The Assassination of Lumumba [Paperback]

Ludo De Witte (Author), Renee Fenby (Translator), Ann Wright (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2003

In January 1961, seven months after Congo won independence from Belgium, the country's first elected head of state, Patrice Lumumba, was killed because of fears that he would nationalize Belgian corporate interests in Congo.

Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Republic of the Congo and a pioneer of African Unity, was assassinated on 17 January 1961. His crime had been to defy the Belgian Government which sought to maintain a covert imperialist hand over the country even after independence was finally won in June 1960. Ludo De Witte reveals the appalling mass of lies that have surrounded the murder. Making use of official sources and government testimony, he uncovers a network of complicity spreading from the Belgian government to the United Nations and the CIA. This book, already translated into four languages, prompted the Belgian parliament to establish an official commission of inquiry into Lumumba's assassination. In his afterword to this new edition De Witte discusses its findings.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In January 1961, seven months after Congo won independence from Belgium, the country's first elected head of state, Patrice Lumumba, was killed in the secessionist province of Katanga because of fears that he would ally himself with Russia and nationalize Belgian corporate interests in Congo. Using U.N. and Belgian foreign ministry archives, De Witte, a sociologist whose book, when published in Belgium, led to an official inquiry into the assassination, offers evidence that the Belgian government was directly involved in Lumumba's transfer to Katanga a copper-rich state under Belgian control and in his execution. De Witte points, for instance, to an October 1960 telegram, signed by the Belgian Minister of African Affairs, that called for the "‚limination d‚finitive" of Lumumba. The African leader was, De Witte shows, tortured and executed under Belgian supervision. Lumumba's body was exhumed twice and finally dismembered and dissolved in sulfuric acid by a Belgian police commissioner, who wrote an account of his involvement and later bragged on Belgian TV that he had kept two of Lumumba's teeth. According to De Witte, the U.N., under Dag Hammarskj”ld, which also wanted to keep the Congo under Western control, denied Lumumba the protection that would have saved his life. While the book lacks an analysis of who Lumumba was and what made the West fear his independence so much, and while it often reads like a dissertation, the revelations about Belgium's attempts (with U.N. complicity) to control its former colony offer a pointed dissection of how the Cold War was played out by proxy. (July)Forecast: A biopic, Lumumba, will open in New York on June 27 and in L.A. on July 20, with national release to follow. Publicity surrounding the film, plus a focusing of American attention on Africa by several recent books, may help generate sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

De Witte writes without stylish frills or narrative tricks, but his is a vivid and utterly compelling account of a nation strangled at birth by the West. (Ronan Bennett - LA Times )

Starred Review. Thoroughly researched, passionately written, deeply disturbing. (Kirkus Reviews )

De Witte's book, politically passionate as it is, is an unignorable effort to bring the West face to face with its culpability in this entire sad and sanguinary tale. (Richard Bernstein - New York Times )

One Belgian author has triumphed pover decades of official obfuscation: Belgium did collude in Patrice Lumumba's assassination ... It raises questions about western policy in Africa that will reverberate for decades to come. (Michela Wrong - Financial Times )

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 )

One should never underestimate the ruthlessness of British gentlemen cradling endangered shares. (Neal Ascherson - London Review of Books )

De Witte has performed an important service in establishing the appalling facts of Lumumba's last days and Belgium's responsibility for what happened. (New York Review of Books )

De Witte has assembled a staggering amount of detail to support his allegations of direct government participation in Lumumba's murder. (The Washington Post Book World )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Verso (January 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1859844103
• ISBN-13: 978-1859844106
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #210,564 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > History > Africa > Republic of the Congo
  • #15 in Books > History > Africa > Democratic Republic of Congo
  • #51 in Books > History > Africa > Central Africa

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Ghost of Patrice Lumumba, March 3, 2002

By 

"michaeleve" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Assassination of Lumumba (Hardcover)

You may recall Adam Hochschild's book of a couple years ago where he intimated that KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST remains a malevolent force guiding the carnage that is taking place in the present day Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Well here's one for the Congolese. Forty years after his assassination Patrice Lumumba remains a haunting presence, forever reminding Belgium of its past misdeeds in Africa. Broader still his death bears testimomy to the fact that so much of what Europe and our government talks about as human rights concerns is self-serving and empty rhetoric.

Enough with the anger though as I don't want to go overboard and see it in the stark ideological terms as the author does when he says that what happened in the Congo in 1960 is a "staggering example of what the Western ruling classes are capable of when their vital interests are threatened." That is too trite an answer for the circumstances surrounding Lumumba's assassination and way too simple an analysis of the complex situation in the Congo at the time of independence.

THE ASSASSINATION OF LUMUMBA looks at a tiny fraction of Congo's history. The book is almost entirely confined to the period from June 30th, 1960 (when the country became independent from Belgium) to January 17th, 1961, when Lumumba and two of his former ministers of government were executed in the breakaway province of Katanga. During that period the country went through crisis, with Belgium, France, the US, the USSR and the UN all wanting to have a say. There were at least three substantive leaders of the Congolese: Lumumba as prime minister, Joseph Kasavubu the president, and the usurper Joseph Mobuto (who after all was said and done emerged in 1965 as the dictator Mobuto Sese Seko). Throw into the mix a mutinying army, a secession in Katanga province and rebellions in two other provinces.

