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A not so secret assassination attempt: Lumumba and the history of the Republic of Congo

By Rebecca Marcussen

“We shall show the world what the black man can do when working in liberty, and we shall make the Congo the pride of Africa. We shall see to it that the lands of our native country truly benefit its children,” were the words of the Republic of Congo’s first prime minister. Patrice Lumumba, assassinated less than a year after the country’s independence, was considered a national hero. Or was he? The CIA and Belgium might lean towards no.

The start of imperialism and the Congo Free State

Before I  dive into Lumumba and the secrecy behind his assassination, it is crucial to provide an understanding of Congo and its history. 

The 19th century marked the new age of European imperialism and expansion into Africa. The quest for cheap natural resources and free labour started the Scramble for Africa. Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of Germany at the time, terrified of a two front war on Germany, organised the Berlin Conference, between 1884 and 1885, to avoid another European conflict. Through his negotiations, the European powers created guidelines on dividing Africa among the European nations.

The Congo Free State (CFS), was under private ownership of King Leopold II from 1885 to 1906. Despite it being his property, Leopold never stepped foot in Congo, let alone Africa. Instead he appointed a Governor General to Boma, the capital port city of Congo, who would take direct orders from him. CFS was split into 14 regions, each with its own governor general with the sole goal to maximise the exportation of natural and raw materials. The King hired mercenary groups called Force Publique (Public Forces) to protect his interests in the country. Leopold II, was known as a brutal ruler. Under his power, the congolese people were subjected to mass atrocities. The many exports out of Congo were rubber, ivory and minerals such as gold. The Force Public used violence, terrorism and mutilations to control the population. When quotas of these exports weren’t met, family members of the slaves were kidnapped and held hostage or hands and feets would be amputated. It is estimated that half of the population died from punishment or malnourishment. However, a series of published writings from missionaries and others who visited Congo, revealed the atrocity, brutality and abuses of powers that happened at the hands of the King. CFS got a bad reputation internationally. A series of demonstrations and protests put pressure on Leopold to surrender his ownership of Congo to the Belgian government.

The Belgian Congo and the road to independence

Between 1906 and 1960, Belgium had Congo as its colony. They adopted an attitude of paternalism, treating the congolese as children and only educating them about Western morals to ensure total control of all the political aspects in the country. After World War 1, there was an increase of Western investment in the territory. This led to the creation of large plantations, livestock farms and mines for diamonds, copper, cobalt, etc. Those working in the mines were indentured and set to work anywhere between 4 to 7 years. However slavery was still widely used, for building public infrastructure like roads. 

Nationalist movements and groups only started to emerge in the 1950s thanks to the évolués (the civilised). The évolués was the highest class Africans could achieve in Congo at the time. They were slightly more educated and politically enlightened. Due to ethnic tensions and conflicts, most political movements were only focused on serving their own ethnic group. The Mouvement National Congolais (MNC), was one of the only movements focused on creating a country wide united front against colonialism. MNC was essentially an organisation created in 1958. Its charter called for Belgium to give Congo independence in a “reasonable amount of time” . Patrice Lumumba was one of many to sign the movement’s founding document and quickly became an important figure within it. Despite some hardships with internal conflicts, especially amongst the more radical followers, the organisation was successful. Another movement equally successful was the ABAKO, also known as Alliance des Bakongo (alliance of the Bakongo people).

On the 4th of January 1959, ABAKO was planning on having a meeting in Léopoldville, which was disallowed by the Belgian government. In response, ABAKO members who were meant to attend the meeting started protesting. This further escalated when a crowd of people who had just viewed a football match were leaving and learnt about what had happened and decided to join. The Force Public which were sent to stop the meeting were now faced with a crowd of 20,000 congolese shouting “Independence! Independence! Independence!”. They started shooting into crowds, which sent groups of protesters to start rioting and attacking Europeans and private property around the city. In response, the government sent out more Force Publique troops to squash the riots. This led to the death of 49 congolese people and it is  estimated that more than 500 people were injured. Rioting continued for many days after and the members of ABAKO’s central committee, as well as leader Joseph Kasa Vubu, were jailed. The Léopoldville riots and the arrest of the ABAKO leaders reinforced the need for independence amongst urban congolese and were essential to spreading nationalist thought to more rural areas. Up til then it had mostly been prevalent in urban areas among the évolués. In May of that year the Parti Solidaire Africain (PSA. Party of United Africans) helped educate rural communities about independence and national pride.

