Post #489

Did You Know What to Look for When Visiting Space? [ History ] 🛰 Many believe that the Great Wall of China is visible from space, but in reality, that’s a myth—the wall is way too small. What you can see from orbit, however, are the craters of open-pit mines and the cities that have sprung up around them in southern DRC, in Africa’s Copperbelt. Three major cities have grown along the mines and pits of this region: Kolwezi, Lubumbashi (DRC), and Ndola (Zambia). The straight-line distance from Kolwezi to Lubumbashi is about 250 km, and another 180 km to Ndola. 🌟 The fact that all of this is clearly visible from space clashes somewhat with another fact: the region’s record as a global open-pit mines construction hub can be traced back to a single Belgian company—one that still exists today. That company was Union Minière du Haut-Katanga (UMHK), founded in 1906 to mine copper in Congo. Over the decades, it extracted resources worth $5.5 billion (at mid-20th-century exchange rates), digging pits near Kolwezi, Likasi (Shinkolobwe mine), Kipushi and Lubumbashi (Ruashi, Etoile mines). There were some positives—like building railways, later abandoned—but the company is best remembered in popular memory for financially backing the secessionist quasi-state of Katanga, which rebelled against Patrice Lumumba’s government in 1960. Interestingly, the original plan—to support the secessionists and thus avoid nationalization by Lumumba’s leftist government—failed on three levels. First, Katanga lost the war and was dissolved in 1963. Then, its former leader, Moise Tshombe, who became prime minister of the entire Congo, nationalized some company’s shares in 1964. 🔫Finally, on December 31, 1966, General Mobutu, who had seized power, nationalized UMHK entirely. Since then, UMHK in Congo has become the public company Gécamines, which still manages the state’s shares in mineral assets. Meanwhile, the company’s European office evolved into Umicore, which also deals in minerals—though, of course, it can no longer turn part of another country into a lunar landscape. #History ➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow