The Assassination of Lumumba

by Ludo De Witte, Renee Fenby (Translator), Ann Wright (Translator)

Overview

Patrice Lumumba, first prime minister of the Republic of Congo and a pioneer of African unity, was murdered on 17 January 1961.

Democratically elected to lead the Mouvement National Congolais, the party he founded in 1958, Lumumba was at the centre of the country’s growing popular defiance of the colonial rule of oppression imposed by Belgium. When, in June 1960, independence was finally won, his unscheduled speech at the official ceremonies in Kinshasa received a standing ovation and made him a hero to millions. Always a threat to those who sought to maintain a covert imperialist hand over the country, however, he became within months the victim of an insidious plot and was arrested and subsequently tortured and executed.

This book unravels the appalling mass of lies, hypocrisy and betrayals that have surrounded accounts of the assassination since it perpetration. Making use of a huge array of official sources as well as personal testimony from many of those in the Congo at the time, Ludo De Witte reveals a network of complicity ranging from the Belgian government to the CIA. Chilling official memos which detail ‘liquidation’ and ‘threats to national interests’ are analysed alongside macabre tales of the destruction of evidence, putting Patrice Lumumba’s personal strength and his dignified quest for African unity in stark contrast with one of the murkiest episodes in twentieth-century politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781839767906
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	10/25/2022
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Ludo De Witte is a sociologist and a writer. He is author of the Dutch work Crisis in Kongo and has researched two broadcast television documentaries on Patrice Lumumba.

Table of Contents

Translators' note ix

Acknowledgements xi

Preface to the English-language edition xiii

Introduction xix

Map of the Congo in 1960 xxv

Who's Who on 17 January 1961 xxvi

The International Actors xxviii

1 Preparing the Gallows

A "nigger" upstart (30 June 1960)

Belgian troops and the Blue Berets in Katanga (July-August 1960)

The elimination of Lumumba's government (August-September 1960)

In the steps of the CIA: Operation Barracuda 1

2 United Against "Satan"

Mobutu's appearance on the political scene

The copper state, an "oasis of peace"

The offended King Baudouin

The Belgian government 27

3 The Death Cell

D'Aspremont Lynden and Loos in Africa. Lumumba delivered to Mobutu by the UN (2 December 1960)

Camp Hardy at Thysville

The Belgians wait in Katanga

Tshombe saved again by the UN 46

4 The Green Light from Brussels

Colonel Vandewalle's new mission

Patrice Lumumba must die

Mutiny in Thysville, panic in Leopoldville and Brussels (12-14 January 1961)

Bakwanga or Elisabethville? (14-17 January 1961)

D'Aspremont Lynden orders Lumumba's transfer to Katanga (16 January 1961) 67

5 Lumumba's Last Day

From Thysville to Lukala, then to Moanda

From Moanda to Elisabethville in the DC-4

Arrival in Katanga

At the Brouwez house

"No blood on our hands"

Tshombe celebrates

Back at the Brouwez house

Lumumba's last hour 93

8 Operation "Cover-Up"

Anxiety or celebration?

Masquerade in Katanga

"No blood on our hands" (encore)

Masquerade in Brussels and New York

To the depths of hell

The world is informed 125

7 A River of Blood

The martyrdom of Jean-Pierre Finant at Bakwanga (9 February 1961)

Cover-up in New York and Brussels

The price of blood

Colonel Vandewalle and Leopold II 153

8 Danse Macabre in Gbadolite

Guy Weber's confession

Danse macabre in Gbadolite (1985)

Lumumba's nationalism: a provisional evaluation 165

Conclusion: Lumumba's political testament 184

Afterword to the Paperback Edition 186

Notes 188

Bibliography 206

Chronology 213

Index 217

Editorial Reviews

A vivid and utterly compelling account of a nation strangled at birth by the West.

LA Times

An unignorable effort to bring the West face to face with its culpability in this entire sad and sanguinary tale.

New York Times

[A] staggering amount of detail to support...allegations of direct government participation in Lumumba's murder.

Washington Post Book World

. . . a vivid and utterly compelling account of a nation strangled at birth by the West. It would be satisfying to report, 40 years after Lumumba's murder, that the Congolese are now at last being allowed to develop their country in a way that suited their needs. But the truth is that "after" still equals "before": Big business, foreign armies and an array of stooges are still trampling over the unfortunate population to be first in line to plunder and enrich themselves. If you want to know who to thank for this, look no further than De Witte's The Assassination of Lumumba.
— Los Angeles Times

Ronan Bennett

Sociologist and writer De Witte details the story of how Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Republic of Congo, was murdered in January 1961, directly by the Belgian government and Congolese rebels, but with the indirect help of the US and United Nations. The original was published in Dutch as by Editions Uitgeverij van Halewyck in 1999, but the English seems to have been translated from the French. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Indefatigable Dutch sociologist De Witte (Crisis in Kongo) examines the murder of Congolese nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba and unearths a sordid story of corruption, violence, conspiracies, and lies. On January 17, 1961, former Prime Minister Lumumba and two of his associates were murdered by firing squads in a remote clearing. Shortly afterwards, their remains were moved, then exhumed a few days later. This time, the perpetrators, desperate to cover their trails, dismembered the bodies, submerging them in sulfuric acid. Even this was insufficient, so the remains of the remains were burned, and those stubborn fragments that refused to disappear were scattered across the countryside. Lumumba had been captured by his political enemies on December 1, 1960, days after escaping from house arrest; he was then subjected to many days of beatings and other humiliations (among the most disturbing of which was his being forced to swallow hair ripped from his own face and head). De Witte's conclusion is blunt: "It was Belgian advice, Belgian orders and finally Belgian hands that killed Lumumba on 17 January 1961." The author has examined documentary evidence at the United Nations, in Belgian archives, and in Africa, and he argues that Lumumba's assassination resulted from the fear of the Belgians (and of other Western countries, especially the US, just then reeling from its problems with Castro) that Lumumba-a popular politician-would so animate the people that they would expel rather than accommodate the business interests in the country. De Witte shows with devastating clarity how the UN and the West portrayed Lumumba as a danger (comparisons to Hitler were made), how the eight Belgian soldiers and nine policemen shot him (and received bonuses in their next paychecks!), how the government concocted lies about an escape attempt and denied responsibility for his death. His research has left him deeply cynical, as revealed in his declaration that governments espouse humanitarian and ethical principles only when they serve political objectives. Thoroughly researched, passionately written, deeply disturbing. (1 map, 2 charts, 8 pages b&w photos)

Kirkus Reviews

De Witte has assembled a staggering amount of detail to support his allegations of direct government participation in Lumumba's murder.”—Washington Post Book World

“De Witte has performed an important service in establishing the facts of Lumumba’s last days and Belgium’s responsibility for what happened.”—New York Review of Books

“De Witte writes without stylish frills or narrative tricks, but this is a vivid and utterly compelling account of a nation strangled at birth by the West.”—Ronan Bennett, Los Angeles Times

“De Witte’s book, politically passionate as it is, is an unignorable effort to bring the West face to face with its culpability in this entire sad and sanguinary tale.”—Richard Bernstein, New York Times

“One Belgian author has triumphed over decades of official obfuscation: Belgium did collude in Patrice Lumumba’s assassination ... It raises questions about Western policy in Africa that will reverberate for decades to come.”—Michela Wrong, Financial Times

“One should never underestimate the ruthlessness of British gentlemen cradling endangered shares.”—Neal Ascherson, London Review of Books

“Thoroughly researched, passionately written, deeply disturbing.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Whilst the battle for control over the resources of the Congo (now DR Congo) continues today this important book restores Congolese history and saves it from the official version peddled by those directly implicated in the affair.”—New Internationalist

From the Publisher

We will never know what Patrice Lumumba might have accomplished had he been allowed to live. But with this riveting book we now know the full history of his murder, a tragedy that still reverberates forty years later. Ludo De Witte has carefully brought to light the shameful story that Belgian officialdom worked so long to hide or distort.

Adam Hochschild

Ludo De Witte's rigorous work proves what has been suspected for over forty years – that clear responsibility for the cowardly and cynical murder of one of Africa's most promising leaders lies with the Belgian government, among many other accomplices, including the United States government, the CIA, the UN ... a never-ending story of arrogance, greed and power. The assassins are still among us.

Raoul Peck

Time will never erase the injustice committed against my father, a crime which brought a halt to emancipation in the Congo and to the African revolution in general. I hope that this heroic account, which reflects very closely our own understanding of the facts of Patrice Lumumba's assassination, will help to honour his memory properly and promote the continuing emergence of free and democratic societies in the Congo and throughout Africa.

Francois Emery Tolenga Lumumba