Seeing the increase of nationalism, the Belgian government set up local elections in 1959 that would put more moderate congolese into power to squash talks of independence, though this was resisted by the PSA. Due to the increase of riots throughout the country and failing to set up a belgian controlled Congolese government, the Minister of Colonies, August de Schryver, invited Lumumba and others party leaders to a Round Table Conference in Brussels in January 1960. At the meeting, despite the Belgians wanting independence 30 years into the future, the African nationalist leaders worked together to pressure them into giving independence in 6 months on the 30th of June 1960. Despite this, many other issues still remained, mostly surrounding ethnicity and the future of Congo.

So who is Lumumba and why was he killed?

As Lumumba’s case is still being investigated, there are very few available sources highlighting the role of the CIA or of Belgian officials. According to the Belgian government, certain documents involving Lumumba and his death cannot be accessed due to them being “off-limits because the discussion had been held behind closed doors.”  The following has been collected from a variety of articles that concur. They do not provide any outright evidence within them.

Patrice Lumumba was born on July 2nd 1925 in Congo. With a political mind at a young age, Lumumba was highly critical of Belgian rule. He worked as a postal clerk in Stanleyville, where he was most likely arrested for embezzlement, though I have not found any direct proof of it. Lumumba moved to the capital, Léopoldville, when he got promoted to sales director of a brewery company in 1957. This is where his political career evolved. There, he founded the MNC with other Congolese leaders in October of 1958. After attending the All African People’s Conference, Lumumba became more entrenched in Pan Africanism and the need for a united front against colonialism to fulfill African independence. He was appointed leader of a coalition between the MNC and other political groups for being charismatic and well spoken. When the Belgian government announced their plans to organise the local elections in 1959, ABAKO declared that it was a scheme to set up a puppet government after independence and Lumumba and the MNC agreed. On the 29th of October, he encouraged the Congolese people to use civil disobedience and not to partake in the elections. The next day after he delivered a speech, Lumumba led a group of people to protest demanding independence. It eventually turned violent and the Force Public was sent to squash the protest. It resulted in the death of approx. 70 people, while 200 people were injured. Lumumba was imprisoned for inciting a riot. Following his arrest, the MNC decided to switch tactics and partake in the local election anyway, eventually winning around 90 per cent of the votes in Léopoldville. After his release from prison, Lumumba joined other political leaders at the Round Table conference in Brussels. 

A month before official independence in June, Congo’s first ever general election was held. Lumumba and his party won 25% of votes. The MNC received 36 out of 137 seats in the Chamber of Representatives and formed a coalition with ABAKO. After heavy compromise with Joseph Kasa Vubu, it was decided that Lumumba would be prime minister and Kasa Vubu president. Once in office, Lumumba faced instant challenges. The Force Publique was still present even after independence day. Some units mutinied against their Belgian commanders and started harassing and assaulting Belgian civilians. During this time, Moise Tshombe, a politician of the Katanga region, decided to secede from Congo. This was largely due to the differences in income. Katanga was a mineral rich area and the people, leaders and mining companies were mostly in favour to secede to avoid heavy taxation under the new Congolese government. Lumumba and Kasa Vubu asked the United Nations to help stop the chaos in The Republic of Congo. The UNSC voted in favor and sent out UN peacekeeping troops. The UN also helped in different regards. They helped with public administration to help the inexperienced government with the lack of hospitals, central banks, police force, etc. Lumumba had a hard time adjusting to his government positions and with the mountain of problems Congo was facing. He was often frustrated that the UN would not use force to help him reunite Katanga to the rest of Congo. When he grew frustrated, with what he deemed to be a lack of help from the UN and US, he turned to the Soviets who provided him with “weapons and technical assistants”. This did not bode well with the media who accused him of being a Soviet puppet. Lumumba was invited to Washington, however, the US government found it hard to reason with him.

