Patrice Lumumba: the most important assassination of the 20th century

The US-sponsored plot to kill Patrice Lumumba, the hero of Congolese independence, took place 50 years ago today [17 January 2011]

by Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Guardian

Patrice Lumumba, the first legally elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was assassinated 50 years ago today, on 17 January, 1961. This heinous crime was a culmination of two inter-related assassination plots by American and Belgian governments, which used Congolese accomplices and a Belgian execution squad to carry out the deed.

Ludo De Witte, the Belgian author of the best book on this crime, qualifies it as "the most important assassination of the 20th century". The assassination's historical importance lies in a multitude of factors, the most pertinent being the global context in which it took place, its impact on Congolese politics since then and Lumumba's overall legacy as a nationalist leader.

For 126 years, the US and Belgium have played key roles in shaping Congo's destiny. In April 1884, seven months before the Berlin Congress, the US became the first country in the world to recognise the claims of King Leopold II of the Belgians to the territories of the Congo Basin.

When the atrocities related to brutal economic exploitation in Leopold's Congo Free State resulted in millions of fatalities, the US joined other world powers to force Belgium to take over the country as a regular colony. And it was during the colonial period that the US acquired a strategic stake in the enormous natural wealth of the Congo, following its use of the uranium from Congolese mines to manufacture the first atomic weapons, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.

Only the Congolese people can save Democratic Republic of the Congo

Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja
The Guardian

M23, the 23 March movement, is the fourth incarnation of Paul Kagame's proxy group for Rwanda's territorial expansion and looting the natural resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The wily Rwandan strongman has perfected this game, first posing as Congo's liberator from the Mobutu dictatorship through the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo in 1996-97 under Laurent-Désiré Kabila, and then establishing the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie in 1998 to fight Kabila when he did not turn out to be the kind of puppet president Kagame wanted in Kinshasa.

Unlike these groups, however, which were established out of the blue by Rwanda and Uganda as rebel groups against the Congolese state, M23 emerged as a Tutsi unit within the Congolese army this year, as its predecessor, the Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP), did in 2006. Since the outbreak of the inter-African war for DRC resources following the invasion of the Congo by Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, Kagame learned it would do no good for Rwanda to be so openly involved in invading, occupying and looting its giant neighbour.

The very name M23 is a clear indication of the umbilical cord tying it to the CNDP, since the group claims its rebellion is in retaliation to the non-respect of the peace agreement between Joseph Kabila – Laurent's son and president of Congo since 2001 – and the CNDP on 23 March 2009. Despite its diplomatic language, that agreement represents the capitulation of the Kabila government to the strategic interests of Rwanda, incorporating into the Congolese army a militia group composed of Congolese Tutsi and Rwandan soldiers, and loyal to a foreign army.

DRC's potential: Lighting the continent from Cape to Cairo

Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja

Pambazuka

As the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) moves towards elections, political scientist Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja talks to Pambazuka News about the strategic importance of the DRC. A strong state in the Congo would threaten western control over the resource-rich countries in the sub-region, namely, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe. Moreover, he argues, the DRC has enough arable soil, rainfall, lakes and rivers to become the breadbasket of Africa, and enough hydroelectric power to light up the whole continent from the Cape to Cairo.

Pambazuka News: What is the strategic and economic importance of the DRC, both for Africa and internationally?

Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja: The best answer to this question is a quote from the late Jacques Foccart, the éminence grise of Gaullist Africa policy under Presidents Charles de Gaulle, Georgess Pompidou and Jacques Chirac, when the latter was Prime Minister under President François Mitterand. Asked by a journalist who was writing Foccart’s memoirs about his thoughts concerning the DRC, the old man had this to say:

You asked me what was France’s interest. On this matter, there is no ambiguity. Congo-Léopoldville, Zaire today, is the largest country in Francophone Africa. It has considerable natural resources. It has the means of being a regional power. The long-term interest of France and its African allies is evident (Emphasis mine. Jacques Foccart and Philippe Gaillard, Foccart parle: entretiens avec Philippe Gaillard, Fayard/Jeune Afrique, Paris, 1995, p. 310).

What is evident is that France and its allies, African as well as non-African, do not wish to see the DRC become a regional power in Central Africa, and thus constitute a threat to French hegemony and Western interests in the sub-region. A strong state in the Congo will not only threaten French control over the resource-rich countries in the sub-region, namely, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe.