"My dear wife,

"I am writing these words not knowing whether they will reach you, when they will reach you, and whether I shall still be alive when you read them.

"All through my struggle 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 I have devoted all our lives. But what we wished for our country, its right to an honourable life, to unstained dignity, to independence without restrictions, was never desired by the Belgian imperialists and their Western allies who found direct and indirect support, both deliberate and unintentional, amongst certain high officials of the United Nations, that organisation in which we placed all our trust when we called on its assistance. They have corrupted some of our compatriots and bribed others.

"They have helped to distort the truth and bring our independence into dishonour. How could I speak otherwise? Dead or alive, free or in prison by order of the imperialists, it is not I myself who count. It is the Congo, it is our poor people for whom independence has been transformed into a cage from beyond whose confines the outside world looks on us, sometimes with kindly sympathy but at other times with joy and pleasure. But my faith will remain unshakeable. I know and I feel in my heart that sooner or later my people will rid themselves of all their enemies, both internal and external, and that they will rise as one man to say "no!" to the degradation and shame of colonialism, and regain their dignity in the clear light of the sun...

"As to my children whom I leave and whom I may never see again, I should like them to be told that it is for them, as it is for every Congolese, to accomplish the sacred task of reconstructing 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.

"Neither brutality, nor cruelty nor torture will ever bring me to ask for mercy, for I prefer to die with my head unbowed, my faith unshakeable and with profound trust in the destiny of my country, rather than live under subjection and disregarding sacred principles.

"History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that is taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or in the United Nations, but the history which will be taught in the countries freed from imperialism and its puppets. Africa will write its own history, and to the north and south of the Sahara, it will be a glorious and dignified history.

