Bleeding for Unity: Pan-Afrikanism in Afrika and Events in Congo History
Chapter entitled:
Culture of Resistance:
Lumumba and the Attempted Assassination of Nationalism
Mukasa Afrika Ma'at
To deny the history of a people’s resistance is to deny their very humanity. Everywhere that oppression went in the world, it was met with resistance. The same is true of the Congo. Afrikans developed a culture of resistance against slavery, and equally a culture of resistance was developed against colonialism. Yet, there is a prevailing myth that Afrikans allowed foreigners, Arabs and Europeans, to colonize and enslave the lands and the people. The myth exists because through the promotion and propagandizing of Afrikan history as one of dominance by others, oppression today will not be met with resistance of any kind. The Afrikan child in Congo or anywhere else in the world is not taught nation-building. On the other hand, if you teach the child that their ancestors led a continuous campaign of resistance, even with the odds against them, you teach the child the essence and the obligation of struggle. Afrikans throughout the world developed a culture of resistance against slavery and oppression. It is a crime to leave this out of history, anyone’s history.
I thoroughly recommend the study of Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja’s The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila. In my opinion, Nzongola-Ntalaja’s book is one of the very best works on the Congo. As a Congolese, he was active against the neo-colonial regime of Mobutu, so his work is an insider’s perspective on the country. One of the many values of his work is his emphasis on the period between the end of Leopold’s regime in 1908 and the beginning of independence in 1960, or more accurately the beginning of neo-colonialism. Nzongola-Ntalaja does a serious job in detailing Afrikan resistance. He outlines the continuous resistance period as the regime switched from the private ownership of Leopold to Belgium. For nearly a century, the Congolese developed a culture of resistance.
The era from 1908-1960 was marked by Belgium colonialism. While the death rates under the Leopold era were higher, exploitation and cruelty did not cease. Nzongola-Ntalaja notes that the era of Belgium colonialism saw the continuation of Afrikan resistance. He states:
In the Congo, the leadership of the resistance was taken up initially by professional warriors defending a conquest state or a trading frontier, between 1892 and 1894, and then by mutineers from the colonial army, from 1895 to 1908. The mutineers were joined by ordinary people and a few traditional rulers who refused to submit to foreign rule in what a student of the resistance has characterized as a veritable ‘people’s war’ against colonialism (42).
The idea of a people’s war reflects how common and widespread resistance was in the Congo, even with the military force of Belgium. Often resistance meant that entire villages could be devastated or destroyed, yet many continued to resist. Further, Nzongola-Ntalaja states “Of all the rulers who refused to submit to colonial rule, the most famous with respect to Congolese historical memory is Msiri, the Nyamwezi king of the Yeke people of Katanga” (44). Msiri was assassinated in 1891, but his death represents the steadfast resistance to colonialism at that time, as Lumumba’s would represent later.
Nzongola-Ntalaja categorizes the fighting against the Belgians by Tippu Tip and his son Sefu, Afro-Arab slave traders, in the Belgian-Arab War that began in 1892 as Afrikan resistance. Although he notes the role of Tip and his forces to the Arab slave trade and theft in ivory, the author does not seem to fully understand them as a segment of an Eastern wave which historically weakened the Congo, and Afrika. The Belgians and Afro-Arabs went from collaboration with each other to open warfare, and the Belgians eventually won due to superior weaponry. Yet, both groups represented a colonial-enslaving force in the region; both devastated populations and murdered countless Congolese people.
Colonial resistance was initially outside of the foreign system, but as more Afrikans were forced to labor for Belgium or forced into military recruitment with the threat of death to them and their loved ones, more resistance would come from within the system itself. Many of these rebellions, or wars, lasted for many years in the Congo(41 and 45). In these campaigns against the colonizers, Pan-Afrikan resistance became inevitable. Besides the resistance of the traditionalists in Afrikan Spirituality, religious resistance was the nature of two Congolese, Kimpa Vita’s and Simon Kimbangu’s, ultimately sacrificial lives (48-49).
