- Lot 470

[CONGO - ARCHIVES] General Emile JANSSENS - Personal documentation file concerning the troubles of July 1960 in Congo. Traces of rust on the corner of some pages due to metal staples. Voluminous file of correspondence, reports, press excerpts, etc. documenting the events of July 1960, marked by the mutiny of a garrison of the Force publique, which degenerated into violence and spread to other cities and provoked successively the massive exodus of Europeans, the interventions of the Belgian army, the secession of Katanga, the intervention of the UN blue helmets and finally a civil war which lasted four years. Émile Janssens (1902-1989), the last commander-in-chief of the Force publique (F.P.), published a History of the Force publique (1980), for which the present dossier was probably used. Consisting of 4 folders, containing : - Correspondence from Pierre Vandevoorde to General Janssens, dated 1961-1970, with appendices (copies of plans, handwritten maps), giving an account of events in Coquilhatville (present-day Mbandaka). - Colonel Matterne - "Confidential and secret. Report on the events of July 1960. Elisabethville and Katanga". 25-11-1960. 1f. manuscript and 10 ff. dactyl. with autograph signature. Report of his personal action. - 15 autogr. and dactylogr. letters signed, mostly from former officers of the Force publique, dated 1960, 1961, 1978. Including 1 from General Janssens to Colonel Noël Dedeken accompanying a long message (Kinshasa, 20-04-1978) from a former Congolese soldier of the F.P. follower of Simon Kimbangu: "Perhaps you can use it to extract passages in the "Nbango ya bisu", to which the addressee replies "No / ridiculous". - 3 folders of handwritten, typed reports (1 mimeographed memoir) written for the most part by former officers of the F.P. ATTACHED: - Voluminous binder of various documents on the "Federation of Veterans of the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi", 1958-1960: letters, minutes of general meetings, publications, etc. - 7 various publications on the Congo, including a memoir on the Katangese secession by Albert van de Kerchove.