Vol. 64/No.18 May 8, 2000

Revelations on killing of Patrice Lumumba force Belgian government to open probe

BY T.J. FIGUEROA

PRETORIA, South Africa—Following new disclosures of the role it played in the overthrow and murder of Congolese prime minister and independence leader Patrice Lumumba, the Belgian government has been forced to establish a public commission of inquiry on the events of 1961.

A book released last year, De Moord Op Lumumba (The Murder of Lumumba), by Ludo de Witte, caused a stir in Belgium. First published in Dutch, it is now also available in French. Based on the portion of documents that Brussels has made public on the events in the Congo, it concludes that, after they were shot, the independence leader's body and those of two other members of his government were sawed into bits and dumped in acid to obliterate the evidence.

According to the February edition of New African magazine, a Belgian police commissioner, Gerard Soete, recently confessed on Belgian television to sawing up the men and dousing their bodies in acid.

The book sheds some new light on the already well-established facts: that Washington and its allies, under the banner of the United Nations, moved to destabilize the Congo, which achieved independence from Belgium in 1960; backed a pro-imperialist breakaway regime in Katanga; assisted a coup led by a breakaway faction of Lumumba's government under Joseph Mobutu; and organized to have Lumumba murdered.

New African reports that "the American president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had long given the green light for the CIA to plan the elimination of Lumumba, according to Madeleine Kalb in her book, Congo Cables, published by Macmillan in 1982 based on leaked State Department cables."

The magazine also states that "last year, American author Adam Hochschild, revealed in his book, King Leopold's Ghost, that President Eisenhower had personally given his approval for the assassination of Lumumba."

A fighting mass movement

Lumumba was the central leader of the Movement National Congolaise (MNC), the main organization that the toilers supported in the battle for independence from Belgium. A central feature of the MNC was its attempt to cut across tribal divisions.

Belgian, French and American capital — including the Rockefeller family — had large interests in the Congo's diamonds, copper, uranium, and cobalt mines. They furiously resisted the movement for sovereignty and independence. For example, Lumumba was arrested in January 1959 for "inciting a riot" in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) after a revolt that began when colonial officials refused to grant an MNC request to hold a mass meeting. Cops shot 26 people dead and wounded more than 100.

Despite such brutality, the mass movement was unstoppable, and Congo won formal independence in June 1960, and a government was formed with Lumumba as prime minister.

Moise Tshombe's CONAKAT party won only eight of the 137 seats in the parliament. Tshombe quickly announced secession of Katanga province and Brussels sent troops into Katanga to support him. Lumumba invited UN troops in to help, which proved a fatal error.

While most of the UN troops were African, Washington called the shots. As Lumumba attempted to rally his supporters against the growing imperialist sabotage in September 1960, the UN command ordered its troops to seize the national radio station to prevent him from doing so. When Lumumba led a group of soldiers to take over the station, UN troops threatened to shoot him. Days later, Mobutu, who according to the New African had been recruited by the CIA and Belgian operatives, led a coup with Washington's support.

Lumumba was put under house arrest, surrounded by both UN troops and soldiers loyal to Mobutu. He escaped on November 27, 1960, according to De Witte's book, and U.S. officials alerted Mobutu, whose soldiers arrested Lumumba four days later. He was sent to Elisabethville (now Lubumbashi) in Katanga on January 17, 1961, with Maurice Mpolo, a minister in his government, and senate deputy president Joseph Okito. On the same night, the men's hands were tied behind their backs; they were beaten and shot. The bodies were quickly transferred to Belgian custody for disposal.

Days before his death, Lumumba wrote to his wife, stating in part: "History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that is taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington, or in the United Nations, but the history which will be taught in the countries freed from imperialism and its puppets. Africa will write its own history, and to the north and south of the Sahara, it will be a glorious and dignified history."

Front page (for this issue) Home Text-version home