundaries to include the entire Congo Basin.2 The Katanga is second only to Orientale in size among the six Congo provinces, and is infinitely the richest, providing 65 per cent of all Congo exports. The huge mining company of Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga alone paid one-third of the nation's budget, which in 1954 was 160 million dollars.3 This helps explain why nearly a third of all the non-Africans in the Congo (28,455 out of 94,531 in 1955) lived in the Katanga. In contrast, the Katanga African population of one and one-half million is the smallest of any province, and its population density of 7.56 per square mile is less than half the average throughout the country. Thus while the ratio of Europeans to Africans throughout the Congo was only 1 in 140, in the Katanga it was 1 in 50. Economically the Congo can not hope to become a viable nation without the Katanga, whose President, Moise Tshombe, declared it an independent state and has been reluctant to join any confederation of provinces unless the Katanga controls the revenues and hence the political power. This paper will attempt to analyze political developments in the Katanga immediately before and after Independence (June 30, 1960) in terms of the ethnographic background, and on this basis to predict some likely future developments. The Katanga was first entered by Lacerda in 1798, and traversed by the Portuguese pombeiros in 1806-10 and by David Livingstone in 1853; but it remained virtually unknown until the 1890's when the geologists Cornet and Diederich discovered its tremendous mineral resources. Before this time, the meager game and unproductive soil had attracted only a sparse and scattered population, whose complicated migration patterns are fairly well known through traditional

Electrolytic Cobalt in Katanga

One of the world’s most important cobalt producing regions is Katanga, where copper-cobalt ores, mined and concentrated by the Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga, are treated for the recovery of these metals at the firm’s Jadotville plant. This is a description of the processes employed, with particular emphasis on cobalt.

International Library of African Music

With the end of 1958, the Library has now successfully completed its first experimental five year period. This was made possible through the generosity of various donors including the Nuffield Foundation, the Copper Mines of Northern Rhodesia, the Diamond Mines of Southern Africa, the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association, The Union Miniere du Haut Katanga, several Corporate Members including the Gold Mines of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, the South African Department of Arts and Science, Municipalities and other Industries and a number of Ordinary Members.

Lourenco Marques in Delagoa Bay

LOURENGO MARQUES has long been an important outlet for Southern Mozambique and one of the major gateways for the great mineral and industrial area of the Transvaal in the Union of South Africa. In August, 1955, the Pafuri Link or Limpopo Railway was completed, tying the port with the rapidly developing but landlocked areas of Northern and Southern Rhodesia and with the adjacent realm of Union Miniere du Haut Katanga in the southeastern Belgian Katanga. Beira in Central Mozambique previously handled 80 per cent of the total overseas trade of the Central African Federation, but congestion at that port and on its feeder rail lines made it necessary to secure a new outlet and the choice fell on Delagoa Bay.' Connected with several of the most vigorous economic regions of the continent (Fior 1 ) Lnrencn Marnies promises to achieve even greater significance as one of the outstanding African ports. An analysis of the harbor and port of Lourengo Marques and of its relations with the tributary areas is important in assessing the long-range transport programs of the Rhodesias, the Union, and Mozambique.

Copper in the Katanga Region of the Belgian Congo

^ OPPER in Africa has had a relatively long history in comparison with African mineral development. Even before the coming of white man natives had dug, smelted, and used the copper obtained. The first African explorers noted the mineral richness of the Katanga. However, the basis for present development of copper mining was set in 1906. In that year the Mining Union of the Upper Katanga (Union Miniere du Haut Katanga) was formed and given the right to work an area of 7,776 square miles (15,000 Km2) until 1990. This concession contained all the known copper measures of the Belgian Congo. The company was also given a tin concession at that time. The story of copper exploitation in the Belgian Congo is a saga of the Mining Union of the Upper Katanga. The first operations on an industrial scale were not begun until 1911. Before the railroad reached Elizabethville a