St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1962-01-26
Rowan Blasts
Schuyler & Yergan
For TShombe Lobby


lie affairs told an audience here
last week that he finds ut partic-
ularly disturbing that handful of
Negroes have joined the Katanga
lobby"
1T should be of special interest
to this audience" he continued
while addressing the 47th annual
conclave of the Phi Beta Sigma
Fraternity, that a couple of we'll
known Negroes, George Schuyler
and Max Yergan, have been busy
spreading the Struelens line"
Michel Struelens, he had ex-
planned earlier in his speech, is a
former Belgian civil servant, now
living luxuriously in New York,
according to Rowan has spent
about $4,000 during the last year
to get some extremely vocal help
in dispensing a string of myths
and stream of transformation
about Katanga and the Congo.
| Yergan, a former YMCA execu-
tive and African traveller and
Schuyler, columnist for the Pitts
burgh Courier, were recently man,
ed by Holden Roberto as propagan-
dists paid to gloss over the shoddy
Portuguese colonial regime in An
COLA.
Referring again to Yergan and
Schuyler, Rowan added But,
guess Negroes are entitled to pro-
duce few reactionaries, too"
Giving some of the background
on Katanga and Noise Tshombe,
its president, Rowan said:
What you may not understand
is that the core of European in
terest in the Congo was conferred in
Katanga with its wealth of mineral
resources and its great mining
| COLIlplSN, OIuOH M1IuGTe.
"Out of Katanga's rich veins,
Union Miniere was producing 8
per cent of the worlds copper, so
per cent of its cobalt and many
other minerals. Union Miniere was
a classic example of the profitable
side of colonialism. Despite all the
Congo's troubles, this Belgian-con-
trolled firm had net profits of At
million dollars in 1860. I am told
that the first half of 1861 was its
most profitable such period in his
tory.
Union Miniere pays about 80
per cent of the tax revenues Of
Katanga - and need not tell
you that any organization that
contributes that much of a prov
ince's revenues is going to be a
powerful force in the affairs. of
that province.
Now isn't it natural that those
with financial interests in Union
Miniere would rather see Katanga
as an easily-controlled separate
nation" than as part of a larger
Congo nation whose government
might not be as friendly as Mr..
Tshombe and his associates.
you and I know that this is
natural. Knowing this, we know
also that much of Mr.. Tshombe's
most vocal support arises not so
much from the fact that he is
anti Communist" as the fact that
he is pro-Union Miniere."
Emphasizing that Tshombe's po-
sition does not have the backing
of the majority of the Katangese,
Rowan continued:
But I say that in his efforts
to grab the wealth of Katanga for
his million supporters and his
European friends and leave 1872
million Congolese holding the bag,
Tshonbe unwittingly was playing
the Communist game to the hilt.
"Why? Because those 1872 mil
lion Congolese have made it clear
that if the U.N. can't halt seces-
sion, they will use force to take
Katanga back. Thus secession
would mean civil war and chaos.
You know who always turks in
the shadows waiting to capitalize
on chaos. The Communists, of
course.
THE well-paid propagandists
have attempted to play upon what
they assume is American fear of
Communism by emphasizing that
the us. and the Soviet Union are
ION the same side" in the Congo
dispute"
Rowan described the Tshombe
bedfellows of Schuyler and Yergan
as "a conglomeration of arch-con-
servatives; people who oppose the
income tax; avowed defenders Of
racial segregation; opponents of
fluoridation of water; those who
want to destroy the Supreme
Court, largely because Of its rul-
ing on school segregation, and so
forth.
Some Of the Americans crying
loudest about what the UN is do
ing to Tshombe wouldn't be caught
dead having lunch with the Ka-
tangan leader"