WI: Katanga Annexed to Northern Rhodesia Instead of Congo Free State

Delta Force

Banned
What if the British South Africa Company had annexed Katanga to Rhodesia, rather than King Leopold II annexing it to the Congo Free State? I'm thinking the point of divergence could be somewhere around the time of the Stairs Expedition. Perhaps the 1890 BSAC effort by Alfred Sharpe and Joseph Thomson could be succesful, or the CFS expedition led by William Stairs could end in disaster and give BSAC time to mount another one.
 
If it would be part of Northern Rhodesia, then modern Zambia could be quite powerful?

Or of course torn by ethnic strife and a Katangan Independence movement...

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Or of course torn by ethnic strife and a Katangan Independence movement...

Not really, the issues with Katanga and the D.R.C are sort of specific to the D.R. Congo's history, Katanga (and with the PoD in question it would have different borders) as part of Zambia would likely not have any more ethnic issues than OTL Zambia has.
 

Delta Force

Banned
In terms of mineral wealth, Katanga was known to have massive copper deposits at the time, larger than those in Northern Rhodesia itself. Later on the cobalt and uranium deposits would become very economically important. Katanga has half the world's known cobalt reserves, and the Congo (likely Katanga Province) was the only location in the world known to have uranium. It's possible that when decolonization comes along, there would be a larger Rhodesia Crisis. Katanga went through a huge crisis because there was the view that it might be able to secede from the Congo. There wouldn't be a struggle for independence if Katanga was already part of Northern Rhodesia/Zambia, foreign powers and mining interests would simply have to prop up the existing government.
 
Post independence Zambia was overwhelmingly reliant on Copper exports. Over 90% of exports were copper and over half of government revenue was dependent on copper up until the 1990s.

When Zambia attained independence in 1964 world copper prices were on the rise peaking in 1974. This lead to Kenneth Kaunda's government nationalising the copper industry in 1969, meaning that over 80% of the national economy was in government hands by the 1980s.

The problem with this is that the government became overconfident and spent on lots of infrastructure projects and social programmes. The Tanzam Railway was a particularly wasteful allocation of resources. This was not dissimilar to what other resource-based economies have done during price booms. With Katangan copper added to the mix, Zambia would be even less likely to develop a diversified economy.

Failing to diversify the economy, and with a tumble in copper prices (and commodity prices in general) Zambia would suffer just the same throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Only in 2003 did world commodity prices begin going up, and hence we now have many developing countries finally achieving significant economic growth for the first time since the early 1970s.

Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s Zambia increasingly indebted itself to pay for the bloated state bureaucracy and by 1985 the country was bankrupt and had to turn to IMF restructuring. Adding Katanga to the mix would achieve little to fix this.

On the other hand, Southern Rhodesia's to the south was dependent on tobacco exports, but was a little bit more diversified. However, with UDI in 1965 it forced that country to diversify away from tobacco and to some extent the country was able to do better economically than many of its third world counterparts during the 1980s. However, even in Zimbabwe the tumbling commodity prices throughout the 1990s and early 2000s (1998-2003 was particularly painful for commodity producing nations) probably drove the government there to appropriate white farmers' lands as a diversionary tactic.
 
One thing that immediately springs to mind is that Zambia's currently got dreadful transportation issues to the Northeast as the main road and railway goes through the Katanga to avoid some large swamps. With all the violence in the Congo, this road has become very poorly maintained, and they're having to build a new one at great expense.
 
Adding Katanga to the mix would achieve little to fix this.

But what about Katanga's vast mineral wealth, especially if this wealth was used by a government actually capable and willing to exploit it? It would make the structural problems worse, yes, but it could actually delay Zambia's economic reckoning by decades. You never tire of eating the flesh of an elephant, and IOTL neighboring governments have yet to tire of mining Katanga's wealth.

And how would Zambia react when (probably inevitably, barring butterflies on who controls Rwanda and Burundi) Tutsi and Hutu militias start spilling over the border?
 

Delta Force

Banned
It could impact the overall development of the territories administered by BSAC. Apparently the company overbuilt in Mashonaland (now part of northern Zimbabwe) after overestimating the mineral resources of the region. Perhaps Rhodes would shift the focus of the company north of the Zambezi River and towards Northern Rhodesia/Zambia and Katanga? Might that butterfly the fate of the Boer States?
 
But what about Katanga's vast mineral wealth, especially if this wealth was used by a government actually capable and willing to exploit it? It would make the structural problems worse, yes, but it could actually delay Zambia's economic reckoning by decades. You never tire of eating the flesh of an elephant, and IOTL neighboring governments have yet to tire of mining Katanga's wealth.

And how would Zambia react when (probably inevitably, barring butterflies on who controls Rwanda and Burundi) Tutsi and Hutu militias start spilling over the border?

