Patrice Lumumba -- D.R.Congo

“We must move forward, striking out tirelessly against imperialism.  From all over the world we have to learn lessons, which events afford.  Lumumba’s murder should be a lesson for all of us".                  Che Guevara, 1964

Patrice Émery Lumumba (2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961) was a Congolese independence leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo after he helped win its independence from Belgium in June 1960.  Twelve weeks later, Lumumba's government was deposed in a coup.  He was subsequently imprisoned and executed, an act  committed with the assistance of the government of Belgium, for which the Belgian government officially apologised in 2002.  

Lumumba was born in Onalua in the Katakokombe region of the Kasai province of the Belgian Congo, a member of the Tetela ethnic group. 

He attended a government post office training school, passing the one-year course with distinction and subsequently worked in Leopoldville (Kinshasa) and Stanleyville (Kisangani) as a postal clerk.  In 1955, Lumumba became regional head of the Cercles of Stanleyville and joined the Liberal Party of Belgium, where he worked on editing and distributing party literature. 

In 1958 he helped found the broad-based Mouvement National Congolais (MNC), later becoming the organisation's president.  In late October 1959, Lumumba as leader of the MNC was arrested for allegedly inciting an anti-colonial riot in Stanleyville where thirty people were killed, for which he was sentenced to six months in prison.  On the 27 January 1960 there was a declaration of Congolese independence setting June 30, 1960, as the independence date with national elections from 11–25 May 1960.  Lumumba and the MNC won this election and the right to form a government, with the announcement on 23 June 1960 of 34-year-old Lumumba as Congo's first prime minister and Joseph Kasa-Vubu as its president.

Independence Day was celebrated on June 30 in a ceremony attended by many dignitaries including King Baudouin and the foreign press.  Lumumba delivered his famous independence speech and reminded the audience that the independence of the Congo was not granted magnanimously by Belgium.  Lumumba's reference to the suffering of the Congolese under Belgian colonialism stirred the crowd while simultaneously humiliating and alienating the King and his entourage.  Lumumba was harshly criticised for what many in the West described as the inappropriate nature of his speech.

A few days after Congo gained its independence, the army rebelled and it quickly spread throughout the country, leading to a general breakdown in law and order.  The province of Katanga declared independence under regional premier Moïse Tshombe on 11 July 1960 with support from the Belgian government and mining companies.  The United Nations refused to help suppress the rebellion in Katanga, forcing Lumumba to seek Soviet aid.  Lumumba's decisive actions alarmed his colleagues and President Kasa-Vubu, who preferred a more moderate political approach.

In September, the President dismissed Lumumba from government, in retaliation, Lumumba declared Kasa-Vubu deposed and won a vote of confidence in the Senate, but failed to gain parliament's confidence.  On 14 September, a coup d’état organised by Colonel Joseph Mobutu incapacitated both Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu.  Lumumba was placed under house arrest at the prime minister's residence, and UN troops were positioned around the house to protect him.

Lumumba decided to rouse his supporters in Haut-Congo and was smuggled out, escaping to Stanleyville, where he attempted to set up his own government and army.  Pursued by troops loyal to Mobutu he was captured in Port Francqui on 1 December 1960 and flown to Leopoldville (Kinshasa) bound in ropes.  Mobutu said Lumumba would be tried for inciting the army to rebellion and other crimes.  The USSR denounced the Western powers as responsible for Lumumba's arrest and demanded his release.

“Dead, living, free, or in prison on the orders of the colonialists, it is not I who counts.  It is the Congo, it is our people for whom independence has been transformed into a cage where we are regarded from the outside… History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that Brussels, Paris, Washington, or the United Nations will teach, but that which they will teach in the countries emancipated from colonialism and its puppets... a history of glory and dignity.”           Patrice Lumumba, October 1960

On the 3rd December, Lumumba was taken to Thysville military barracks Camp Hardy, then to Katanga Province.  Lumumba was driven to an isolated spot where three firing squads had been assembled. According to David Akerman, Ludo de Witte and Kris Hollington, the firing squads were commanded by a Belgian, Captain Julien Gat; and a Belgian Police Commissioner Verscheure, had overall command of the execution site. 

de Witte found written orders from the Belgian government requesting Lumumba's execution and documents on various arrangements, such as death squads.  It was reported that President Tshombe and two other ministers were present along with four Belgian officers under the command of Katangan authorities.  