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

"Long Live the Congo; Long Live Africa!"

~~~~~~~~~~

The wife to whom this letter was addressed in mid-January 1961 was Pauline Lumumba. The writer was Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first prime minister, who was only weeks away from death. "Do not weep for me, dear wife ... [for] history will one day have its say," Lumumba had written. That "one day" is about to dawn.

The decision by the Belgian parliament to set up the official inquiry into Lumumba's assassination followed recommendations made by both the Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt and foreign minister Louis Michel. Both men had been shocked to their boots by the revelations in Ludo de Witte's new book, De Moord op Lumumba (written in Dutch, published by Van Halewyrck, Louvain, Belgium).

Though a French translation is just about to come out, and an English translation is nowhere on the horizon, the Dutch original has caused so much consternation in the Belgian media that Prime Minister Verhofstadt and his foreign minister Michel could not help but do something.

De Witte, a sociologist, takes no prisoners in his book. He says matter-of-factly that "Belgium bears the greatest responsibility in [Lumumba's] murder. Belgians had the leadership of the whole operation -- from [Lumumba's] transfer to Katanga, to his execution and the disappearance of his body."

According to De Witte, who had unprecedented access to declassified Belgian national archives, the decision to assassinate Lumumba was taken by Belgian officials a few weeks after Congo's independence on 30 June 1960. By 14 July 1960, Belgium's ambassador to NATO at the time was telling participants in a North Atlantic Council meeting that: "The situation would be better if the Congolese president, prime minister and minister of information all disappeared from the scene".

Obviously the authorities in Brussels could not forgive Lumumba's hard-hitting independence-day speech delivered in the presence of King Baudouin of Belgium, in which he accused the Belgians of having "brought slavery and oppression to the Congo" and described the people's struggle for independence in terms of "tears, fire and blood".

To be fair, Lumumba had been sorely provoked by King Baudouin's *insensitive* speech moments earlier. Every Congolese present was angry, and Lumumba only gave vent to his people's feelings.

Brussels again could not forget Lumumba's dismissal of Belgian officers from the Congolese army, and his subsequent demand for the immediate withdrawal of Belgian troops who had bombarded the port of Matadi on 11 July 1960 after some Europeans had been killed in the town.

Belgian feelings were very much shared by the US government, which, itself, was eager to prevent Lumumba from calling on Soviet troops to help him retake the secessionist provinces of Katanga and Southern Kasai, which declared unilateral independence on 11 July and 8 August 1960, respectively.

The American president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had long given the green light for the CIA to plan the elimination of Lumumba, according to Madeleine Kalb in her book, Congo Cables, published by Macmillan in 1982 and based on leaked State Department cables.

Kalb wrote that Robert Johnson, a member of the US National Security Council, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1975, revealed that during a meeting of the NSC on 18 August 1960, "President Eisenhower said something - I can no longer remember his words - that came across to me as an order for the assassination of Lumumba."

Minutes of the NSC sub-committee on covert operations of August 1960 were more categorical: "It was finally agreed that planning for the Congo would not necessarily rule out 'consideration' of any particular kind of activity which might contribute to getting rid of Lumumba."

On 26 August 1960, says Kalb, Richard Bissell, the CM special operations chief, asked his special assistant for scientific matters, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, to prepare biological materials for possible use in the assassination of "an unspecified African leader" ... Gottlieb arrived in Kinshasa on 26 September but the plan eventually failed.

Gottlieb later told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he had dumped the poison in the Congo River on 5 October, because the CIA station chief in Kinshasa had been unable to find a secure enough agent with the right access to Lumumba, and also because there were concerns about the potency of the poison which should have been put into Lumumba's food or in his toothpaste.

The American author Adam Hochschild revealed in his book King Leopold's Ghost that President Eisenhower had personally given his approval for the assassination of Lumumba.

According to Hochschild, "Richard Bissell later said: ‘The president would have vastly preferred to have him taken care of some way other than by assassination, but he regarded Lumumba as I did, and a lot of other people did, as a mad dog... and he wanted the problem "dealt with".' After being arrested and suffering a series of beatings, Lumumba was secretly shot in Elisabethville in January 1961. A CM agent ended up driving around the city with Lumumba's body in his car's trunk, trying to find a suitable place to dispose of it."

Operation ‘Barracuda':

Clearly there were two plans running concurrently to eliminate Lumumba, but either the Belgians did not know about the American plan (which is unlikely), or they preferred to do it all alone.

