Dr Magaugau's Corner - Lest we forget

Written by Dr Magaugau
Tuesday, 31 May 2011 15:59

“We have known harassing work, exacted in exchange for salaries which did not permit us to eat enough to drive away hunger, to clothe ourselves, or to house ourselves decently, or to raise our children as creatures dear to us.” – Patrice Lumumba

Patrice Emery Lumumba (2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961)

January 2011 marks the 50th anniversary of the brutal assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister and one of Africa’s revered martyrs, at the hands of Belgian and US imperialist agents orchestrated by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lumumba, a staunch pan-Africanist who looked to Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania for political inspiration, was murdered simply because he refused to compromise on his demands for genuine independence. While the post-colonial imperialist forces were only interested in a puppet government that would allow them to continue their exploitation of the DRC’s rich mineral resources, Lumumba insisted on national sovereignty.

A former postal clerk and a travelling beer salesman, Patrice Emery Lumumba was a Roman Catholic-educated leader whose background was nevertheless rooted in the struggles of his ordinary countrymen. On the eve of the country’s independence in 1960, election fever spawned an impressive number of political parties whose ambitious leaders were hoping for some political domination in the new administration. Most of these parties were formed along ethnic and regional lines. Only Lumumba’s party, the Mouvement National Congolais (the National Movement of the Congo), transcended these divisions. It was a nationalist party that enjoyed popular support among the Congolese populace. Founded in 1958 by Lumumba as a party whose primary aim was the total independence of the country from her Belgian colonial administrators, it was wracked with internal divisions and leadership disharmony that split it into two a year later.

The Lumumba faction, however, retained an upper hand and in 1960 won a landslide victory during the historic elections. Lumumba advocated a more centralised form of government as opposed to some of his rivals, who wanted a federalist type of administration.

His troubles seemed to have started from the first day of independence when, in a hard-hitting speech, he made his feelings clear about what sort of a future he sought for his fellow countrymen vis-a-vis the post-colonial imperialist programme of the Belgians and their American friends, who were solely interested in the exploitation of the country’s vast mineral resources.

In a ceremony attended by the Belgian king and other notable European and American dignitaries, Lumumba spelled out in graphic and precise terms the harsh reality of the Belgian colonial oppression spanning some 80 years. He referred to the colonial era as a period of “humiliating slavery that was imposed upon us by force”. During this period, ordinary Congolese people were for instance subjected to unspeakable brutality; farm workers on rubber plantations would often be mutilated as punishment for laziness.

In fact, history shows that the reigning Belgian monarch, King Leopold II, treated the Congo, a region bigger than Western Europe, as his personal fiefdom.
“We have known harassing work, exacted in exchange for salaries which did not permit us to eat enough to drive away hunger, to clothe ourselves, or to house ourselves decently, or to raise our children as creatures dear to us,” Lumumba said during his inauguration speech. “We have known ironies, insults, blows that we endured morning, noon and night, because we are negroes. We have seen our lands seized in the name of allegedly legal laws, which in fact recognised only that might is right. We will never forget the massacres where so many perished, the cells into which those who refused to submit to a regime of oppression and exploitation were thrown.”

A few months after the declaration of independence, Lumumba’s government was plunged in turmoil after the mineral-rich province of Katanga seceded from the central government and the prime minister fell out of favour with his president, Joseph Kasavubu.

Lumumba was put under house arrest and eventually faced a gruesome murder at the hands of his enemies. They used all sorts of methods to obliterate traces of his physical being. These included axes, saws, acid and fire to dismember and get rid of his body.

A report on the findings of a commission of inquiry initiated by the Belgian government in 2001 indicates that Brussels acknowledges their involvement in the horrific assassination of Lumumba.

“If we want to engage in frank dialogue with our former colonial partners, then we have to also consider some painful periods from our colonial past,” a foreign ministry spokesperson of the commission was quoted as saying at the time.

Several investigations, well-documented in books like De Moord Op Lumumba (The Murder Of Lumumba) by Flemish historian Ludo de Witte and the biopic Lumumba, have unveiled ample and incontrovertible proof that the assassination of Lumumba was the direct result of orders given by the Belgian government and Washington at the behest of the CIA.

The movie recreates the last days of Lumumba at the hands of his captors and replays the contents of the letter he wrote to his wife, Pauline, just before he met his tragic death at the age of 35. It is a classic missive that reflects the martyred leader’s political views and commitment to the ideals of a free Africa.

Lumumba’s last letter

My Dear Companion,

I write you these words without knowing if they will reach you, when they will reach you, or if I will still be living when you read them. All during the length of my fight for the independence of my country, I have never doubted for a single instant the final triumph of the sacred cause to which my companions and myself have consecrated our lives.

But what we wish for our country, its right to an honourable life, to a spotless dignity, to an independence without restrictions, Belgian colonialism and its Western allies – who have found direct and indirect support, deliberate and not deliberate among certain high officials of the United Nations, this organization in which we placed all our confidence when we called for their assistance-have not wished it.

They have corrupted certain of our fellow countrymen, they have contributed to distorting the truth and our enemies, that they will rise up like a single person to say no to a degrading and shameful colonialism and to reassume their dignity under a pure sun. We are not alone. Africa, Asia, and free and liberated people from every corner of the world will always be found at the side of the Congolese.

They will not abandon the light until the day comes when there are no more colonisers and their mercenaries in our country. To my children whom I leave and whom perhaps I will see no more, I wish that they be told that the future of the Congo is beautiful and that it expects for each Congolese, to accomplish the sacred task of reconstruction of our independence and our sovereignty; for without dignity there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and without independence there are no free men.

No brutality, mistreatment, or torture has ever forced me to ask for grace, for I prefer to die with my head high, my faith steadfast, and my confidence profound in the destiny of my country, rather than to live in submission and scorn of sacred principles. 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. Africa will write its own history, and it will be, to the north and to the south of the Sahara, a history of glory and dignity.

Do not weep for me, my dear companion. I know that my country, which suffers so much, will know how to defend its independence and its liberty.

Long live the Congo! Long live Africa!

Patrice