Sweden and the trinity of peacekeeping during the Congo crisis 1960-1964 Tullberg, Andreas

309 Pages·2017·8.84 MB·English

"We are in the Congo now" : Sweden and the trinity of peacekeeping during the Congo
crisis 1960-1964
Tullberg, Andreas
2012
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Citation for published version (APA):
Tullberg, A. (2012). "We are in the Congo now" : Sweden and the trinity of peacekeeping during the Congo crisis
1960-1964. [Doctoral Thesis (monograph), History]. Department of History, Lund university.
Total number of authors:
1
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LUND UNIVERSITY
PO Box 117
221 00 Lund
[phone]
‘We are in the Congo now’
Sweden and the Trinity of Peacekeeping
during the Congo Crisis 1960–1964

Andreas Tullberg
ISBN 978-91-7473-364-8
ISSN 1650-755X
© Andreas Tullberg
Lund University 2012

Cover image from:
Anvisningar för svensk trupps uppträdande under tropiska förhållanden,
Arméstaben, Stockholm, 1960 (edited by the author)

2
For
Malin, Clara & Alice
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents .............................................................................................. 5
1. Introduction .................................................................................................. 7
Behind a barracks in Elizabethville, 9 December 1961 ................................................... 7
The ‘new’ and the ‘old’ peacekeepers ............................................................................. 9
A cultural approach to peacekeeping ............................................................................ 16
The peacekeeper soldier ............................................................................................... 17
The case of the Congo, 1960–1964 ............................................................................. 19
The purpose of and questions for the study ................................................................. 21
Outlines for the study .................................................................................................. 23
Earlier studies on the ONUC and Swedish peacekeeping ............................................ 24
2. The trinity of peacekeeping ......................................................................... 31
Clausewitz and a trinity of peacekeeping ...................................................................... 31
Cultural foundation, friction and the trinity of peacekeeping ...................................... 38
The cultural foundation ............................................................................................... 39
The small state with the huge responsibility ................................................................. 43
Bringing in the army .................................................................................................... 47
The model of the homeland defender .......................................................................... 50
The material ................................................................................................................ 54
Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 58
3. The United Nations in the Congo 1960–1964 ............................................. 61
Darkest of pasts ........................................................................................................... 62
The Congo crisis .......................................................................................................... 63
The creation of the ONUC ......................................................................................... 65
The Congo crisis and the Cold War ............................................................................ 66
The war in Katanga ..................................................................................................... 68
4. Swedish decision-making and preparations before the ONUC .................... 73
Swedish active foreign policy, the United Nations and anti-colonialism ...................... 74
The Congo question, political decisions and public opinion ........................................ 76
Media responses ........................................................................................................... 79
Sweden, the Cold War and the Congo ........................................................................ 83
The Swedish army and the formation of the Congo battalions in the 1960s ................ 86
The soldiers ................................................................................................................. 97
Who were they? ........................................................................................................... 99
Individual motives and perceptions before the ONUC .............................................. 100
Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 104
5. War and combat in the Congo ................................................................... 107
Disturbing order ........................................................................................................ 107
Abnormal soldiering in the Congo ............................................................................. 110
The battalion and communications ........................................................................... 113

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6. Defending the train escorts ........................................................................ 117
The first combat events, the 10th Battalion and the media responses ......................... 117
The Baluba ‘enemy’ ................................................................................................... 130
Political concerns in early 1961 ................................................................................. 135
Political orientation, motive construction and duty ................................................... 139
Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 148
7. The UN on the attack ................................................................................ 151
The stressful autumn and winter of 1961 ................................................................... 151
Political turmoil ......................................................................................................... 158
The army and the war ................................................................................................ 171
In a state of war and psychological warfare? ............................................................... 180
The battalions during Morthor and Unokat .............................................................. 187
The whys and the hows ............................................................................................. 197
Mercenary enemies .................................................................................................... 200
The refugee camp, the Baluba troublemakers and victims .......................................... 206
Casualties of war and peace ........................................................................................ 219
Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 226
8. Bringing the secession to an end ................................................................ 229
A year of negotiations ................................................................................................ 229
The Kamina deployment and the ‘non-fighting’ 16th Battalion ................................. 231
Continued criticism and political concern ................................................................. 235
The 18th Battalion, military disputes, and Operation Grand Slam ............................ 243
Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 253
9. Keeping the peace in the Congo ................................................................. 255
The theme of peacekeeping in the Congo .................................................................. 255
Racism and racism ..................................................................................................... 257
The old and the modern Congo and Sweden as a model ............................................ 263
Humanitarianism and self-criticism ........................................................................... 269
Conclusion: A Swedish man’s burden? ....................................................................... 272
10. ‘We are in the Congo now’ ....................................................................... 275
Fighting a war in the Congo: three levels of war? ....................................................... 275
The trinity of peacekeeping and the peacekeeping role model .................................... 276
The ‘cultural foundation’ and the collective battalion self-perception ........................ 283
References ...................................................................................................... 289
Printed Sources .......................................................................................................... 289
Newspapers and Magazines ........................................................................................ 289
UN documents .......................................................................................................... 290
Other Sources ............................................................................................................ 291
Litterature .................................................................................................................. 293
Name index ............................................................................................................... 300
Summary in Swedish ...................................................................................... 302
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ 306

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1. Introduction
Behind a barracks in Elizabethville, 9 December 1961

