Who are the No. 1 War Criminals?

[p. 12]

Lumumba

The Belgian Congo became independent on June 30, 1960. Patrice Lumumba (30) was elected the first Prime Minister. He appointed Thomas Kanza, a young man with a Harvard degree, as first Congolese ambassador to the United Nations. Western media were publishing negative reports about the Congolese leader. An exception was Africa specialist Colin Legum, who wrote a foreword to Lumumba's book, Congo, My Country¹¹. The Prime Minister was hacked to death before his book appeared in New-York. Legum: ‘It is often wrongly supposed that Lumumba was a half-baked, unsophisticated politician who had only the haziest notion about government and world affairs. This is wide of the mark. His detailed plans for social and political reforms are as valid today as when he first thought them out. Here is a blueprint for those who have survived him to build the structure of a new Congo.’

Belgian writer Ludo de Witte published 38 years after Lumumba was assassinated a Kahin type of documented study about the criminal and brutal behaviour of his enemies, that led to his death and that were totally unworthy of the man.¹² Lumumba's death was perhaps sealed on the day his country gained independence. King Baudouin of Belgium in his speech glorified the founder of the former colony, King Leopold II to such an extend, that Lumumba felt obliged to take the floor and put the record straight without observing the Protocol in honour of His Majesty. The King became very pale. De Witte described how the Congolese leader criticised the colonial system, as humiliating slavery enforced by Belgian arms, while the King had just praised Belgian colonialism to the skies as the masterwork of his Grand Uncle. Lumumba told the truth and the King wanted to return to Brussels at once. He was held back from this decision by the Belgian Prime Minister, but the festivities were spoiled. The Prime Minister of Congo simply aired his deep felt grievances regarding centuries of colonialism, as felt by most Congolese. But he humiliated the Belgians by speaking the truth, just as Fidel Castro would never be forgiven by Washington having liberated Cuba in 1959 from Yankee domination. Lumumba never realized that his outspokenness that fateful day caused the Belgians to brood on revenge. As jfk and Chicago gangsters aimed at bumping off Fidel, circles close to the Belgian King planned to do the same to Patrice Lumumba.

In the mean time pupils of Wild Bill Donovan in Washington played their own dirty games during the transition from Congo colony to independent state. cia boss Allen Dulles had already cabled August 26, 1960 his boy in Leopoldville, Lawrence Devlin, that as long as Lumumba would be in power ‘the best outcome would be chaos or the worst the preparation of a communist take-over.’ Re-

11 Patrice Lumumba, Congo, My Country, Frederick Praeger, New York, 1962.

12 Ludo de Witte, The Murder of Lumumba, Verso, New-York, 2001.

[p. 13]

searcher De Witte, who managed to inspect archives in Washington and at the United-Nations headquarters, discovered, that the cia had been busy searching for efficient methods to kill Lumumba. He found written proof of Dulles adding in his cable to Devlin: ‘We have decided that his elimination has got to be our most important goal and taking present conditions into account this must receive every priority in our secret action.’ De Witte's research was published in Brussels in 1999. His book The Murder of Lumumba led to a parliamentary investigation.

Actually, once more, it was proven who the real war criminals were. Aside from the cia being intensely involved to cutthroat the Prime Minister of Congo, de Witte discovered how King Baudouin and his closest associates, like Foreign Minister Pierre Wigny, count Harold d'Aspremont Lynden of African Affairs, and the grand master of the Court, count Gobert d'Aspremont Lynden had been secretly conspiring to bump off Lumumba. By today's standards both American and Belgian plotters of the murder of a foreign leader should be awaiting trial in the prison of The Hague Tribunal playing chess with Milosevic and other Balkan prisoners.