Lumumba and two other comrades from the government, Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito, were executed on or around the 17 January 1961.  According to Adam Hochschild, author of a book on the Congo rubber terror, a CIA agent disposed of Lumumba’s body in an unmarked grave.

A statement was released three weeks later on Katangese radio that Lumumba was dead, it was alleged that he escaped and was killed by enraged villagers.  After the announcement of Lumumba's death, street protests were organised in several European countries.  In Belgrade, capital of Yugoslavia, protesters sacked the Belgian embassy and confronted the police, and in London a crowd marched from Trafalgar Square to the Belgian embassy, where a letter of protest was delivered.  "Lumumba’s pan-Africanism and his vision of a united Congo gained him many enemies.  Both Belgium and the United States actively sought to have him killed, the CIA ordered his assassination but could not complete the job.  Instead, the United States and Belgium covertly funnelled cash and aid to rival politicians who seized power and arrested Lumumba."

The report of 2001 by the Belgian Commission mentions that there had been previous U.S. and Belgian plots to kill Lumumba.  Among them was a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored attempt to poison him, which may have come on orders from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.  In February 2002, the Belgian government apologised to the Congolese people, and admitted to a "moral responsibility" and "an irrefutable portion of responsibility in the events that led to the death of Lumumba".  In July 2006, documents released by the United States government revealed that the CIA had plotted to assassinate Lumumba.  The extent to which the CIA was involved in his eventual death is currently unknown.

Around March 2013, a member of the UK House of Lords, Lord Lea, has said that former MI6 officer Daphne Park told him Britain had been complicit in Lumumba's death and that she had organised MI6 invovement.  UK government sources have describe the claims of MI6 involvement as speculative.

To his supporters, Lumumba was an altruistic man of strong character who pursued his policies regardless of opposing viewpoints.  He favoured a unified Congo, like many other African leaders, he supported pan-Africanism and liberation for colonial territories.  The image of Patrice Lumumba continues to serve as an inspiration in contemporary Congolese politics.

In 1966 Patrice Lumumba's image was rehabilitated by the Mobutu regime and he was proclaimed a national hero and martyr in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Lumumba Boulevard, is named in his honour, the boulevard goes past an interchange with a giant tower, the Tour de l'Echangeur (the main landmark of Kinshasa).  Commemorating him on the tower's plaza, the first Kabila regime erected a tall statue of Lumumba with a raised hand, greeting people coming from N'djili Airport.  In Bamako, Mali, Lumumba Square is a large central plaza with a life-size statue of Lumumba.

Streets were named after him in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, in Budapest, Hungary (between 1961 and 1990);  Jakarta, Belgrade, Serbia; Sofia, Bulgaria, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia;  Bata and Malabo, Equatorial Guinea;  Tehran, Iran; Algiers, Algeria (Rue Patrice Lumumba), Santiago de Cuba, Cuba (since 1960, formerly Avenida de Bélgica);  Lódz, Warsaw, Poland; Kiev, Ukraine;  Perm, Russia; Rabat, Morocco;  Maputo, Mozambique; Leipzig, Germany;  Lusaka, Zambia ("Lumumba Street");  Tunis, Tunisia; Fort-de-France, Martinique; Montpellier, France; Accra, Ghana and Antananarivo, Madagascar and Alexandria, Egypt. 

In Belgrade, Serbia, "The Patris Lumumba Hall of Residence" at Belgrade University was built in 1961 and continues to carry Lumumba's name.  In Kampala, Uganda, "Lumumba Hall" of Residence at Makerere University continues to carry his name.  "Lumumba" is a popular choice for children's names throughout Africa.  In 1964 Malcolm X declared Patrice Lumumba "the greatest black man who ever walked the African continent”