Kasavubu To Recall Congo Parliament

Press, Volume C, Issue 29513, 15 May 1961, Page 11

Kasavubu To Recall Congo Parliament

(NZP. AReuter—Co-pyrzq lit)

LEOPOLDVILLE, May 13.

President Kasavubu announced today that he had decided to recall the Congolese Parliament —which has not met for eight months—as soon as the current meeting of Congo leaders in Coquilhatville, is over. He said he would ask for United Nations help in bringing the Parliamentarians to Leopoldville and in ensuring their security. No date has been set for the conclusion of the Coquilhatville talks, which have lasted more than two weeks, and delegates are now studying a draft resolution for a new constitution for “the United States of the Congo.”

President Kasavubu, speaking in Coquilhatville, said he hoped this “return to legality” would bring new life to the Congolese people, who had experienced nearly 10 months of “confusion, misery and every kind of privation." The decision to recall Parliament removes from the Lumumbist leader, Mr Antoine Gizenga, his main reason for refusing to talk with the other Congolese leaders.

Since last September, when Colonel Joseph Mobutu seized power and neutralised the politicians, the Lumumbists, with the backing of the AfroAsian group in New York, have demanded that Parliament meet again. President Kasavubu said today: “The hour is grave and the decisions we have to take involve the very future of our young State.” The Congolese Parliament consists of a Chamber of Deputies of 137 and a Senate of 84. About 20 members of both Houses have been executed as political prisoners since independence. A United Nations spokesman said that no formal request for United Nations protection of members of Parliament had yet been received, said the Associated Press When it was. he said, it would receive the “most favourable and sympathetic consideration.” This was especially so. since the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council had consistently been in favour of a recall of Parliament. Under the union plan, the

former Belgian Congo, including Katanga, would be brought together with Leopoldville as the capital. The proposed constitution would invest wider powers in the President and central Administration than envisaged at the Madagascar conference of Congo leaders last March.

The proposed union will be composed of the “Kingdom of South Kasai,” the federal city of Leopoldville and a still undetermined number of States. A draft plan of the proposal was presented to the plenary session of the conference by the ruler of Kasai (Mr Albert Kalonji), the British United Press reported. The plan covers the territory of the old Belgian Congo, including Katanga and the Lumumbist provinces of Orientale and Kivu. The Legislature would consist of a Federal congress with new elections to replace the Parliament elected last June. The proposed Government’s powers would include foreign relations, trade, security, currency, public finance and communications. The conference still has to adopt the draft plan and decide on its final name. Repairs To Orsova.—The 29.000-ton P and O liner, Orsova, may be sent to Rotterdam for repairs because of a ban by Port of London shipwrights who want more pay to move vessels in and out of dry-dock, the “Daily Express” said today.— (NZ.PA., London. May 13.)