CIA chief of station in Léopoldville, Lawrence Devlin, described the current Congolese state as a “typical Soviet takeover”.  Following this, President Eisenhower approved the CIA to assassinate him, whether that was themselves or through providing support for others who would. On the 5 of September, only 10 weeks after independence, Kasa Vubu dismissed Lumumba and in turn Lumumba dismissed Kasa Vubu. Colonel Joseph Mobuto of the Congolese National Army decided to stage a coup d’état, as it seemed that Congo was nearing a civil war with many still in strong support for Lumumba around the nation. Devlin reached out to Mobutu showing him plans of a plot to assassinate the prime minister within the same month. Secretary General of the UN Hammarskjold, did not express any outright objection to this. Between October 1960 and January 1961, Lumumba was arrested by Mobutu and was beaten after he was caught escaping. UN troops were aware of this, and had witnessed the beating. Yet nothing was done about this. On the 17th of January, Belgian Minister of African Affairs Harold d’Aspremont Lynden, encouraged Mobutu to transfer Lumumba to Katanga despite knowing that the Belgian parliament having declared that Lumumba would be surely killed if he went there.

In his final days, Lumumba was handed over to Tshombe and Belgian Police Commissioner, Gerard Soete,  in Katanga, where he was severely beaten. Lumumba was shot by one of the firing squads under command of Belgian Captain Julien Gat. His body was cut into small pieces and dissolved in acid, leaving only his gold tooth behind to his wife. Following his assassination, Mobutu became dictator of Congo in 1971, and remained until his death in 1997. For the people of Congo, liberation hasn’t changed a whole lot. Western influence is still rampant in the form of neocolonialism, where foreign enterprises benefit from the Congolese cheap labour, like the indentured workers in the Belgian Congo’s mines. Lumumba’s dream of African nationalism and self-reliance was never fully accomplished.

Why was Belgium and the CIA so keen on removing Lumumba?

The CIA

American interference during the 1950s and 1960s, was all in an effort to win the Cold War. The Red Scare was used by American leaders to terrorize American citizens with the threat of Communism. There is one US foreign policy of the time that can help explain the CIA’s involvement in Congo and possibly in the assassination of Lumumba. The idea of Containment emphasized the need to prevent the spread of communism. It was believed that if one state became communist, it would expand to the surrounding areas. The main agent to collect information and prevent the spread of Communism was the Central Intelligence Agency. Initially established in 1942, the agency was known as The Office of Strategic Services. It would provide Roosevelt and Truman with important analytical data to better their foreign policies. The CIA was only created in 1947, after Truman signed the National Security Act. With the signing of the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, the CIA was granted permission to operate missions outside the US.

Right in the middle of the Cold War, Lumumba’s non-alignment to the West sparked fears that he might be susceptible to communist influences, if he wasn’t already. After Lumumba had a rocky meeting in DC with Eisenhower in July of 1961, CIA Director Allen Dulles described him as having been “bought by the Communists” and was “a Castro or worse”. To the US government and CIA, Lumumba was a Soviet threat that needed to be eliminated. According to Robert Johnson, a note taker at a meeting with Eisenhower and some of his top officials the following month, the president gave an order that seemed to suggest assassinating the prime minister. Johnson was asked to get rid of any evidence of that order. This has been disputed by Eisenhower’s son, who was also present at the meeting, claiming his father had strong feelings against such action. Not too long after Dulles sent an order to the headquarters in Léopoldville to remove Lumumba immediately. The paranoid mindset of the American people meant that foreign leaders could only be placed in two categories. Those who support the US and those who don’t. By not showing his support and willingness to cooperate with the US government, Lumumba sealed his fate as a Soviet threat which needed to be exterminated.

Secondly, the mines that the US invested in in the Belgian Congo, mined many useful minerals. The first atom bomb to be created used uranium mined in the country. With the fear of a soviet friendly Congo, the US could not afford to give the USSR access to such materials. Additionally, an African nationalist as prime minister would mean the end of an abundance of cheap materials.

Lastly, the US wanted to help its allies in NATO by protecting their interests on the continent. With the wave of newly independent African countries being declared in the early 20th century, many NATO countries had lost their colonies and were having a hard time adjusting to this new reality. An African nationalist as popular as Lumumba in power would influence others and would make it that much harder for NATO members to create amicable relationships with African leaders.