The many millions who resisted will remain nameless to history, but the meaning of their existence is unending. Concerning the period in the first half of the 20th century. Nzongola-Ntalaja refers to the resistance period of 1900-1945 as the “[rural] Peasants’ and [urban] workers’ revolts.” He states:
In addition to primary resistance [military resistance] and religiously based protest, anticolonial revolts in the form of peasant uprisings and urban rebellions did play their part in consolidating a tradition of resistance that later proved useful for the independence struggle and the democracy movement in the Congo (51).
The oppressive nature of rural conditions led to resistance and open rebellion most similar to the resistance against the forced exploitation of rubber and ivory before the 1900s. In the cities, segregation or apartheid was the norm for Congolese who had to also endure poor living and working conditions. “Forms of resistance in urban areas included army mutinies and strikes and work stoppages by mining, industrial, transportation and public sector workers” (52). As Nzongola-Ntalaja makes clear, resistance in the Congoagainst colonialism came from all walks of Afrikan life in whatever ways at their use. This is the nature of human resistance to oppression.
The traditional rulers and their followers, the soldiers forced into service, and others led in the resistance. Yet, the Afrikan world community made a contribution to resistance in the Congo. Besides George Washington Williams and William Sheppard in the late 1800s, there was a very early outside contact from the Afrikan world. The Pan-Afrikan philosophy of Marcus Mosiah Garvey reached the Congo, as it did many other Afrikan countries under colonialism. The Negro World newspaper was central in spreading the messages of Garvey throughout the African world. The Congolese spoke of a ship that would come up the Congo River in the middle of the country and bring deliverance of the people, that ship that they hoped for was the Black Star Line of the UNIA (The Congo, 49-50). This ideology and practice of resistance would directly and indirectly influence the nation as political independence approached. Moreover, the Congo had a very long history of resistance and struggle which has not been given its proper place in the pages of the past.
As the Independence Movement swept through Afrika, it was Pan-Afrikan in essence. Patrice Lumumba’s attendance at the 1957 All African People’s Conference held in Ghanaby Kwame Nkrumah was historic in this sense. The conference not only helped broaden the understanding of Lumumba, put it inspired him towards organizational efforts, such as the mass rally he held after returning from Ghana, leading to the threshold of political independence. Lumumba gave his life in the name of complete liberation of the Congo from the former colonizers and other neo-colonials, a freedom which has not come as of this day. Lumumba could have lived a very comfortable life of luxury. Yet, to the contrary, he sacrificed his life because he believed the freedom of his people to be sacred. We learn from Lumumba and millions of nameless Afrikans that the struggle for freedom is a timeless and honorable mission to the future.
The urgency for Pan-Afrikan unity often receives little attention in research on the history of Congo in particular, and Afrika in general. Likewise, the role of Patrice Lumumba is often neglected, distorted, or ignored. At the dawn of independence, Lumumba came to represent the spirit of Congo’s future. It is very difficult to avoid Lumumba and the nationalist movement of Congo and properly deal with the history of the country and even the continent.
It is significant to note that Lumumba was one of many pivotal leaders in the history of the country. As Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja notes, at critical stages in the history of Congowould emerge a leader who embodied the true spirit of liberation.
In a society in which hero worship is not incompatible with traditional culture, a single charismatic individual emerged as the standard-bearer of the democracy movement in each of the first three periods: Lumumba, between 1958 and 1960; Mulele, from 1963 to 1968; and Tshisekedi, from 1988 to 1997 (The Congo, 257).
Nzongola-Ntalaja states that “Mulele came to incarnate the entire Second Independence movement,” (130). The Second Independence movement had some strategic military victories
Antoine Gizenga and Pierre Mulele were both supporters of Lumumba. In fact, when Lumumba escaped from being imprisoned in his own house, Gizenga was waiting for Lumumba in Stanleyville (now known as Kisangani) preparing the forces to wage war against the neo-colonials. Mulele was in the company of Lumumba and could have been assassinated at that time along with him (De Witte, Lumumba, 52-54).
Mulele and Gizenga both led massive armed struggles in the Second Independence movement against neo-colonialism. The Second Independence was based on continuing the work of complete liberation. If not for Mobutu’s European support, and the lack of Pan-Afrikan unity, rebels would have toppled the neo-colonial power. Eventually, Gizenga would be imprisoned and Mulele was lured out of exile thinking he would gain amnesty and help the country to a more productive future. Mobutu had other things in mind when he had Mulele assassinated October 3, 1968. The murder was in all the extreme brutality of Lumumba’s assassination. Mulele, like Lumumba, would become larger than life while they were alive and especially after their assassinations.