We struck up a hymn, accompanied by the [field-]organ and the
whistling noises from projectiles and ricochets. Then [the battalion
priest] followed. In the middle of the sermon we suddenly heard the
well-known, horrid thuds from the opponents’ mortars. Within
twenty seconds the detonations would reach us. We looked at each
other and glanced at the foxholes. We crouched or kneeled by the
organ, but remained to give our comrade an honest farewell. A new
sound then entered from close range. It was our mortars that opened
fire in our defence.
The opponents’ grenades hit close by as we sang a hymn
with thin voices.1

As Jonas Wærn remembered it, the few soldiers that had gathered behind
the barracks in the Swedish camp were the only ones who had been able to
free themselves from their pressing duties in order to pay their respects to
their fallen comrade. Private Nilsson was neither the first nor the last
Swedish soldier to fall in battle in the Congo during the autumn and winter
of 1961. But for the Battalion Commander, Jonas Wærn, it must have been
a particularly strong memory, as Wærn had travelled in the same armoured
car as Nilsson when he was killed.2
The ‘December War’ in Elizabethville in the southern part of the Congo
had begun on the 5th, four days before Nilsson was shot. Some ten days of
fighting later, on the morning of 16 December, the UN troops orchestrated

1 Jonas Wærn (1980), p. 341, All quotes have been translated by the author if not stated
otherwise.
2 Ibid., pp. 334–341.
3 This study uses the translations suggested in Ordlista: Engelska, amerikanska och franska
7
a large military offensive throughout the city with over 4,000 men. The
explicit goal was to destroy the enemy resistance in the city. Among the
attacking UN troops, the entire Swedish battalion of about 600 men took
part. For several days, combat raged in the streets of Elizabethville as heavily
armed UN soldiers attacked key sites in the city. In his December report to
the Defence Staff3 in Stockholm, Wærn described the UN attack as a last
resort and in line with the UN’s policy in the Congo.4 Therefore it was
necessary, planned and offensive.
In the political arena, however, descriptions of war and enemies did not
correspond well with the Swedish peacekeeping effort. Hence, what was
happening in Elizabethville was, in contrast to Wærn’s description,
presented in defensive terms by the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Östen Undén. In a speech before Parliament just hours before the attack on
16 December, he stated:

The fundamental principle of the UN’s operation in the Congo is
that the organization cannot be a part of the domestic conflict, nor
can have within its objectives to enforce upon the Congolese certain
solutions to their problems. ... The military forces cannot be used
with such objectives. Instead, they shall perform tasks of police
nature and in addition to that, by their very presence, serve the
purpose of bringing the different groups in the Congo to reach
agreements through negotiations.5

3 This study uses the translations suggested in Ordlista: Engelska, amerikanska och franska
benämningar på svenska, främst militära organ, befattningar och grader. Andra upplagan
(Försvarsstaben. Utrikesavdelningen, 1952). Hence, ‘Försavarsstab’ will be translated
‘Defence Staff’; ‘Arméstab’ will be translated ‘Army Staff’; and ‘Bataljonsstab’ will be
translated ‘Battalion HQ’ (Headquarters).
4 Kongorapport nr. 1, XIVK, 31/12/1961, pp. 2–13.
5 ‘Interpellationssvar avgivet av utrikesminister Undén den 15 december i riksdagens andra
kammare’, in Utrikesfrågor. Offentliga dokument m.m. rörande viktigare svenska
utrikespolitiska frågor 1961 (Stockholm: Kungliga utrikesdepartementet, 1962), p. 65.
8
The violence was therefore to be understood as unfortunate, somewhat
surprising and from a Swedish perspective defensive, according to Undén.
Neither was the term ‘war’ used.
Never before had a UN peace operation come so close to war as it did in the
Congo in the early 1960s. For Swedes, whether being soldiers, politicians or
just the public in general, it was an overwhelmingly new experience. For the
first time since 1814 regular Swedish soldiers had been wounded or killed in
battle. The news that the violence and chaos in the Congo had thrown the
Swedish soldiers into lethal combat in Africa was met by a wide set of
responses in Sweden, ranging from anger to pride, but was perhaps above all
met by confusion. Dramatic headlines filled the Swedish newspapers in
December 1961. ‘Jungle drums call for total war’, Aftonbladet wrote on 17
December.6 The media did not hesitate to communicate the horrors of war
in the Congo, and did so in a way that described the situation in
Elizabethville as chaotic, violent and dangerous, and thus far from Wærn’s
planned and ordered offensive.
The reason Wærn’s, Undén’s and Aftonbladet’s descriptions of what took
place in the Congo diverged was linked to them operating in different arenas
of society. While Wærn and his men were at the scene fighting hard, Undén
addressed the UN intervention in the Congo from the perspective of the
Swedish participation as state actor. Aftonbladet’s journalists in turn tried to
report from what they saw and heard in order to inform the public of what
happened in the Congo. Given that they all in this way can be said to be
right within their own domains, it opens up questions on how rhetoric and
arguments in different arenas of society came together or diverged to form a
contemporaneous understanding of Swedish participation in the Opération
des Nations Unies au Congo, ONUC.

The ‘new’ and the ‘old’ peacekeepers
Before I continue the study of the Swedish participation in the ONUC,
there is a need for a brief discussion on peacekeeping studies in general in

6 Aftonbladet, 17/12/1961.
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