Amid the chaotic Congo Crisis that followed independence from Belgium, central government leader Cyrille Adoula and Katangese secessionist Moise Tshombe met at Kitona to negotiate reunification. Though Tshombe signed a declaration accepting the Congolese constitution, he later repudiated the deal once home, prolonging the Katanga secession until UN military action finally ended it in early 1963.
The Congo, barely a year removed from a chaotic and violent independence from Belgium in 1960, was fracturing. The mineral-rich southeastern province of Katanga, home to vast copper and cobalt deposits worked by the Belgian mining conglomerate Union Minière, had declared independence under Moise Tshombe, who enjoyed covert Belgian and mercenary backing.
Under pressure from the United Nations, which had deployed peacekeeping troops and was determined to prevent Congo's disintegration, Tshombe agreed to meet Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula at the Kitona military base. On December 21, 1961, he signed a declaration accepting the authority of the central government and the Congolese constitution — an apparent breakthrough after months of crisis.
The agreement collapsed almost immediately. Back in Katanga's capital Elisabethville, Tshombe faced down hardliners and disavowed the accord within weeks, insisting he had signed under duress. The secession dragged on for another year, ending only after Operation Grandslam, a UN military offensive in January 1963 that finally crushed Katangese resistance and reunified the country — a Cold War proxy struggle that had already claimed the life of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, killed in a 1961 plane crash while flying to negotiate with Tshombe.
Key people: Cyrille Adoula, Moise Tshombe