There is a sharp lesson in the struggles of the Second Independence. Neo-colonialism was strengthened after the assassination of Mulele and the downfall of the Second Independence.
The failure of the ‘second independence’ movement owes as much to its own internal weaknesses as to the externally led counter-insurgency, which included Belgian military experts, anti-Castro Cuban pilots working for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and white mercenaries from Europe, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Except for Pierre Mulele, who led the insurrection in Kwilu, the top leaders of the movement were neither revolutionaries nor democrats. They were for the most part politicians who simply wanted to regain the power they had lost after Lumumba’s assassination (Nzongola-Ntalaja, 7).
An international counter-insurgency of neo-colonial supporting nations ended the Second Independence movement, but they did not fight an international or continental based resistance. Primarily, the colonials only fought the Congo rebels. A broad-based Pan-Afrikan military was the answer to the Second Independence, and it is the answer to independence today. Unless Afrikan nations unite, neo-colonial and predatory international forces will always thirst for the wealth of Afrika.
Etienne Tshisikedi was another major leader and inspiration to the people of Congo who longed for freedom and independence against the puppet, neo-colonial government of Mobutu. Tshisikedi fought Mobutu’s corruption politically with the promotion of a multi-party state, and for that he was beaten and arrested on a number of occasions. Due to his unrelenting opposition in the face of danger, he inspired the masses. Nzongola-Ntalaja expressed:
As Tshisekedi liked to tell his followers, the effective power of a dictator resides in the fear that people have of him. Consequently, the moment that fear disappears, the regime loses its power of intimidation (168).
When the Afrikan world forever ceases to give birth to leaders and people who are committed to freedom, then we can all say it is over. Yet, the spirit of liberation is undying in the hearts of Afrikan and those in the world who will always fight oppression. Leaders continue to rise up in our midsts that are willing to sacrifice all for the greater cause of liberation and the march of humanity. Patrice Emery Lumumba was one such leader in the Congo.
PATRICE LUMUMBA
Lumumba was born in the KasaiProvince of the Belgian Congo in 1925. Early in his political career as a journalist, and with organizations that he became involved with, he began to show evolving trends of Pan-Afrikanist and nationalist thought. He was exposed to Marxist writings, but it would be very misleading to believe that his anti-colonial inspiration was from Marxism, Socialism, or the like when his nationalist career is reviewed. Of the men who would gain national recognition in the Congo, John Henrik Clarke stated that “Patrice Lumumba was the only Congolese leader who from the very beginning of his career, attempted to build a Congo-wide political organization” (African World Revolution, 118).
In 1956, Lumumba was working for the post office, and was arrested for alleged embezzlement. The nationalists of Stanleyville reimbursed the money in question, over $2,000, and his prison term was cut short. He would go on to take a job with a Belgian brewery, but his life’s dedication became the Congolese National Movement (MNC), “a Congo-wide political organization” that was growing. It was through the MNC that Lumumba would gain the following of the masses in the Congo. He understood how disastrous the future of the Congo would be if the people were not united as a nation. He also planned to link the Congo with the struggles of Angola, and other Afrikan countries. He was truly a Pan-Afrikan nationalist, and the people rightfully believed his efforts were in their interest.
After Ghanahad gained its independence in 1957, Nkrumah became President, and shortly afterwards he held an All-Afrikan People’s Conference. Lumumba would attend as a representative of the struggles in the Congo. The Pan-Afrikanist Nkrumah was an inspiration and a hero for the young Congolese. Nzongola-Ntalaja states:
It was in Accrathat Lumumba met Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon, Gamal Abdul Nasser, Ahmed Sekou Toure and many other leaders who would later support him in his struggle to uphold Congo’s independence and territorial integrity. And it was from Accra that he brought back to the Congo new political perspectives, a mature nationalism, and a strong commitment to the African national project (The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila, 84).
