THE LOOMING BATTLE OF NYUNZU by Lieutenant Colonel Tan Siew Soo (Retired) Royal Malaysian Armour

Lt Col Bruno Ungku Nazaruddin, second from the left
in Kindu during his morning inspection round.
Capt Zakaria Dahlan (IO) on the right and the interpreter on the left.

The article is my tribute to my then Commanding Officer, Lt Col (Bruno) Ungku Nazaruddin Ungku Mohamad. At the end of the writing I mentioned Ungku Nazaruddin retired a Lieut General as Chief of the General Staff (now Chief of the Army). I was not aware until very recently he was promoted to a 4 star General on retirement prior to taking up the post of Ambassador at The Hague.

Nyunzu a strategic town was located about half way along the Albertville-Kabalo route in Northern Katanga. Situated at a T-Junction the northern exit led to Kongolo, the east to Albertville and the west to Kabalo.

Northern Katanga, a sub province of Katanga was itself about the size of Peninsular Malaysia. The inhabitants here were the Baluba who were openly hostile and defiant of Tshombe, the ruler of Katanga. Geographically the region belonged to Katanga but politically the Baluba belonged to the Balubakat Cartel, a party allied to Lumumba's MNC Party.

The strategically important region whose commercial and economic life centred around CFL (Chemin de Fer des Grands Lacs), the great rail and port conglomerate with Belgians, French and British interests .A very important line of communication comprising the CFL railway line with a parallel road ran from the river port of Kabalo in the west to Albertville (now Kalemie) in the east by the western shores of Lake Tanganyika.

Under an agreement between Tshombe and ONUC in October 1960, Northern Katanga was declared a neutral zone whereby the area had neither Katangese soldiers nor the Central government army. Only ONUC were permitted to deploy troops in this wild and anarchic region. An Ethiopian and an Irish battalion were deployed at Kabalo and Albertville respectively. The agreement was broken when Congolese troops belonging to the Stanleyville faction marched south and captured the mining town of Manono in Northern Katanga.

With that invasion Tshombe declared the agreement with ONUC null and void. During February and March 1961, Tshombe despatched his troops and mercenaries to recapture Manono. Not only that, he also occupied Nyunzu and Kongolo. He then despatched his mercenaries to capture Kabalo defended by the Ethiopian.It was a complete rout for Tshombe's mercenaries .Sailing up the Lualaba (the Congo river at this point is called Lualaba) the mercenaries met stiff opposition. A lucky mortar round by the Ethiopians hit the boiler of the river boat resulting in some mercenaries drowning and the rest captured.

After this incident ONUC decided it must assert its physical presence along the line of communication Kabalo-Nyunzu-Albertville. Nyunzu was the only location without ONUC troops. A MSF Battle Group consisting of A, B and C Coys 4 R Malay and C Sqn 2 Recce was ordered by higher command at ONUC to move from Kindu to Kabalo and there advance to occupy Nyunzu. D Coy remained at Kindu airport. This Battle Group was faced with a looming battle ahead, it was on a collision course with Tshombe forces.

Earlier, Tshombe had announced to the world he did not want any ONUC troops in Nyunzu and any move into the town would be resisted by force. We knew he had troops including mercenaries in Nyunzu but due to poor intelligence we were not sure of the exact strength. It was this unknown factor that caused much anxiety.

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