Lumumba's nationalism was too much for the Belgians and their Western allies who considered him a ‘commie', (or) a communist. In those Cold War years, Lumumba was seen as a threat to the Belgian, American, French and British companies that controlled Congo's national economy, including the strategic minerals: uranium and cobalt in Katanga; and the copper, diamond and rubber plantation in Southern Kasai.

The Belgian foreign minister at the time, Pierre Wigny, was absolutely unequivocal about his intentions. In a letter dated 10 September 1960, he instructed that "the authorities have the duty to make Lumumba unharmful," De Witte reveals in his new book.

Three days later, the Belgian military adviser to the then Colonel Mobutu sent the telex to the Belgian African affairs minister Harold d'Aspremont Lynden: "Plan of action is being examined in Leo [for Leopoldville] with Ileo's government approval."

The "plan" was not cancelled even after Mobutu, fronting for the CIA, staged a coup on 14 September -- the *very first* coup in independent Africa -- to "neutralise" the Congolese politicians. Somehow, the Belgians were not confident in Mobutu's ability to keep the situation under control, even though they had contributed 20 million Belgian francs to Mobutu to pay the Congolese soldiers who were on strike for the non-payment of their salaries by the out-going Belgian colonial government. The payment was meant to strengthen Mobutu's hand as chief-of-staff.

According to De Witte, Mobutu's Belgian military adviser had prepared an alternative plan called "Operation Barracuda" with another Belgian officer based in Elisabethville, the capital of Katanga, "without the participation of[Mobutu's]government."

The plan envisaged a direct Belgian hit to eliminate Lumumba, following instructions contained in a telegram sent on 6 October 1960 to the Belgian consulates in Brazzaville and Elisabethville, in which the African affairs minister, d'Aspremont Lynden, had written: "The main objective to be pursued in the interest of Congo, Katanga and Belgium is obviously Lumumba's definitive elimination."

Until the end of October, says De Witte, Belgian diplomats were still debating the need to organise a direct commando operation on Lumumba's residence, which was protected by Ghanaian UN troops and surrounded by Mobutu's soldiers under instructions to arrest him.

Lumumba was under house arrest at the time and was feeling powerless by the hour. He desperately wanted to end his isolation. To compound his misery, the UN General Assembly under American direction had rejected his delegation, and instead given the Congolese seat to Kasavubu's delegation. It was a bit much for the beleaguered prime minister.

Lumumba under the weather:

"On the night of 27 November, while a thunderstorm raged over Leopoldville, Lumumba slipped past the double ring of UN and Mobutu troops guarding his house, and drove away in a dark car with a few friends," writes De Witte. Lumumba's intention was to go to Stanleyville (now Kisangani), then held by his supporters.

American diplomats were the first to react to Lumumba's escape. They alerted Mobutu, and the hunt was on! Four days later, the suspense was over; Lumumba was re-arrested by Mobutu's soldiers on 2 December at Port Francqui (now Ilebo) on the Kasai River.

According to De Witte, the Ghanaian UN troops based at Port Francqui did not oppose Lumumba's arrest. They were following orders given to them by the Swedish general, Karl von Horn, who himself was obeying instructions from the UN high command in New York not to intervene "to hinder Lumumba's pursuers" or take him into "protective custody."

Lumumba was beaten by Mobutu's troops, who then transferred him to the Camp Hardy military barracks in Thysville (now Mbanza Ngongo), where he wrote the letter to his wife quoted above.

After his arrest, the plan then shifted from a "direct action" against Lumumba to his "transfer" into the hands of his worst enemies in Southern Kasai or Katanga, as suggested on 24 December by the Belgian consul.

But Vandeen Bloock, the Belgian diplomat in Elisabethville, objected on the grounds that Belgium could easily be accused of complicity if Lumumba was sent to Elisabethville. Bloock also feared that "an embarrassing prisoner" like Lumumba would further damage Katanga's credibility among the Afro-Asian coalition at the UN. Instead, according to De Witte, Bloock suggested that Lumumba be transferred to Bakwanga, capital of Southern Kasai, whose army was headed by the Belgian colonel, Gillet (nicknamed "Big Kangaroo"), but where the Belgian presence was less noticeable.

This idea, says De Witte, was endorsed by Larry Devlin, the CIA chief in Leopoldville, and by Mobutu's government which, though wanting to get rid of Lumumba, yet left the dirty job to be done by others.

From a Belgian perspective, Southern Kasai, led by Albert Kalonji, was a good choice since Kalonji and other Baluba politicians had a grudge to settle with Lumumba over the massacre of more than 1,000 Balubas by Lumumba's troops at Tshibombo, Banzolo and Kasengulu between 24 August and 4 September 1960.

However, there was an inconvenience. The Bakwanga airport was in the hands of Ghanaian troops who could have decided to protect Lumumba, if they had been left free to decide. To solve the problem, the Belgian African affairs minister, d'Aspremont Lynden, sent this telegram to his consul in Elisabethville: ‘Foreign minister Aspremont urges personally President Tshombe that Lumumba should be transferred as soon as possible to Katanga.'

Everybody knew that Lumumba would not survive a transfer to Katanga, says De Witte; but to Katanga he was sent!

On 31 January 1964, three years after Lumumba's death, Tshombe wrote to Lumumba's friend, President Nkrumah of Ghana, denying any involvement in the assassination: "I have the honour to inform you that I always took great care to avoid being in any way responsible for the tragic death of H.E. Patrice Lumumba," Tshombe lied to Nkrumah. And continued: "I think that the time has come to throw full light on the matter, and I can no longer continue to allow myself to be regarded by Africans and indeed the world at large, as guilty of that crime."