It is necessary that we understand the role of Lumumba in the Congo independence movement and his connection to the Afrikan philosophical movement in history. Let us be clear, Lumumba was assassinated because he stood against neo-colonialism, and he stood for complete independence. He was a man of righteous principles. He was willing to sacrifice his life instead of live in a mockery of transformed colonialism. He understood what it meant to serve the people, and what it meant to have the highest forms of freedom. Lumumba would not settle for political offices while Europeans fleeced the country of its resources and the common Afrikans lived in a state no different from colonialism. A new form of slavery, Lumumba understood, was just as evil as an old form of slavery. With the use of cultural reality, Lumumba understood that it was central for Afrikans to be Afrikans. As Afrikans, the Afrikan personality is the path to liberation. With his use of the concept of the Afrikan personality, Lumumba linked himself to the relevant cultural movement of the restoration of Afrikan consciousness globally. Consider his own words, published by Presence Africaine in 1963, two years after his brutal death, Lumumba stated:
Africa will tell the West that today it desires the rehabilitation of Africa, a return to the roots, a revalorization of moral values. The African personality must be expressed... The government of the Congo is a nationalist government that doesn’t want any imported ideologies [Western or Communist he emphasized], but which demands nothing except the total, complete liberation of the Congo.
We have absolutely no intention of letting ourselves be guided by any ideology whatsoever. We have our own ideology, a strong, noble ideology which is the affirmation of the African personality (The Africa Reader, Cartrey and Kilson, 87-88).
Lumumba was neither Marxist, Communist, nor Socialist. He was Pan-Afrikan and driven by Afrikan philosophy, an intergenerational concept. The “Afrikan personality” is a concept about the cultural uniqueness of Afrikan people, especially the recovery of that cultural reality in response to European world aggression. Edward Wilmot Blyden spoke about the Afrikan personality as far back as 1893 (Lynch, Black Spokesman, 200). In the early 20th century, with colonialism at its height, Afrikan people around the world began to respond through cultural expression, organization, and armed struggle. There was the rise of the global movement of the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the UNIA. Garvey gave fuel and often direction to the Harlem Renaissance and the general cultural awakening throughout America. In the United Statesand the Carribean, peaking in the 1920s. The Pan-Afrikan and Back-to-Afrika movement was revived. The Negritude movement, initiated in the 1930s through Aime Cesaire, Leopold Sedar Senghor, and Leon Dumas, would have a global impact. Lumumba, the Afrikan nationalist, would display his cultural awareness in writings and speeches, and he would link himself to his intellectual predecessors. Lumumba was well read, and was influenced by Presence Africaine, the journal founded in 1947 by the Senegalese Alioune Diop. Presence Africaine promoted Pan-Afrikanism, anti-colonialism, nationalism, the Negritude movement, Afrikan consciousness, and the Afrikan personality. Alioune Diop’s journal featured historic figures such as Julius Nyerere, Sekou Toure, Leopold Sedar Senghor, and many others (UNSECO General History of Africa VIII, 183 and 477. Also see Brockman, An African Biographical Dictionary, 101-102).
Lumumba further defines the Afrikan personality and gives direction to the past and present Afrikan conscious movement with the following statements:
We refuse assimilation because assimilation means de-personalizing the African and Africa. So to ally ourselves with this or that bloc, this or that ideology means abandoning our African personality. Never. The imperialists should know that if their policy of assimilating and depersonalizing Africa has succeeded elsewhere, in the other former English, British, Portuguese, and French colonies, it won’t succeed in the Congo (The Africa Reader, 88).
Lumumba was right in knowing the Afrikan personality and Pan-Afrikanism were the protection of Congo. Unfortunately, neo-colonialism did take hold in Congo and it took hold in a very catastrophic way. For Lumumba, the fight for the liberation of Afrikan people was freedom or death. Not all of the politicians lived for the higher principles which Lumumba sacrificed his life. This is obvious because during the Second Independence, as Nzongola-Ntalaja stated, few of the prominent leaders were revolutionaries (7). Lumumba’s spirit and name lives on in an unfinished revolution today.
