Territorial Control in Congo ( 1960-61 ) Color Key < dd >< li > Yellow </ font >: National Government based in Léopoldville </ li >< li > Red </ font >: Rival National Government based in Stanleyville </ li >< li > Green </ font >: Katanga ( Independent )</ li >< li > Blue </ font >: Mining State of South Kasai ( Autonomous )</ li ></ ul ></ dd ></ dl >

The city was created in 1937 to be the headquarters for the western mining group of the High Katanga Mining Association ( UMHK ).

The Belgian company Union Minière du Haut Katanga provided the United States with much of the uranium required by the Manhattan Project and the early cold war ( see: history of nuclear weapons ).

In the 1920s and 1930s the Union Minière du Haut Katanga company, operating in the then Belgian colony of Congo, had a virtual monopoly of the world uranium market ( holding most of the deposits known at the time ).

They have included such events as the secession of Katanga backed by Belgium, the murder of the Prime Minister Lumumba by the Belgian secret services, the expulsion of the Belgian ambassador in the 1960s, the banning of the Sabena company from landing in Kinshasa, and " authentic Zaïrian " policy.

The Union Minière du Haut Katanga ( UMHK ) was a Belgian mining company, once operating in Katanga, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo ( formerly, Congo Free State, from 1908, Belgian Congo, from 1972, Zaire ).

It was created on October 28, 1906, as a result of a merger of a company created by Léopold II and Tanganyika Concessions Ltd ( a British company created by Robert Williams, which started prospecting for minerals in 1899, and was granted mining concessions in 1900 ), in order to exploit the mineral wealth of Katanga.

The 2, 875 men of the Troupes de Katanga constituted a semi-autonomous force of six companies: four de marche and two other infantry, plus a cyclist company and a battalion headquarters.

* Katanga Province: HQ 1st Groupement, 12th Infantry Battalion, 10th Gendarmerie Battalion, one military police company, and groupement logistics units at Elisabethville.

Right now, they are pushing a resolution which would have UN use its forces to invade and subjugate Katanga.

) Lumumba further complicated the U.N.'s mission by initiating small `` wars '' with the secessionist province of Katanga and with South Kasai which, under Albert Kalonji, wanted to secede as well.

But they left behind them large numbers of officers, variously called `` volunteers '' or `` mercenaries '', who now staff the army of Moise Tshombe in Katanga, the seceded province which, according to Tshombe, holds 65% of the mineral wealth of the entire country.

Similarly, Lubumbashi and the rest of Katanga Province is linked to Zambia, through which the paved highway and rail networks of Southern Africa can be accessed.

Despite this, by September 1960, following the four-way division of the country, there were four separate armed forces: Mobotu's ANC itself, numbering about 12, 000, the South Kasai Constabulary loyal to Albert Kalonji ( 3, 000 or less ), the Katanga Gendarmerie which were part of Moise Tshombe's regime ( totalling about 10, 000 ), and the Stanleyville dissident ANC loyal to Antoine Gizenga ( numbering about 8, 000 ).

This invasion is sometimes known as Shaba I. Mobutu had to request assistance, which was provided by Morocco in the form of regular troops who routed the MPLA and their Cuban advisors out of Katanga.

The Union Minière du Haut Katanga founded the Société Générale Métallurgique de Hoboken in Olen, which was established along the Iron Rhine and the Albert Canal.

Katanga became part of the Congo Free State, which was annexed by Belgium in 1908 after an international outcry over the killings, brutality and slavery by Leopold's regime.

Christian de Bonchamps, a French explorer who served Leopold in Katanga, expressed attitudes towards such treaties shared by many Europeans, saying, " The treaties with these little African tyrants, which generally consist of four long pages of which they do not understand a word, and to which they sign a cross in order to have peace and to receive gifts, are really only serious matters for the European powers, in the event of disputes over the territories.

At the time of Hammarskjöld's death, Western intelligence agencies were actively involved in the political situation in the Congo, which culminated in Belgian and United States support for the secession of Katanga and the assassination of former prime minister Patrice Lumumba.

The first Belgian outposts on the lake were set up at Lukonzolwa and Pweto which were at various times the headquarters of their administration of Katanga.

He began his mercenary career, which was to span three decades, in Katanga, probably in December 1961 when he and other foreign mercenaries were brought in by the leader of the mercenaries in Katanga, Roger Faulques.

In the 1950s, he took over a chain of stores in Katanga Province and became involved in politics, founding the CONAKAT party with Godefroid Munongo which ran under a banner of an independent, federal Congo.