Already on September 14, 1960, a mere ten weeks after independence, military leader Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, a ‘friend’ of Lumumba, who owed his position to him as well, committed high treason, carried out a coup and kept the legally empowered Prime Minister captive in a villa. His fate had been sealed in Washington and Brussels. Only the scenario as to get rid of the man altogether had not, as yet, been determined. On December 2, 1960, Lumumba came a step closer to his demise, when he was placed under direct command of the military. In practical terms this meant, that the protection given to him in the villa by un blue helmets was taken away. The Prime Minister of the Congo was now in personal danger with the acquiescence of the Secretary-General of the un, Dag Hammerskjöld. He had become an outlaw. January 16, 1961, Minister Harold d'Aspremont Lynden issued an order to hand Lumumba over to his arch-enemy, Moise Tshombe in the province of Katanga. This certified crook was playing balI with the multinational Union Minière, in order to guarantee foreign interests, so that they could continue their colonial exploitation in the now independent Congo without interruption or interference from the Congolese government, provided Tshombe was royally rewarded for his services. Lumumba, a genuine nationalist, would have been an unworkable obstacle to the continued foreign exploitation of Congo's rich natural resources. Therefore, Washington and Brussels simply ordained ‘kill him’.

Ludo de Witte, who's report has appeared on the us market as well, wrote that Belgian Minister Lynden was fully aware, that the Katangese were anxious to slit Lumumba's throat. Albert Kalonji, for instance, announced beforehand, that he intended to use his skull as a vase.

[p. 14]

Other local potentates said, that they considered it a privelege that the man could be liquidated on Katanga soil. How to get Lumumba there without too much obstreperousness, was the problem. The cia Manual contained the ideal solution: if someone of importance needed to disappear from the face of the earth arrange ‘a camouflage operation’, meaning, how to kill without all hell breaking loose. January 17, 1961, a Dakota, piloted by the Australian Bob Watson, made a reconnaissance flight to Elisabethville in Katanga to see if it was safe to land there. If there were too many blue helmets of the un in sight, another landingstrip would be used. Soon a dc-4 of Air Congo, a subsidiary company of the Belgian Sabena, arrived piloted by Belgian Piet van der Meersch. He bluntly told the traffic tower, he had come to deliver ‘three packages’. They were, Patrice Lumumba (36), the vice-president of the Congolese Senate, Joseph Okito (50), and the former chief-of-staff of the Army, presently Minister for Sports, Maurice Mpolo (32).

De Witte managed to reconstruct from documentary evidence, how Lumumba had been lured with a trick from Camp Hardy by informing him that there had been another coup in Leopoldville, and that he needed to return as fast as possible to the capital. All three members of the Belgian crew of the plane, that flew the Prime Minister to his enemies in Katanga, testified that Lumumba was most severely mistreated during the flight. After his arrival in Katanga he was further outrageously abused and beaten with Belgian officers impassively watching this disgusting scene. Nowadays when Belgian courts are apparently chasing war criminals, like the current Prime Minister of Israël Ariel Sharon, one wonders why Belgian judges don't clean up their own mess first. This is an advice that some governments that shout loudest about others not observing basic human rights should take to heart. In this respect does Washington top the rogue list of murdering and killing at random ever since Wild Bill Donovan learned from the British how to do this effectively and convinced his masters at the White House and in Congress, to copy them.

The first Prime Minister of Congo was butchered to death on January 17, 1961 with former Belgian superiors of the murderers overseeing the bloody affair. For weeks Brussels maintained, that Lumumba had simply been gunned down by villagers while trying escape. At un headquarters in New-York Hammerskjöld looked the other way while the blue helmets, who should have protected the Prime Minister of the country stood idly by when the man they had been ordered to protect was shipped as ‘a package’ to the Katanga slaughterhouse. My friend, ambassador Thomas Kanza at the un was extremely worried about the safety of his family. His father was Mayor of Leopoldville and considered Lumumba still the legal leader of the nation. I flew down to the Congo where the Mayor and his family gave a dinner in my honour at their official residence.