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With the end of World War II, Europe all but completely devastated, and with a changing political climate, colonials were forced to take a different policy with Afrika. The Belgians were forced to take a different policy with the Congo. All of the colonial powers had to deal with the Independence Movement that was sweeping over the continent of Afrika. All of the colonials feared the type of long, anti-imperial war that was occurring in Algeria. Due to the tactics of the Cold War, the colonials and Americaalso feared the Soviets arming the anti-colonial Afrikans. Belgium had planned to give gradual independence to the Congo. However, after an anti-colonial uprising in Leopoldville in January 1959, the colonials quickly changed their policy. Hundreds of Congolese were killed, more were willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom, and many were enraged at the brutal oppression of their people. A week after the uprising, the King of Belgium, Baudouin, announced that Congoindependence would be recognized. It did not come soon enough because at the end of the year anti-colonial uprisings had not stopped (De Witte, The Assassination of Lumumba, 211).
Ludo De Witte wrote the excellent book, The Assassination of Lumumba, which I recommend as a must read for those interested in this era of the Congo’s history. The son of Patrice Lumumba known as Francois Emery Tolenga Lumumba, Raoul Peck the director of the movie Lumumba, Adam Hochschild, and others endorse De Witte’s work.
As a result of one of the anti-colonial demonstrations, Lumumba was jailed. While he was imprisoned, the Belgians planned to have the Independence negotiations in Brussels on January 27, 1960. They were not fully aware of Lumumba’s influence. The other leaders who would take part in the Brussels negotiations demanded the release and participation of Lumumba. He and the other Congolese leaders won the independence negotiations. Independence Day was set for June 30, 1960 in Leopoldville. Perhaps not without coincidence, a huge bronze statue of Leopold II, whose regime caused massive genocide in the Congo, stood at the door of where the independence ceremonies were to take place.
Baudouin, the Belgian king, spoke first. He praised the undertaking of his great uncle, Leopold II. Baudouin was heir to the throne of white supremacy over the Congo, and although independence was being granted there were ulterior motives. In Baudouin’s white supremacist arrogance, and praise of his great uncle, he also said to the Congopeople, “Don’t be afraid to come to us. We will remain by your side, give you advice, train with you the technical experts and administrators you will need” (De Witte, Lumumba, 1).
Joseph Kasa Vubu, President of the Congospoke after Baudouin. Ludo De Witte says of Kasa Vubu’s speech:
He gives a perfectly innocuous speech, conforming exactly to what the former masters expect from the new African elite: the Africans, he implies, will be ministers, will drive luxury cars and live in beautiful houses but, behind the scenes, will allow the Europeans to continue pulling all the strings without fear of being contradicted. (De Witte, 2)
Next speaking, but not on the approved schedule for the event was the new Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. The Belgians did not get an advanced copy of the speech to approve as they did with Kasa Vubu’s. Lumumba began his address:
Congolese men and women, fighters for independence, who are today victorious… no Congolese worthy of the name can ever forget that it is by struggle that we have won… a struggle waged each and every day, a passionate idealistic struggle, a struggle in which no effort, privation, suffering, or drop of our blood was spared.
Lumumba was more than a great orator as one can see through reading his speeches or his poetry, he was a genuine fighter for the liberation of Afrikan people. In stark contrast to Baudouin’s glorification of Leopold and his era, Lumumba spoke of ‘the humiliating slavery that was imposed on us by force.’ De Witte quotes Lumumba’s speech:
We have known sarcasm and insults, endured blows morning, noon and night… We have seen our lands despoiled under the terms of what was supposedly the law of the land but which only recognized the right of the strongest. We have seen that this law was quite different for a White than for a Black: accommodating for the former, cruel and inhuman for the latter. We have seen the terrible suffering of those banished to remote regions because of their political opinions or religious beliefs, exiled within their own country, their fate was truly worse than death itself… and, finally, who can forget the volleys of gunfire in which so many of our brothers perished, the cells where the authorities threw those who would not submit to a rule where justice meant oppression and exploitation (2).
The Congolese present in the ceremonies cheered throughout his speech, and so did those Congolese who listened throughout the country on airwaves. News of the speech spread far and wide in the Congo (Lumumba, 3). The speech was historic. It goes without saying that while the Afrikans rejoiced, Baudouin and the other Belgians were outraged. Some may believe that Lumumba sealed his own fate with the speech, but it was no doubt his continued effort to keep his country united and independent that caused the world’s forces of neo-colonialism to use assassination as a tool to benefit their interest in the Congo.
