![]() ![]() As hostages the whites would become pawns in a Cold War gambit played out in the dark heart of Africa. They proceeded to terror ize Stanleyville’s 300,000 Congolese residents and round up American and Belgian diplomats, missionaries, nuns, businessmen and their families-nearly 2,000 all told. ![]() It was the Americans’ first glimpse of a Simba (“lion” in Swahili), one of the fearsome communist Congo lese rebels who-made brave by dagga (cannabis) and faith in dawa (magic they were told would turn enemy bullets to water on contact)-that summer had conquered an area the size of France. Some 1,500 soldiers threw down their rifles, machine guns and mortars and abandoned Stanleyville to a mere 300 warriors armed with little more than spears, bows and hoodoo. Moments laterĪ bare-chested witch doctor walked up the street, chanting and waving palm branches to sweep the city of government troops- and it worked. ![]() Consulate on Avenue Eisenhower the few Americans who hadn’t evacuated were astounded to see their ostensible protectors in the Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC) desert their posts and flee. But in early August 1964 Stanleyville-present-day Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo-fell to black magic. I n war some cities fall in battle, others by starvation. ![]()
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