The Belgian

Belgium had even more reasons to want to remove Lumumba. According to Ludo De Witte’s book “The assassination of Lumumba”, the Belgian government believed his assassination would be best since “the diplomatic, ideological and financial consequences would be extremely great”  if he remained in power. Lumumba’s dreams of a self-reliant Africa would mean the end of Belgian rule and colonialism. This was a sacrifice which Belgium was not ready to make. Additionally, they weren’t prepared to fully give up control of Congo, as made evident by their consistent interference in 1960. For example, in his book, De Witte claims that a commission secretly gave 7 million euros to the Ministry of African Affairs to help them fund domestic policies that would help get rid of Lumumba in power. Furthermore, it was Prime Minister Gaston Eyskens who convinced Kasa Vubu to fire Lumumba from his governmental position.

Secondly, the Belgian government says they acted in accordance with the will of the Belgian people. In the aftermath of the Force Publique mutinies of independence day, a parliamentary report claimed that the Belgian government felt pressured and obligated to stop the harassment and assault from the Congolese onto the Europeans still in the country. It claims that eliminating Lumumba was like removing the enemy of the people.

Lastly, the ideology of paternalism expressed by King Leopold II and all throughout the Belgian Congo, reflected an attitude of contempt towards Africans. Belgium hoped to continue to play a father figure role within Congo. In King Badouin’s speech during the independence ceremony, he continuously hinted towards a close relationship between the two countries. Lumumba would quickly prove to not share the sentiment as he denounced Belgium and its colonial rule over Congo in his speech later on during the ceremony. To add on, Belgium’s pride and honour was undermined during Lumumba’s speech. For a black man to speak ill of Belgium was deeply offensive. In getting rid of Lumumba, Belgium saved its colonial relationship to the country while saving the reputation it had enjoyed for so long.

Guilty or not guilty

The CIA

The agency has yet to acknowledge any of their involvement in the assassination. While they were not involved in the attempt that actually killed Lumumba, they cannot claim complete innocence, as they not only wished him to be dead, but had just recently tried to execute their own attempt. If he hadn’t died on the 17th of January, the CIA would have most likely continued to plot and support those willing to carry out the murder of Lumumba.

The Belgians

According to an inquiry, there has been no evidence that the Belgian government gave the order to kill Lumumba that day, yet it points out that Belgian officials had previously plotted his assassination. One of King Badouin’s letters was found expressing a plan to “physically neutralise” him. Despite warnings from the parliament to not let Lumumba enter Katanga as it would risk his safety, Belgian officials aided in kidnapping and transferring him to that region where he inevitably died.

The UN

While not playing a huge role in his death, the UN did ignore clear signs that people were plotting to kill him and UN peacekeepers witnessed lumumba being assaulted. Yet nothing was done, the UN was also very sympathetic to Mobutu.

The Congolese

It is important to highlight that those who did in fact kill him were Congolese. As mentioned previously ethnic tensions were high. Not many parties supported a united front. Lumumba,who was working with a highly inexperienced government, was going to have troubles anyway. Especially, considering that the other parties were all ethnic based and did not even want to consider to unite. With over 250 ethnic groups in Congo alone, uniting all of them would have proven extremely difficult. The inexperienced government was easily susceptible to foreign influences and corruption. Mobutu was friendly to Western influences because they helped him gain power. This can be seen by how throughout his rule he pitted different ethnic groups together to maintain his own political standing

With all the information I have read, I see this as a tragedy. Whether you believe him to be a national hero or simply just annoying, it is clear Lumumba cared for his people. Unfortunately, he was working in extremely difficult circumstances, which made him difficult to work with. But, I think it was understandable. Why do we expect those who seek independence to be overly polite and compromising? All he wanted was for his people to be liberated and independent. Instead the levels of poverty and illiteracy are still high, and the Congolese people continue to be exploited. Though it is not useful to ponder over what could have been, I can’t help but wonder. What if Congo had been given a chance? Without intervention? Without breaches in sovereignty? What would Congo be today?

Photo: Aboodi Vesakaran via Unsplash

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