Ludo De Witte has a detailed account of events in The Assassination of Lumumbawhere he reveals the network of forces who killed the Prime Minister of the Congo. The Belgians planned to give only political independence to the Congo, the politicians would all have Belgian advisors, and these neo-colonials planned to maintain control over the military with Belgian officers. Most importantly, Belgium planned to continue the economic exploitation of the Congo with the other Europeans world powers who had economic interest there. This would make the Congo an effective neo-colonial state of Belgium. The objective of every former colonial power was to keep the broader economic resource-market which they had gained through force of arms. This was especially so because the 1900s brought about the use of more sophisticated mining technologies which allowed for the European world to exploit vast fields of copper, gold, diamonds, and other forms of wealth in Congo and other nations.
To Lumumba and the other nationalists of the Congo, this was not independence - this was still oppression. Joseph Kasa Vubu, Joseph Mobutu, and many of the politicians of Leopoldville never planned to disturb the expected neo-colonial order to come. The opportunistic politicians and men of high appointments in the neo-colonial state only hoped to get their share, not to disturb the balance of power or bring true independence to the masses. Then there were other puppet politicians such as those who followed the President of South Kasai Albert Kalonji and the President of Katanga Moise Tshombe. Kasai and Katanga were provinces that split from the Congodue to the wielding of power by the white neo-colonials. These two regions, especially Katanga which held three-fourths of the Congo’s mining resources, were vital to the nation’s economy and therefore vital to continued exploitation. All of the puppet politicians played a role and were among the guilty of Lumumba’s assassination. But, neither of them dictated the murder no more than they dictated the future direction of the Congo.
Robert Edgerton’s The Troubled Heart of Africa gives very little attention to Patrice Lumumba’s legacy. Edgerton seems to think that Lumumba was rash, illogical, and “furious” when he spoke (184). Edgerton does not capture the significance of the leadership of Patrice Lumumba.
The dynamics of leadership in the Congoat this time is a serious study within itself. True leadership is concerned with the interest of the masses. “What is best for the people?” This is the central question and drive in leadership. Ultimately, leadership is a position of service and often sacrifice. Some are willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice in blood, like Lumumba. It is that type of eternal leadership that moved Lumumba, in his final hours of life, when he stated the words:
I write you these words not knowing whether you will receive them, when you will receive them, and whether I will still be alive when you read them. Throughout my struggle for the independence of my country, I have never doubted for a single instant the sacred cause to which my comrades and I dedicated our entire lives would triumph in the end...What else can I say? That whether dead or alive, free or in prison by orders of the colonialists, it is not my person that is important. What is important is the Congo, our people whose independence has been turned into a cage, with people looking at us from outside the bars, sometimes with charitable compassion, sometimes with glee and delight. But my faith will remain unshakeable. ...I prefer to die with my head held high, unshakeable faith and the greatest confidence in the destiny of my country rather than live in slavery and contempt for sacred principles” (De Witte, Lumumba, 184-185).
As one could see, Lumumba lived and died for the higher cause of Congoliberation and therefore Afrikan liberation in general. He would become an Afrikan martyr and an ancestor. As a result, his name will be remembered throughout the ages as a testament to the spirit of undying Afrikan freedom, and he will be an historic legend in our times and well into the future. If we lose the capacity as a people to produce leaders like Lumumba, then the human struggle against oppression and evil is over. As long as we produce leaders like Lumumba, it is not a question of if the masses will be free, but when.
Lumumba was a leader of service. The other type of leader is one of opportunism. The other type of “leader” which we unfortunately have the capacity to produce are those like Mobutu and company. At times, it seems as if the opportunists outnumber the leaders of service to the people. Wealth, safety, and material possessions become the primary motives of the opportunists, however false the sense of those possessions may seem. They are far less concerned about the prosperity of the masses, rather they are concerned about their own prosperity. The opportunists will view political offices, or education and employment as a means to be closer with the power structure over an oppressed group. The leader of service to his or her people will view personal gains as gains for the people, and they will use those personal gains at every single chance to promote the interest of their people, even unto losing them.
