The Katangese secession was carried out with the support of Union Minière du Haut Katanga, a mining company with concession rights in the region, and a large contingent of Belgian military advisers.

[2] The Katanga Gendarmerie, an army raised by the Tshombe government, was initially organised and trained by Belgium's military and consisted of Belgian soldiers as well as mercenaries from Northern Rhodesia and elsewhere.

[5] As 33.7% of the revenue of the Congo came from the sale of the copper mined in Katanga, ownership of the company was an important consideration for the leaders of the Congolese Independence movement while the Belgian government was most reluctant to give up its share in the UMHK, and did not finally do so until 1967.

[10] The same month in an interview with Rene McColl, a journalist from The Daily Express newspaper, Welensky stated that he fully expected Katanga to break away from the Congo and join the Federation.

[11] On the evening of 11 July, CONAKAT leader Moïse Tshombe, accusing the central government of communist leanings and dictatorial rule, announced that Katanga was seceding from the Congo.

[12] Katangese Minister of Interior Godefroid Munongo denied them permission to land at the airport and radioed that while Kasa-Vubu could visit Katanga if he wished, Lumumba was not allowed to enter the territory.

[16] Harold Charles d'Aspremont Lynden, the right-hand man to Eyskens and his most influential adviser, was likewise an adamant supporter of Katanga, seeing a chance for Belgium to hold onto the most valuable part of the Congo.

[16] Within a week of Katanga's unilateral declaration of independence, Lumumba sent a telegram to the Secretary-General of the UN, insisting that something be done about "Belgium's military aggression" in his country and its overt backing of Katangese secession.

[23] Gérard-Libois writes: '..during the entire month of August, a ..race against the clock took place with the objective of building a more or less efficient Katangese gendarmery before the eventual withdrawal of the Belgian troops.

[25] Referring to the resolution, Lumumba wrote to UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, 'From these texts it is clear that, contrary to your personal interpretation, the UN force may be used to subdue the rebel government of Katanga.'

At the same time, Pierre Wigny, the Foreign Minister, informed the United States, France, and Britain that his government was opposed to Tshombe's intrigues and was concerned that long-term separation would compromise Congo's economic vitality.

[28] Although most of Belgium's military personnel were withdrawn from Katanga in September 1960, over two hundred stayed on, making horizontal career shifts into roles as paid mercenaries serving with the nation's Gendarmes.

[15] This view was generally strengthened with President Tshombe himself as time advanced, especially with increasingly vocal demands from Léopoldville that the UN use their military advantage to forcibly remove his regime from power.

All of this only frustrated the Congolese government, which, on 27 August, launched a poorly organized, ill-fated, incursion into Katanga with Armée Nationale Congolaise soldiers trucked into the province on a motley assortment of Soviet military vehicles.

[34]  Within liberal circles, Katanga was widely compared to Manchukuo, an ostensibly independent nation established in 1931 and ruled by the Emperor Puyi that was in fact a sham, a Japanese colony that masqueraded as a real country.

However, many sources on location claimed that UN personnel initiated and maintained a high degree of violence and were both overtly and indirectly responsible for hundreds if not even thousands of civilian deaths.

From late 1960 onwards, Katanga was characterised by a series of clashes between pro-Tshombe loyalists and Baluba tribesmen, whose political leaders were nominally allied to Leopoldville and opposed Katangese secession.

Although from January to February 1961, gestures were made to remove these 'illegal combatants' from the Congo, their places were quickly taken by a sizable force of nearly 500 British, Rhodesian, French, and South African irregulars.

[15] Serious fighting soon broke out as President Tshombe began to incite both Katangese civilians and White mercenaries to attack UN forces after the ONUC dispatched elements of the nearly 5,000-man-strong 99th Indian Infantry Brigade into the capital.

Hostilities broke out again three days later, when Belgian and South African Gendarmes assaulted Kabalo, a Baluba town in northern Katanga, and engaged the Ethiopian peacekeepers stationed there.

[15] In June, President Tshombe and Foreign Affairs Minister Évariste Kimba were arrested after attending the Coquilhatville Conference of Congo Leaders, the day they were about to board a plane back to their country.

Tshombe was held under house arrest and charged with inciting revolt against the Congolese government, the illegal seizure of arms and aircraft, and printing counterfeit money by issuing Katangese currency.

[39] In August and September, the UN conducted two operations to arrest and repatriate mercenary soldiers and the Belgian political advisers from Katanga by military force, deeming that such foreigners were the backbone behind the regime.

It called for UNF troops to apprehend mercenaries, seize post offices and radio stations in Élisabethville, and send a representative from the central Congolese government to take command.

[citation needed] In the course of the limited peace negotiations which ensued, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and 15 others were killed in a plane crash near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), under questionable circumstances.

The president wished that his agreement should be ratified by his national assembly before it could be considered binding; this misunderstanding quickly led to a collapse in relations with Congolese government of Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula.

[15] Two months later, the local authorities impounded several railroad cars bearing equipment and supplies for use in ONUC operations and a number of Gurkha peacekeepers were wounded by unmarked land mines on the Katangese border.

[15] The Secretary-General's office responded by increasing trade sanctions, but several member states, the United Kingdom in particular, continued to oppose the use of embargoes to force a political solution.

[15] But it soon became apparent that Katanga's bid for international recognition was doomed; skyrocketing pressure for direct action, growing American interests, the militant mood of the UNF commanders, and Belgium's pledge to cease supporting a rebel government all suggested that soon the United Nations would take more forceful measures against Moïse Tshombe in the near future.

The Grand Council had veto powers on key issues including constitutional matters, legal practice, taxation and the functioning and running of the vital mining industry.