But Nkrumah did not believe Tshombe; because the Ghanaian president had in his possession a copy of a letter written by Tshombe on 13 January 1961, addressed to Justin Bomboko, Lumumba's foreign minister who had defected to his enemies, in which Tshombe had categorically stated: "Mr President [at the time Bomboko was president of the Commissaires Généraux in Leopoldville], following the message just received, we advise you of our agreement to transfer the communist Lumumba immediately to Elisabethville. This must be done secretly. Can you let me know of his arrival with the minimum of delay?"

Nkrumah published a photocopy of the letter in his book Challenge of the Congo (published in 1967 by Panaf, London).

Bodies doused in acid:

Lumumba's transfer into the den of his arch-enemies in Katanga was effected on 17 January 1961. He was sent there with two companions, Maurice Mpolo (a minister in Lumumba's government, elected from Katanga) and Joseph Okito (deputy president of the Senate).

With their hands tied behind their backs and beaten mercilessly, the three men were shot on the same night. In her book Congo Cables, Madeleine Kalb says Washington had known since 14 January about the plan to kill Lumumba and his companions, but did nothing to prevent it. Tshombe's secessionist government took nearly a month to announce Lumumba's death (on 13 February 1961).

De Witte reveals in his book that Belgian officers were not only involved in the preparation of the murder plan, they also took part in the final execution. When Lumumba landed at Elisabethville airport, he was immediately taken into custody by officers from Tshombe's Katanga Gendamerie. Six Swedish UN soldiers were present when Lumumba was taken away from the airport.

But hours before they were shot, Lumumba and his two companions were transferred to Belgian custody, around 10pm, says De Witte. They were driven in a jeep to a place 50km away from Elisabethville. The driver of the jeep was a Belgian police commissioner. He brought Lumumba, Mpolo and Okito, one after another, to the murder squad commanded by a Belgian captain. Then the three men were shot! Lumumba was then 36 years old.

Four days after the killings came the final disposal of the bodies. The dirty job fell to the Belgian police commissioner Gerard Soete and his younger brother. Their superiors wanted the three corpses to disappear. Soete and his brother, therefore, cut up the bodies of Lumumba, Mpolo and Okito into small bits and dissolved them in sulphuric acid to obliterate the evidence. The acid was contained in a tank owned by the mining giant Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga.

In a recent interview on Belgian TV, Gerard Soete confessed that he sawed the bodies of Lumumba and his companions, and dumped them in an acid bath. "I am still haunted by this nightmare," he said on TV.

But Soete was not finished. He had one more macabre detail to reveal: He told his shocked national audience that he had kept for many years "as a souvenir" two of Lumumba's teeth, which he eventually threw away in the North Sea, between the coasts of Belgium and England, he said.

By the time you read this, the Belgian commission of inquiry may have started its work (hopefully). Prepare to be shocked even more!

Lumumba's Biography -- by Osei Boateng:

Patrice Lumurnba was born in 1925 in Stanleyville (now Kisangani) in Congo's Orientale Province. He was from the Batelela tribe, a sub-group of the Mongo tribe. In 1957, he was employed in the Stanleyville Post Office, and later became the sales manager of the Bracongo Brewery in Leopoldville.

In his early years, Lumumba was like any other Congolese evolué: the small African elite ‘groomed' by Belgium in the hope that they would look after its interests after independence. Lumumba, however, was different in one respect -- he read widely and voraciously, and assimilated new ideas; his main interests being philosophy, economics and law.

Initially, the Belgians were reluctant to leave what was, and still is, potentially the richest country in Africa. By 1958, Congo was producing 50% of the world's uranium (almost all of it bought by America), 75% of the world's cobalt, 70% of the world's industrial diamonds, and it was the world's largest producer of rubber.

More than 80% of the uranium in the American atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 came from Congo's heavily-guarded uranite mine at Shinkolobwe. In terms of Western geo-political interests (at the height of the Cold War), Congo was/is a very important country.

Where else could they get rubber so cheap to manufacture the tyres of their military vehicles than Congo? This is where the Congolese evolué mattered. They had to keep Belgium and its allies watered and fed at all times, even after independence. But Lumumba turned the plan on its head when he returned from the 1958 All-African Peoples Conference in Accra, Ghana, called by President Nkrumah. His radicalism made him Enemy Number One of the Western allies. And they called him a "communist" ... (It was a dangerous nickname to have in those days!) ... But there was no turning back for Lumumba and his Movement National Congolaise (MNC).

Within a year of the Accra conference, Lumumba had transformed the MNC into a national movement with a mass base. It out-shone all the other political movements in the country, including Joseph Kasavubu's ABAKO and Moise Tshombe's CONAKAT. These were more or less tribally-based groups. But the MNC stood out as a national movement. Later, one of the MNC stalwarts, Joseph Ileo, broke away with his followers to form the MNC-Kalonji. But that did not dampen the spirits of Lumumba.