De Witte explains that the United Nations which had been in the Congo, supposedly to bring, order played a role in Lumumba’s assassination. The UN stayed very informed of the events as they occurred and supported them. Secretary General of the UN, Dag Hammarskjold, came to the conclusion, ‘the UN effort could not continue with Lumumba in office. One or the other would have to go’ (15). The irony is that Lumumba invited the UN into the Congo to help restore order, part of their supposed mandate, and they turned against his efforts to stabilize and unite the country to instead support the interest of neo-colonials. Then there was the United States of America’s CIA which had a covert plan to assassinate Lumumba. President Eisenhower had expressed that he ‘wish that Lumumba would fall into a river full of crocodiles’ (De Witte, XV). Also, the new administration of Kennedy was in support of the neo-colonial state and against Lumumba. The CIA, with orders of approval from WashingtonDC, had plans to assassinate Lumumba that were not followed through because the Belgians were actively at work. However, the CIA was informed and involved one way or another in the process. The American interests in Lumumba’s murder was part financial due to investments in the Congo, part political due to the Cold War threat, and part fear of a united Afrika.
In October of 1960 under neo-colonial influence, Mobutu had his troops surround Lumumba’s house and hold him hostage under the pretense of protecting him. By this time, the country was thrown into political confusion, much of which was not accidental. About a month after being held hostage, Lumumba escaped from his house, and headed for Stanleyville. He planned to launch an attack on the neo-colonial state from Stanleyville where Antoine Gizenga, his former deputy prime minister was busy regrouping an army of nationalists who believed that Afrikans should govern their own country. The nationalist forces in Stanleyville waited anxiously for the arrival of Lumumba. On the way to Stanleyville, Lumumba made the mistake of speaking to anxious crowds. He wanted to increase public support for the future nationalist’s and Pan-Afrikanist’s goals of the country. Lumumba was captured, imprisoned, brutally beaten, and tortured for a month, and later assassinated with his supporters Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito.
Lumumba, Mpolo, and Okito were shot by a firing squad on January 17, 1961. They were buried upon execution and lay for a day until they were dug up and buried again while the neo-colonials and puppet politicians panicked as they discussed what to do with the bodies. They decided. The bodies were not to stay in the grave, and on January 21, “The corpses were dug up, cut into pieces with knives and the hacksaw, then thrown into the barrel of sulphuric acid… the skulls were ground up, the bones and teeth (that neither acid nor fire can destroy) were scattered on the way back. The same occurred with the ashes” (De Witte, 141). The truths behind the assassination would lay hidden for years as the Belgians, the puppets, the UN, and the USAall hustled to cover up their involvement in the assassinations.
In October of 1964, “Operation Ommegang caused a river of Congoleseblood to shed” (DeWitte, 164). About a quarter of a million or more Africans were killed by the neo-colonials in their war to conquer the nationalist’s stronghold of Stanleyville. Many of these Afrikans, like Lumumba, were willing to sacrifice their lives in the resistance to the colonization of their lands. The forces who attacked Stanleyville were the same neo-colonials who assassinated Lumumba hoping to destroy the nationalist’s hope of an independent Congo. These were the same neo-colonials that would set up the coming puppet government of Mobutu, with strong American support.
In October of 1965, Kasa Vubu took the office of Prime Minister from Tshombe. Mobutu would then oust Kasa Vubu. All three puppets were tied to Lumumba’s assassination, and all three had blood on their hands. The European neo-colonials would decide that Mobutu would best serve their needs. De Witte describes the period of transition:
In 1965, foreign intervention finally accomplished what it had started in July 1960: the nationalist political and military leadership had been destroyed; the military capability of the various rebel groups had been smashed; the population was fragmented and demoralized; a stable pro-Western regime [of Mobutu] was running the country. The peace of neo-colonialism reigned (164).