Yes Katanga does have vast mineral wealth, but so do many other countries. Reliance on commodities, especially reliance on one is usually a disaster for any country and almost inevitably leads to Dutch Disease. The problem with Zambia during the 1964-1974 period was that Kaunda kept on spending more and more money assuming that the copper prices would keep on rising. With additional copper and cobalt from Katanga, it would probably be worse. When copper prices do fall, they produce more to makeup for the shortfall making the global prices fall even more. The end result would probably be an even bigger mess during the 1980s.

This is no different than Saudi Arabia (and other oil dependent economies) during the 1973-1983 oil boom. Saudi oil revenues in 1985 were less than 1/4th of what they had been in 1981. Also, being resource rich offers little incentive to diversify an economy. Venezuela is a good example of this.
 
Yes Katanga does have vast mineral wealth, but so do many other countries. Reliance on commodities, especially reliance on one is usually a disaster for any country and almost inevitably leads to Dutch Disease. The problem with Zambia during the 1964-1974 period was that Kaunda kept on spending more and more money assuming that the copper prices would keep on rising. With additional copper and cobalt from Katanga, it would probably be worse. When copper prices do fall, they produce more to makeup for the shortfall making the global prices fall even more. The end result would probably be an even bigger mess during the 1980s.

This is no different than Saudi Arabia (and other oil dependent economies) during the 1973-1983 oil boom. Saudi oil revenues in 1985 were less than 1/4th of what they had been in 1981. Also, being resource rich offers little incentive to diversify an economy. Venezuela is a good example of this.

One wonders what these countries would have been like if they'd continuously and seriously invested in a sovereign wealth fund during this time.
 

Delta Force

Banned
One wonders what these countries would have been like if they'd continuously and seriously invested in a sovereign wealth fund during this time.

That kind of fiscal discipline is hard to achieve, especially for developing nations who need to develop their infrastructure.
 
One wonders what these countries would have been like if they'd continuously and seriously invested in a sovereign wealth fund during this time.

Unfortunately human nature doesn't work that way. During booms there is a mentality that it will never end (the housing bubble during the 2000s for instance). However, when the crash does come and reality sets in there is a pessimism that things will never go back up again, but they do eventually and the cycle repeats itself.

Back to the topic at hand though, Northern Rhodesia as a colony did manage to have a somewhat large European population for Africa. The settler community was larger than Kenya's and was just under 80,000 (just under 3% of the total by the late 1950s). However, the vast majority worked in the mining industry, for the railroads or the civil service. They were concentrated in the Copperbelt and to a lesser extent Lusaka. Katanga too was the whitest part of the Belgian Congo with 35,000 Europeans (2% of the total). Much like in Northern Rhodesia, most worked for mining companies and were concentrated in Elisabethville, Kolwezi, Jadotville and Kamina.
 
That kind of fiscal discipline is hard to achieve, especially for developing nations who need to develop their infrastructure.

Agreed, it'd just be the ideal solution. Perhaps the giant Northern Rhodesia-Katanga establishes such a fund (or ancestor thereof) before independence?

Unfortunately human nature doesn't work that way. During booms there is a mentality that it will never end (the housing bubble during the 2000s for instance). However, when the crash does come and reality sets in there is a pessimism that things will never go back up again, but they do eventually and the cycle repeats itself.

While true, there are examples of prudent public saving and investment from natural resources. Singapore is the obvious one, of course. Still, it's common these days for an OPEC country and the like to maintain a SWF with varying degrees of success. Not every country can be Norway, but even a modest success in saving some of a resource boom's income can go a long way.
 
One wonders what these countries would have been like if they'd continuously and seriously invested in a sovereign wealth fund during this time.

He had a lot of issues. I don't think that it would have been easy to be leader of Zambia in that period, even if some sort of economic visionary. Here is a brief list of the issues that Zambia had to deal with at the time.

1. Massive under-development - especially in rural areas
2. Raising living standards of rural and urban people
3. Land reform
4. Schools and hospitals
5. Being a Frontline state dependent on Rhodesia (railways, roads, technicians etc), South Africa or the Portuguese colonies that bordered Zambia as well as the military issues that entailed
6. Juggling Cold War power blocs
7. Being supportive to other liberation movements.
 
Here's another thing that might be interesting: what would happen to Barotseland if Katanga were part of Zambia? IIRC the region wanted independence IOTL but was guaranteed autonomy, which however it didn't really recieve. Considering that Barotseland has rich diamond, amethyst and coal deposits, this would've had a huge impact on the Zambian economy. But with Katanga around... Who knows? So what are your thoughts on this?
 
If it would be part of Northern Rhodesia, then modern Zambia could be quite powerful?
I'd question whether it would be part of Northern Rhodesia at all - just in land area today's Katanga province is roughly four times the size of Nyasaland (Malawi), roughly a quarter larger than Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and two thirds the size Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). If you're creating it as a colonial holding after Northern Rhodesia and out of mostly a single chieftains lands then administratively is seems to me to be tidier to set it up as a separate colony, or spinning it off as one from Northern Rhodesia a few years down the line after its been seized.
 
Top