The politician Cléophas Kamitatu was also present at

[p. 15]

the table. He recalled, ‘Patrice once told us, he expected to be killed by the Belgians, or by Congolese bribed by them. Lumumba formed Mobutu and made him the officer he became. Now he, too, has been bribed by us ambassador Clare Hayes Timberlake. He ran out of funds to pay the soldiers. I do not feel I am exaggerating when I state here and now that our present misery and tragedy is the sole outcome of Washington mixing in our affairs.’ According to my hosts February 23, 1961 in Leopoldville, it had been Timberlake who convinced Mobutu to desert Lumumba, disband parliament and take matters into his own hands. Kamitatu added, that western media had succeeded in portraying Lumumba and his supporters as crypto-communists. ‘I receive all the time urgent letters from my friends in the us begging me to please not become a communist,’ he said, ‘and that truly amuses me.’ Everyone at the Kanza villa that evening agreed, that the real perpetrators of violating Congo's freedom and sovereignty were the Americans, with the Belgians only trailing them as allies of whatever Washington or the cia were deciding in the name of Western interests in Africa.

No-one in Congo, or in the world for that matter, knew on February 23, 1961 what had actually happened to their friend and leader. It was Ludo de Witte, who in 1999 published the first fully documented authoritative report on the killing of Lumumba. The escort of four automobiles and two jeeps consisted of President Moise Tshombe of Katanga and the ministers Gabriel Kitenge, Godefroid Munongo, Jean-Baptiste Kibwe and police commissioner Pius Sapwe. Belgian captain M.P. Julien Gat, the Belgian advisor to Katanga, Frans Verscheure, Lieutenant Gabriel Michels, brigadier Francois Son and others were identified as having been part of the cortege that accompanied the Prime Minister to the secret place of execution. When leaving the cars, the prisoners wore only pants and an undershirt and were barefoot. Verscheure walked behind Lumumba, who asked him: ‘They are going to kill us, isn't it?’ Verscheure confirmed it. It was this Belgian advisor, who later announced to the three prisoners, that they were to be shot. He offered them some time, to prepare for death and pray. But Lumumba declined the offer. The excutioners were armed with Vigneron sten-guns. De Witte described in detail every moment of the execution.

What is perhaps the most shocking of de Witte's reconstruction of the liquidation by Washington and Brussels of a man who literally never killed a fly, but who demonstrated genuine patriotism and love for his country, to start anew and build an independent African nation from the smoking ruins of Belgian colonialism and imperialism, that prior to de Witte no-one ever bothered to seriously discover what exactly had happened to this African hero. Let alone to begin a search for American and Belgian conspirators responsibie for his untimely death. Lumumba's rights were ignored and criminally neglected,

[p. 16]

both as citizen and family man, or as legal Prime Minister of the nation. It took till June 27, 2001 for Raoul Peck to bring out the movie Lumumba during the Film Forum of New York City.

18 September 1961 I noted in my diary writing at un headquarters in New-York: ‘Something has happened to Dag Hammerskjöld. He disappeared somewhere in Northern Rhodesia in a dc-6b. Later the news said that while on a peace mission in Congo his plane came down 12 kilometers from Ndola Airport. There had been 14 people aboard. Only one security agent, Harold Julian of the un is alive. Hammerskjöld was about to meet Moise Thsombe. By 1 p.m. Ralph Bunche and Andrew Cordier were giving a press conference. Exact information was not yet available. Press Officer of the ussr Mission at the un, Mike Polonik said to me, ‘We perhaps sharply criticise the Secretary General, you, in the West simply kill him’.¹³

The disappearance of the Secretary-General of the un in 1961, so soon after the death of Lumumba, has since been shrouded in mystery as well. There were occasional reports, that the Swedish diplomat had indeed been murdered. In the wreckage of the plane investigators found one corpse more, than given on the passenger list. Who knows what certain intelligence services had in mind getting rid of him too. Who will eventually write the true story of what happened to him and why?

13 Willem Oltmans, Memoires 1961, In den Toren, Baarn, 1989, p.p. 270.