On October 3, 1968, Pierre Mulele accepted “amnesty” believing that he would return to Mobutu’s Zaire from Brazzaville and help pave a better road for the Congo’s future. His decision was against the advice of many friends, but he decided it was a risk worth taking for the future of his country and his people to which he had dedicated his life for so many years. What happened is unspeakable. Bluntly, Michela Wrong states of the assassination:
Pierre Mulele, the rebel leader who had challenged central rule in the east, was lured back from exile with an amnesty promise, then tortured to death by [Mobutu’s] soldiers. His eyes were pulled from their sockets, his genitals ripped off, his limbs amputated one by one as he slowly expired. What remained was dumped in the river (In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, 90).
Then again, neo-colonialism was only peaceful when it needed to be peaceful, and brutal when it had to be brutal. Mobutu’s regime killed tens of thousands in massacres over the years (De Witte, 171-172). The mere fact that Mobutu had to use such barbaric cruelty to maintain control of the Congo proves the undying spirit for freedom in the people that burned in their hearts down the years.
Mobutu killed countless others (maybe millions) with the extreme conditions of oppression and lack of very basic needs in the Congo due to his extraction of the country’s wealth for his personal expenditures. He horded the entire country’s wealth for himself, those in his inner-circle, and the neo-colonials were paid well. While this happened, the Congolese people and children died from lack of clean water and basic food requirements. The people were malnourished in one of the richest regions on Earth. Mobutu’s personal fortune was over $6 billion, and he had luxurious homes in the Congo, France, and Switzerland. Mobutu and the neo-colonials continued the theft of countless billions while the people lived in horrendous poverty. Throughout his years as dictator, he was a favorite of the CIA, American presidents, politicians, and neo-colonials. On a few occasions, he was entertained in the White House under Presidents Reagan and Kennedy, and praised by George Bush Sr. (Hochschild, 302-303) With neo-colonial support, Mobutu would exploit and oppress the Congo for three decades. Then in 1997, the dictator was caught without clothes, figuratively speaking, and had to run.
The assassination of Lumumba was more than the killing of a person. The neo-colonials who assassinated Patrice Lumumba tried to kill a concept and a desire which was seeded deep in the hearts of Afrikan people. That concept is alive today. Lumumba’s death in 1961 was a blow to Independence and Pierre Mulele’s death in 1968 was a blow to the Second Independence. Both men and their supportes stood for the right of the Congolese to nation ownership. By killing Lumumba and Mulele, the neo-colonials tried to kill nationalism and the rightful desire of Afrikan people to govern themselves and their future. Lumumba came to symbolize the complete liberation of the Congoat the dawn of the First Independence movement while Mulele came to symbolize the Second Independence.
The Congo story of undying resistance must be known. Lumumba refused to settle for personal comfort as a leading political figure in politics at the expense and exploitation of his people and their nation. He understood that Afrikan people had a right to independence and sovereignty. He also understood that the “sacred principles” of the Afrikan future were far more valuable than one single individual, even himself. There is so much that our ancestor, Patrice Lumumba, has left for us to learn from his life. Although Lumumba would be tortured and murdered, he was not “dead.” Nationalism was not assassinated as the neo-colonials and their puppets had hoped. By killing Lumumba, they engraved the sacred principles deeper into the hearts and minds of the Congolese people, and Afrikan people throughout the world. Pierre Mulele was one such Afrikan who was willing to sacrifice himself as his friend and leader Lumumba had done before him. Countless masses, un-named, sacrificed their bodies as Lumumba and others had done before them. In killing Lumumba, the neo-colonials inadvertently gave him more life, and assured their own damnation to remembrance and maybe beyond. Lumumba would live on as an Afrikan ancestor whose life came to symbolize undying resistance to oppression, not only in the Congo, but among freedom loving people throughout the world.
Mukasa Afrika Ma’at
He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Black Studies from CSU. He earned a Master of Science in Education Administration from GMU and a Master of Arts in Inner-City Studies Educational Leadership from NEIU. He is an historian, author, blogger, and poet. He has done critical essays on Black Leadership, politics, and culture along with extensive research and essays on Afrikan-Centered education. Mukasa Ma’at is a Black Belt martial arts instructor who developed and founded Ma’at-Sumu, a full mixed-martial arts combat system. He is also an education administrator of an Afrikan-Centered charter school in Philadelphia and has supported Afrikan-Centered schools and CIBI his entire career. He is an education advocate for poor children and blogs on funding equity and access.
