This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the State of Katanga article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject AfricaTemplate:WikiProject AfricaAfrica articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Belgium, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Belgium on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.BelgiumWikipedia:WikiProject BelgiumTemplate:WikiProject BelgiumBelgium-related articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Cold War, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Cold War on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Cold WarWikipedia:WikiProject Cold WarTemplate:WikiProject Cold WarCold War articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the subject of History on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Historyhistory articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Former countries, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of defunct states and territories (and their subdivisions). If you would like to participate, please join the project.Former countriesWikipedia:WikiProject Former countriesTemplate:WikiProject Former countriesformer country articles
This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles
This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
A list/table about the composition of the secessionist government. It remained the same during the secession (except Kiwele and Samalenge, they died but were not replaced). I have recently created some WP pages of Katangese government Ministers (Lucas Samalenge, Joseph Kiwele, Albert Nyembo), and sources about the composition of the government are easily consultable online (e.g. on page 331).
Change the line in the infobox about the President: Tshombe's executive role was taken over during a brief period in 1961 by a triumvirate of Munongo, Kiwele, and Kibwe, when Tshombe and Kimba were arrested during the Coquilhatville conference in 1961.
The first bullet point is an excellent suggestion, this article lacks sections outside of chronological history completely. Regarding the infobox, such changes should only be made if there is an area of the article text which supports those changes. Currently this isn't really established, and it seems it was a very temporary situation that may be too detailed for an infobox. CMD (talk) 14:35, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The article leaves one with the impression that the Katanga secessionists were the "bad guys", eventually defeated by the influence of the USA and UN "peacekeepers". Maybe this is so. But the final result of crushing Katanga was to deliver the whole country into the hands of the thuggish kleptocrat/dictator Mobutu.
While the UN "peacekeeping" forces were taking out Katanga's defenses, Mobutu had Lumumba - a more-or-less democratically elected leader - arrested, tortured, and murdered. Nobody can maintain that it wasn't obvious what Mobutu was like.
I don't know enough about the history to flag the entire article for violation of NPOV policy, but it does seem to me that some balance could be injected. It really was not a case of separatists=bad, anti-separatists=good. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Longitude2 (talk • contribs) 16:52, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think I broadly agree. We have quite a few articles on Wiki which tend to focus on the more picturesque aspects of the secession - especially the use of mercenaries - at the expense of the politics. There are also some obvious issues in this article. What does "ultra-right-wing" mean, for example? There are plenty of worse article, though. The lack of context in Siege of Jadotville is a particularly egregious example. —Brigade Piron (talk) 18:17, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