While in custody in Katanga Lumumba was visited by Katangese notables and Belgian officers which included Tshombe, Godefroid Munongo, Kibwe, Kitenge, Grandelet, Son, Gat, Huyghé, Tignée, Verscheure, Segers, Rougefort and others.

They were to be met there by two expeditions coming from the east across Ethiopia, one of which, from Djibouti, was led by Christian de Bonchamps, veteran of the Stairs Expedition to Katanga.

They wanted to see a weak and divided Congo deprived of the source of its wealth in Katanga, which as President Nkrumah said, was developed by the blood, sweat and sacrifice of the Congolese people.

The Bemba people are descendants of inhabitants of the Luba kingdom, which existed in what is now the Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in north-eastern Zambia.

This railroad had been devised by the British entrepreneur Sir Robert Williams as the easiest and cheapest way to link the rich copper mines of Katanga ( Shaba ) in Belgian Congo with a point on the coast from which the mineral could be exported.

Under pressure from a range of international interests, he eventually resigned and wrote To Katanga and Back ( 1962 ) which is still considered a classic of both modern African history and the inner workings of the United Nations.

It was a desire for the riches of Bangweulu's fisheries and game-rich floodplain which motivated King Leopold II of Belgium to insist, in border negotiations between his Congo Free State and the British in Northern Rhodesia, on a land corridor reaching Bangweulu from Katanga.

The first large town of the colonial era was the river port, Kasenga, in DR Congo, which grew prosperous in the 1930s from supplying fish to Elizabethville and other towns of the Katanga Copperbelt via the first motor road to reach the valley.

In the very week of our war against Katanga, we make a $133 million grant to Kwame Nkrumah, who has just declared his solidarity with the Communist bloc, and is busily turning his own country into a totalitarian dictatorship.

From Tshombe's secession of the Katanga, to the assassination of Lumumba, to the two coups d ' état of Mobutu, the country has known periods of true nationwide peace, but virtually no period of genuine democratic rule.

Katanga has a wet and dry season.

It has been alleged but never proved that, fearing Lumumba's increasing popularity amongst the soldiers who might release him ( soldier mutinies and unrest increased by the day at prison camp Hardy in Thysville ), Harold d ' Aspremont Lynden ( Belgian minister for African Affairs ) sent a highly confidential telegram on January 16, 1961 to the government in Léopoldville ( Kasavubu and Mobutu ) to send Lumumba to Katanga.

Cheap copper has no terrors for the great Mid-African mines of the Union Minière du Haut Katanga, world's biggest producer.

As of approximately August 2001, he describes two separate ALiR groups, the ' old ' ALiR I in North Kivu, made up of ex-FAR and Interahamwe, about 4, 000 strong, and the ' new ' ALiR II operating in South Kivu out of DR Congo government supported bases in Kasai and northern Katanga.

' ' The even newer FDLR had around 3, 000 men, based in Kamina in Katanga.

In 1914, the Force Publique, inclusive of the Katanga companies, totalled about 17, 000 askaris with 178 white officers and 235 white NCOs.

* National Road No. 1 connecting the Atlantic seaports with Kinshasa and southeast Katanga, the most important economic area of the country due to its copper and other mines.

The factory produced radium, cobalt and copper from the mines of the Union Minière in Katanga, Belgian Congo and Rhodesia.

The distant Yeke Kingdom, in Katanga on the upper Lualaba River, had signed no treaties, and was known to be rich in copper and thought to have much gold from its slave-trading activities.

During the 1970s, an increased demand for copper and cobalt attracted Japanese investments in the mineral rich southeastern region of Katanga Province.

The ten-year project entailed design and construction of a electrical transmission line from Inga () at the mouth of the Congo River, specifically from the Inga Dam, one of Africa's three largest hydroelectric complexes, to the distant copper mining region then known as Shaba, today Katanga.

Elements in Katanga's strength are: tremendously rich ores ; cheap native labor ; big production of cobalt and radium ( over 82 %, of world radium supply ) on the side ; and, most recent, the newly opened Benguela Railway, which connects Katanga with the Atlantic, saves hundreds of rail miles, thousands of nautical miles for Katanga copper on its long journey to European markets.

In addition to the copper for which it is known, Katanga was also rich in other minerals.

Their travels made them professional traders, and by 1800 they were taking caravans to the coast to trade in Katanga copper, wax, salt, ivory, and slaves.