His personal popularity alarmed the Belgians, who then arrested him in January 1959 for "inciting a riot" in Leopoldville. Fifty people died and 200 were injured in the revolt which started over the refusal by the Belgian authorities to grant an MNC request to hold a mass-meeting. On the second day of the revolt, the colonial security forces shot dead 26 Congolese and wounded over 100.

Though there was no evidence that Lumumba had incited the crowds, he was sentenced to six months imprisonment. His trial coincided with a round-table conference in Brussels on 20 January 1960 to discuss the constitutional future of the Congo. It was attended by the four leading movements in the country -- MNC, ABAKO, CONAKAT and BALUKAT. All four, for once, presented a united front and demanded national independence and the release of Lumumba.

The writing was clearly on the wall, and Belgium had to play ball … Lumumba was immediately released and flown to Brussels to join his colleagues at the conference which demanded that 1 June 1960 be fixed as Congo's independence day. Belgium agreed with a little amendment: independence day would be 30 June. The delegations flew home to prepare for the independence elections. It would mark the end of 80 years of King Leopold's/Belgian rule in Congo.

While Belgium was losing its grip over Congo, American capital was surreptitiously creeping in. In fact big business has had a foothold in the Congo since 1908. Two of the companies that shaped the history of Congo were the Union Miniere de Haut-Katanga, founded in 1906 (mining copper, uranium, cobalt etc), and the Societe Internationale Forestiere et Miniere du Congo (Forminiere), which started mining diamonds in the Congo in 1907. By 1929, Congo had become the world's second largest diamond producer, after South Africa. Forminiere also had gold and silver mines in the Congo, in addition to vast cotton, oil-palm, cocoa and rubber plantations, cattle ranches, sawmills and a chain of shops.

Union Miniere was largely controlled by Belgian, French and British interests while Forminiere was controlled by American interests. But in 1950, the Rockefeller Group became a major shareholder of Union Miniere by buying into one of Miniere's subsidiaries, Tanganyika Concessions. This opened the door for American interests in Union Miniere. It was therefore vital that Congo remained in the Western sphere of influence.

The plan was simple: either Belgium got the "right people" to man the country after independence, or Congo's independence would be aborted! Sadly for Belgium, the "right people" did not win the independence elections, despite all attempts by Brussels and its Western allies, including the mining giants Union Miniere and Forminiere, to influence the outcome.

Over 100 parties contested the May 1960 parliamentary elections, but Lumumba's MNC won convincingly, taking 33 of the 137 seats at stake. The MNC's nearest rival, the Parti Solidaire African (PSA), led by Antoine Gizenga and Piere Mulele, won only 12 seats. Kasavubu's ABAKO also won 12 seats and the PNP (Parti National de Progres, led by Paul Bolya, the party formed by the Belgians in 1959 and on which they pinned their hopes to win the elections), won only 8 seats. Brussels was so embarrassed that it could not release the results and kept them secret for three years.

In the meantime, the minister for Congolese affairs, Ganshof van der Meerch, tried to capitalise on the non-announcement of the results to appoint, first Joseph Ileo, then Cyrille Adoula to head the government. But Congolese public pressure finally forced van der Meerch to ask Lumumba to form the government.

On 23 June 1960, The Congo's first nationally-elected government was thus formed, with Lumumba as its first prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu as the ceremonial president. King Baudouin of Belgium flew to Leopoldville to perform the official hand-over. It was here that Lumumba gave his "tears, fire and blood" speech that so angered the Belgians.

Before King Baudouin's arrival, Lumumba's cabinet had decided that the country should present a united front at the independence celebrations, and that the titular president, Joseph Kasavubu, should reply to the King's speech. (Congo's Loi Fundamentale, published by Belgium as the de facto national constitution for the country, had invested supreme power in the prime minister. The president, as in Israel, Germany and elsewhere, only played a ceremonial role, with no executive powers).

“The King, the King!”:

On independence day, 30 June, King Baudouin, then 30 years old, surprisingly - (or was it?) - chose to make one of the most undiplomatic speeches ever heard by the world! Standing before millions of ecstatic Congolese in Leopoldville, the King said:

"The independence of the Congo is the crowning of the work conceived by the genius of King Leopold II, undertaken by him with courage and continued by Belgium with perseverance. ... {NOTE: King Leopold -- and/or his agents -- had murdered an estimated 10 million Congolese between 1885 and 1908, including cutting off the hands of tens of thousands of Congolese that had refused to slave on European rubber plantations and spend each day tapping rubber for whites: so they were mutilated! Yet King Baudouin, enthroned in 1951, continued:} ... For 80 years, Belgium has sent to your land the best of its sons -- first to deliver the Congo Basin from the odious slave trade which was decimating the population, later to bring together the different tribes which, though former enemies, are now preparing to form the greatest of the independent states of Africa...

