Patrice Lumumba death and the failure of RDC
The death of a nation - 19 graves
Without warning my father took the family on a walk from the capital city of Kinshasa to a remote area. He was 6 years old at the time. After miles traveled long hours we entered a rural area where the car traveled unpaved rails and the grass passed the roof. And it was in the middle of this high grass that we were covered by the vision that I saw my father abandon his car and run. Without understanding the reason for so abruptly rushing inside that labyrinth of grass, I followed it with the same haste, leaving my mother behind.
Feeling the rough grass cut into my childish skin, I found my father kneeling and crying in front of three mounds of earth. Graves in front of an old house that with its windows and open doors seemed to want to vent what in the smallest division of the house would have happened. We went through all the divisions completely bare of evidence and filled with echoes from a past of 5 years. But with my height as a child I never forget the screen drawn on the ceilings and walls of the bathroom. It was a mixture of spattering splashes that time would not erase and never erase. The blood that stained the walls lost its redness and became earth-colored. But even for an innocent child it was clear that this room hid the hatred, the betrayal and greed that contained the decline of a nation, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
And later I learned that I was in Katanga in my grandfather's grave. It is in this vision of return to the past that a Congolese nationalist reviews the assassinations aimed at ending the government policies carried out by the only democratically elected Prime Minister in the Democratic Republic of Congo - Patrice Lumumba.
News of February 14, 1961 signed by Paul Hofmann of the New York Times referred to a crime perpetrated by the authorities of the Provincial Government of Katanga at the behest of the government of Kinshasa (formerly Leopoldville). The initial version was that it was another simple struggle of Africans against Africans. Threatened warnings were issued to President Moise Tshombe of Katanga by the United Nations Secretary General who fought against the rebels and supported the elected government of Patrice Lumumba.
Coincidentally, 8 months after Lumumba's death, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarksjöld dies in a plane crash with an additional 15 people on 18 September, blaming the cause for the pilot's error.
As points of link in this death toll total 19, we have Katanga province, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarksjöld, who supported the deployment of troops to stop the rebels opposed to the democratically elected government.
After more than five decades, there is still no official version of both deaths although there are many theories.
But as official documents are revealed, the theses are confirmed that the murder of Lumumba had an external moral author.
Doubts linger on Dag Hammarksjöld's "accident" that former US President Harry Truman insisted on calling "Homicide." According to him in an interview with the New York Times, "Dag Hammarskjöld was about to get something when he was killed." Is the question raised if he had discovered that the CIA had ordered Patrice Lumumba's death?
Returning to Katanga, it must be remembered that it was from this province that in the 1940s the uranium with the essential purity of the Bomba Launched on Hiroshima was removed. This region is still cursed with the existence of coltan, cobalt, copper, radio, uranium and diamonds. Maybe that's why the province was divided in 2015 into 4 parts. Lubumbashi the second largest city in the DRC and the capital of Katanga is a mining hub for many corporations that export to large multinationals.
Given this regional context one can see the thesis defended by Susan Williams in that the UN and the Lumumba Government were perceived as a threat to the interests of the Katanga ore exploration lobby involving different countries: Belgium, United Kingdom, USA, Africa the South and France.
The humanist and socialist visions of the Swedish diplomat and the new Congolese government eventually made them connoisseurship in favor of Soviet communism and against the interests of the white minority that controlled the exploitation of mineral resources.
Tracing this geopolitical guideline in the midst of the cold war it was predictable to realize that Africa is a continent where accidents easily happen and will continue to happen.
Lueji Dharma, November 26, 2018
Hubert Humphrey Fellow MIT2013
A simple homage to the true leaders of Africa and the world.
Without warning my father took the family on a walk from the capital city of Kinshasa to a remote area. He was 6 years old at the time. After miles traveled long hours we entered a rural area where the car traveled unpaved rails and the grass passed the roof. And it was in the middle of this high grass that we were covered by the vision that I saw my father abandon his car and run. Without understanding the reason for so abruptly rushing inside that labyrinth of grass, I followed it with the same haste, leaving my mother behind.
Feeling the rough grass cut into my childish skin, I found my father kneeling and crying in front of three mounds of earth. Graves in front of an old house that with its windows and open doors seemed to want to vent what in the smallest division of the house would have happened. We went through all the divisions completely bare of evidence and filled with echoes from a past of 5 years. But with my height as a child I never forget the screen drawn on the ceilings and walls of the bathroom. It was a mixture of spattering splashes that time would not erase and never erase. The blood that stained the walls lost its redness and became earth-colored. But even for an innocent child it was clear that this room hid the hatred, the betrayal and greed that contained the decline of a nation, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
And later I learned that I was in Katanga in my grandfather's grave. It is in this vision of return to the past that a Congolese nationalist reviews the assassinations aimed at ending the government policies carried out by the only democratically elected Prime Minister in the Democratic Republic of Congo - Patrice Lumumba.
Patrick Lumumba and Joseph Okito
Capture of Patrice Lumumba, Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito who are later tortured and killed.
Coincidentally, 8 months after Lumumba's death, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarksjöld dies in a plane crash with an additional 15 people on 18 September, blaming the cause for the pilot's error.
As points of link in this death toll total 19, we have Katanga province, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarksjöld, who supported the deployment of troops to stop the rebels opposed to the democratically elected government.
After more than five decades, there is still no official version of both deaths although there are many theories.
Dag Hammarksjöld and President Moise Tshombe of Katanga
But as official documents are revealed, the theses are confirmed that the murder of Lumumba had an external moral author.
Doubts linger on Dag Hammarksjöld's "accident" that former US President Harry Truman insisted on calling "Homicide." According to him in an interview with the New York Times, "Dag Hammarskjöld was about to get something when he was killed." Is the question raised if he had discovered that the CIA had ordered Patrice Lumumba's death?
Returning to Katanga, it must be remembered that it was from this province that in the 1940s the uranium with the essential purity of the Bomba Launched on Hiroshima was removed. This region is still cursed with the existence of coltan, cobalt, copper, radio, uranium and diamonds. Maybe that's why the province was divided in 2015 into 4 parts. Lubumbashi the second largest city in the DRC and the capital of Katanga is a mining hub for many corporations that export to large multinationals.
Given this regional context one can see the thesis defended by Susan Williams in that the UN and the Lumumba Government were perceived as a threat to the interests of the Katanga ore exploration lobby involving different countries: Belgium, United Kingdom, USA, Africa the South and France.
The humanist and socialist visions of the Swedish diplomat and the new Congolese government eventually made them connoisseurship in favor of Soviet communism and against the interests of the white minority that controlled the exploitation of mineral resources.
Tracing this geopolitical guideline in the midst of the cold war it was predictable to realize that Africa is a continent where accidents easily happen and will continue to happen.
Lueji Dharma, November 26, 2018
Hubert Humphrey Fellow MIT2013
A simple homage to the true leaders of Africa and the world.
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