In investigating these events Belgian sociologist Ludo DeWitte focused his research on recently declassified Belgian documents. His thesis is that the conventional wisdom that Lumumba's death was "a Bantu affair" - as his countrymen called it - was all wrong. He argues that Belgium was instrumental in setting up, participating in, and covering up Lumumbas death. This book caused such a stir in Belgium that the government opened a parliamentiary enquiry to investigate the facts and the foreign minister promised that if proven true, an official apology would be offered.

Subsequent to the publishing of this book the commission released its findings. It said "certain members of the Belgian government and other Belgian figures have a moral responsibility in the circumstances which led to the death of Lumumba." Will the man's spirit be able to rest in peace with this? De Witte's specific point that an order for Lumumba's "definite elimination" came out of the offices of Count d'Aspremont-Lynden's Department of African Affairs, however still remains unproven. The Commission says plainly "in no document or witness account could it be found that the Belgian Government, or one of its members, gave the orders to physically eliminate Lumumba." If this means that there is still no resolution to this issue, we can nevertheless rest assured that in the words of Lumumba's last letter to his wife "the day will come when history will have its say."

"Assassination is the extreme form of censorship" (George Bernard Shaw)

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Putting Lies to Death, December 6, 2001

By 

K. Owino (Nairobi, Kenya.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Assassination of Lumumba (Hardcover)

This book is certainly well written to the extent that it is a historical account of the early life of independent Congo up until the assasination of the first premier. It has taken over three deacades for such a foreceful and convincing counterfactual case to emerge, but it is just proof that "No lie(s) can live forever". The author has done well on this score.

The connivance of a whole set of opportunists in the Congo and some players in the international arena would be shocking for a person otherwise unfamiliar with this period. This book is proof that Lumumba's life could have been saved but it was not politically expedient to do so. Most of all, the author has led to the questioning of the assumption that the U.N. is an enduring friend of developing countries.

The author deserves unqualified credit for painstakingly seeking the facts through which to support the central thesis that the assassination was planned even if not very neatly executed.While the author's work is certainly not the last word on this issue, it has helped to put to death the lies that were advanced in the period following the assassination. Compared to other publications on the subject, I consider this a definitive text and perhaps an indispensable book in the history section of all college and public libraries.

The author is genuinely moved to expose the great injustice that was perpetrated against Lumumba, Mpolo and Okito and by extension to the Congolese people. It is not difficult to understand how the series of events led to the increased militarisation of Congolese politics. Belgium and its monarchy owes the Congolese people an apology.

While Mr. De Witte appears to me as an admirer of Lumumba, he balances his admiration by stating the fact that Premier Lumumba had not sufficiently consolidated his polictical power and neither had he developed a coherent economic and political programme that could have frustrated the conspiracy. In essence, Africa's first generation of leaders relied heavily on charisma without the political organisation that was desperately needed. I think that this point is still valid.

While the book is a good read, (I went through it twice), I think that the author could have been carried away by his enthusiasm in the concluding portion. He set out to investigate and set the facts about the assassination but was concluding with a political sermon on the class factor and a slight leftist bent. This could have been relevant if he sought to explain Lumumba's political philosophy. In the absense of this, I asked myself, "Why is Ludo going this far?"

I would recommend this book to anyone with an open (not empty) mind. A good read and a classic. In the meantime, we hope that Lumumba's last prayer may come true soon.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Story of a Death Foretold, February 22, 2002

By 

lvkleydorff - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Assassination of Lumumba (Hardcover)

...Five stars for the incredible amount of research that went into the writing of this book.. It is a book that was necessary and long overdue. For the first time we have clear proof of all the players, what they did and when they did it. Lumumba was assassinated by Tshombe?s police, with the help of Belgian officials. They can not any longer deny it.

De Witte depicts Lumumba as a fierce nationalist but denies that he was left-leaning. That claim may have to be investigated further. Lumumba did have strong connections to Russia and surely there is a reason why the university in Moscow for foreign students is named "Lumumba University". There is no doubt, though, that he presented himself as a socialist.

The author repeatedly mentions that Lumumba's rise to the presidency of the Congo was the story of a death foretold. Western governments repeatedly sais that Lumumba had to be "eliminated". But the interpretation was left open: did they mean "physically" or "politically"? It is interesting to note that it took them almost seven months to kill him. An assassin hired by the Belgians was called back. The CIA delivered a box of poison that was never used. Why this delay, when an invented illness would have been faster and politically more acceptable?

De Wittte also claims that Lumumba had to fail with his government because he lacked a functioning army and police force to back him up. What he never examines, unfortunately, is the fact that Belgium withdrew its administrative apparatus upon independence. And they had never trained any natives to be administrators. On July 1, 1960, The Congo had only a handful native lawyers, physicians, or even people with a higher education. Under those conditions you cannot run a country (you have to know where the telephones are).

Because of this book, Belgium officially apologized to the Congo ... Mr. de Witte could hardly wish for a better acknowledgement of his work.