"Belgian pioneers have built railways, cities, industries, schools, medical services and modernised agriculture... lt is your task, gentlemen, to show that we were right in trusting you.

"The dangers before you are the inexperience of people to govern themselves, tribal fights which have done so much harm, and must at all costs be stopped, and the attraction which some of your regions can have for foreign powers which are ready to profit from the least sign of weakness..."

You could well imagine the long faces that greeted the King's speech! Even the moderate Kasavubu, who replied on behalf of the new Congo nation, had to drop the second half of his prepared speech (designed for) praising the young King.

Lumumba, not scheduled officially to speak that day, could not hold himself any longer. And he was not known to be a ‘waffler'… He took the podium and went straight to the point:

"Men and women of the Congo, who have fought for and won the independence we celebrate today, I salute you in the name of the Congolese government!

"I ask you all, friends who have fought relentlessly side by side to make this 30th of June 1960 an illustrious date that remains ineradicably engraved on your hearts, a date whose significance you will be proud to teach to your children, who will, in turn, pass on to their children and grandchildren the glorious story of our struggle for liberty.

"For, while the independence of the Congo has today been proclaimed in agreement with Belgium, a friendly country with whom we deal on an equal footing, no Congolese worthy of the name will ever be able to forget that independence has only been won by struggle, a struggle that went on day after day, a struggle of fire and idealism, a struggle in which we have spared neither effort, deprivation, suffering nor even our blood.

"The struggle, involving tears, fire and blood, is something of which we are proud in our deepest hearts, for it was a noble and just struggle, which was needed to bring to an end the humiliating slavery imposed on us by force.

"Such was our lot for 80 years under the colonialist regime; our wounds are still too fresh and painful for us to be able to forget them at will, for we have experienced painful labour demanded of us in return for wages that were not enough to enable us to eat properly, nor to be decently dressed or sheltered, nor to bring up our children as we longed to.

"We have experienced contempt, insults and blows, morning, noon and night, because we were ‘blacks'. We shall never forget that, that a black [man] was addressed "tu", not because he was a friend, but only because only the whites gave themselves the honour of being addressed "vous"!...

"We have seen our lands despoiled in the name of so-called legal documents which were no more than a recognition of superior force. We have known that the law was never the same for a white man as it was for a black [man]: for the former, it made allowances; for the latter, it was cruel and inhuman!

"We have seen the appalling suffering of those who had their political opinions and religious beliefs dismissed as exiles in their own country! Their lot was truly worse than death. We have seen magnificent houses in the towns for the whites, and crumbling straw huts for the blacks! A black [man] could not go to the cinema, or to a restaurant, or to a shop that was meant for ‘Europeans'! A black [man] would always travel in the lowest part of a ship, or of a train, under the feet of the whites in their luxurious cabins!

"And finally, who can ever forget the shootings in which so many of our brothers died ... or the cells where those who refused to submit any longer to the rule of a ‘justice' of oppression and exploitation were put away?

"All this, brothers, has meant the most profound suffering. But all this, we can now say, we who have been voted as your elected representatives to govern our beloved country, all this is now ended! The Republic of the Congo has been proclaimed, and our land is now in the hands of its own children! Together, brothers and sisters, we shall start on a new struggle, a noble struggle that will bring our country to peace, prosperity and greatness...

"We shall show the world what the black man can do ... when he is allowed to work in freedom, and we shall make the Congo the focal point of Africa!"

The expression on King Baudouin's face, as Lumumba fired those words, could not be described in friendly terms. No wonder Congo was allowed only about two weeks of peace after "independence" under Lumumba's government …

~~~~~~~~~~

The Assassination of Lumumba by Ludo De Witte, (translated by) Ann Wright & Renée Fenby.

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

Book 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.

~~~~~~~~~~

"The campaign of abuse and imprisonment against your leaders is but a part of the plan to harass and discourage you on the way towards destiny. But no sober-minded Negro will allow himself to be fooled by the design of the wicked. The wicked we have always had and will ever have. The wicked and unjust have opposed reforms in every age and under all circumstances. They crucified a Christ and drove His apostles from pillar to post. They made, by their wicked acts, martyrs of those who have lived and died for a principle and an idea; so let them go on. They, too, in this age shall drink the bitter dregs of sorrow and remorse, even as succeeding generations of those who crucified Christ and persecuted His disciples have become the cursed creatures of righteousness. Let our traitors sell themselves to the propaganda of the enemy who seeks to destroy the race! They, too, like the character of old, will find no use for the bits of silver."

-- Marcus Garvey.