Congo Pedicle: Difference between revisions

[[Cecil Rhodes]]'s [[British South Africa Company]] approached Katanga from the south, the Belgian King Leopold II's Congo Free State (CFS) approached from the northwest. Southeast Katanga was controlled by the Yeke or Garanganze kingdom of Msiri based at Bunkeya (see map), and the BSAC and CFS competed to sign treaties with him, while he tried to play the one off against the other.<ref name="Gordon">David Gordon: ''Decentralized Despots or Contingent Chiefs: Comparing Colonial Chiefs in Northern Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo.'' KwaZulu-Natal History and African Studies Seminar, University of Natal, Durban, 2000.</ref> For more detail and the story of how a CFS expedition led by a Canadian killed Msiri in December 1891.

After Msiri's death the CFS was faster off the mark to consolidate their claim to Msiri's territory called 'Garanganza', and later Katanga, west up to the Luapula. Since 1885 they already had claimed land north of the Congo-[[Zambezi River|Zambezi]] [[Water divide|watershed]]. The BSAC were left with the land south of the watershed and east of the Luapula. The 1884–5 Berlin Conference was organised by Germany to resolve the outcome of the [[Scramble for Africa]]. It did not set the actual boundaries but agreed areas of influence, including the CFS's control over the Congo. Detailed borders were left to bilateral negotiations.<ref name="Gordon"/>

The main problem of both the Belgian and British sides over the southeast Katanga border was the lack of an obvious geographical feature for the border to follow, as the Congo-Zambezi watershed and the Luapula do not meet. There is a gap between them and, separated by a distance of 70 to 150&nbsp;km they run in an arc curving northeast, running almost parallel but gradually getting closer, and would reach the highlands between Lakes [[Lake Tanganyika|Tanganyika]] and Nyasa if the [[Chambeshi River]] were accepted as being the same river as the Luapula.

From the British point of view, the obvious choice for the border is the base of the salient, a southwest to northeast line from the watershed to the Luapula. Failing agreement on that, a second option would be to continue southwards the line of the Luapula-[[Lake Mweru]] valley (longitude 28° 35' E) which forms the longest north-south part of border, until it intersects the Congo-Zambezi watershed. So all of the country immediately east of a north-south line through [[Ndola]] would then be in Northern Rhodesia.<ref name="Google">http://earth.google.com/ Google Earth accessed 6 February 2007</ref> But the Belgians hoped for access to the rich game areas of the [[Bangweulu Wetlands ecosystem|Bangweulu wetlands]] and pressed for the borders to stick to the river and watershed. In negotiations for a treaty some 'trading' of territories was involved in northeast Congo, Sudan and Uganda.<ref>http://www.angelfire.com/mac/egmatthews/worldinfo/africa/uganda.html Mathews, E.G: "World Info: Uganda" accessed 6 February 2007; but see also [[Lado Enclave]].</ref> There was also the question of how far east into the Bangweulu swamps and floodplain the Pedicle should extend. The King of Italy was called in to adjudicate and he drew a north-south line (a line of longitude) through a point on the map where the Luapula was thought to exit from the Lake Bangweulu swamps, and finally the Pedicle was born: 70 to 100&nbsp;km wide and about 200&nbsp;km long.