congobrown Posted November 3, 2012 Share Posted November 3, 2012 I have been collecting Congo and Zaire orders and medals as well as medals for service in that country for some years now. I have always found Katangan orders and medals hard to come by despite spending 3 years in the DRC. To my great surprise I found not one, but two medals of the Katangan Order of Merit when visiting Addis recently. One was in one of the shops on the Churchill Road and the other at a stall in the Merkato. I paid Birr 300 for each one - approximately US$16.50. The Katanga Order of Merit was created on 16 January 1961 by President Moïse Tshombe, to reward eminent civil merit (ordonnance n°081/8). Nonetheless it seems that the order was also conferred on military personnel. I have long understood that 1,000 of the medals were made in Belgium and delivered to Katanga although only one was awarded. I have been told that with the collapse of the regime, a number of the medals were taken back to Europe. Having found these two examples in Addis Ababa I can only assume that some of the Ethiopian ONUC contingent brought them back to Ethiopia with them after serving in Katanga. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Boonzaier Posted November 3, 2012 Share Posted November 3, 2012 A nice and interesting find!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul R Posted November 3, 2012 Share Posted November 3, 2012 What does the ribbon look like for this award? Awesome find on a rarer medal. I have found that African medals are not easy to locate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
congobrown Posted November 3, 2012 Author Share Posted November 3, 2012 The ribbon of the Order is green with white and red edges. With Apologies to Ed Emering I nicked this image off his site: http://www.emering.com/medals/drc/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul wood Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 I'm not suprised you can't find them in the DRC (would you have wanted to be seen with one after Tshombe had been defeated unless you had a death wish?), not surprised that it turned up where it did as I am sure many of Tshombe's men fled to other lands nonetheless a nice find. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g_deploige Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 The Maker of this medals was FONSON, Fibru-Fish took over FONSON, maybe FIBRU stil has ribon, you can contact the firme see http://www.fibru.com/fr.html Guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuka f Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 Very intresting find, first one I see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter monahan Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 Very classy looking thing, ain't it! And rare as well. Nice find, Congo! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
congobrown Posted December 21, 2015 Author Share Posted December 21, 2015 On 18 December 2015 at 08:33, g_deploige said: The Maker of this medals was FONSON, Fibru-Fish took over FONSON, maybe FIBRU stil has ribon, you can contact the firme see http://www.fibru.com/fr.html Guy Thanks Guy, I will follow up on that line of enquiry. Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now