Who killed Patrice Lumumba? The killing of the Congolese nationalist, on January 17, 1961 near Lubumbashi, is the collective action of a "criminal association", as the Belgian collective says ...

Lumumba: thirteen men for a state crime

Who are the men in the shadows behind the assassination of Lumumba?

Text by: Christophe Boisbouvier Follow

20 mins

Who killed Patrice Lumumba?

The killing of the Congolese nationalist on January 17, 1961 near Lubumbashi, was the collective action of an “criminal association”, as the Belgian collective Mémoires coloniales put it.

Responsibility for the crime is shared between four groups of actors, who are now fairly well identified.

Everyone plays their part: the Americans sponsor, the Belgians support, the Mobutu group commands and the Tshombe group performs.

In this state crime, thirteen characters stand out.

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♦ Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969)

At the end of July 1960, the Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba appealed for Soviet military aid to reduce the Katangese secession.

Eighteen months earlier, the Marxist revolutionary Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba.

For US President Dwight Eisenhower, who is in the midst of an East-West standoff with Nikita Khrushchev's USSR, Lumumba risks becoming an African Castro.

On August 18, 1960, during a meeting of the National Security Council at the White House, the American president reportedly said: "

We have to get rid of that man

" - "

We must get rid of this man

" ( testimony of the rapporteur of the meeting, during a hearing by the United States Senate, in June 1975).

There would have been fifteen seconds of astonished silence around the table.

Then we would have moved on.

At the time, no one dared discuss an order from Dwight Eisenhower, one of Adolf Hitler's two Wehrmacht victors.

President Dwight David Eisenhower, nicknamed "Ike", in June 1960. AP

♦ Allen Dulles (1893-1969)

On August 26, 1960, the director of the CIA, Allen Dulles, cable to Larry Devlin, his office manager in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa): "

The withdrawal of Lumumba must be an urgent and priority objective

Successively, three agents are sent to Leopoldville to help Devlin to assassinate Lumumba, in particular by trying to poison his toothpaste or one of the dishes that he eats.

But the Congolese leader is not easy to approach.

At the same time, the boss of the CIA is playing the military card.

He supported the putsch of the Chief of Staff of the Congolese army, Colonel Mobutu, who took power on September 14, 1960 and who received large sums of money.

Dulles then put everything on Mobutu and his political allies of the “Binza group” (Bomboko, Nendaka, etc.).

Strategy paying off… Later, in November 1961, Dulles was sacked by the new US President John Kennedy.

Is he then seized by doubt, even an ounce of remorse?

In 1962, he will have this word: "

I think we overrated the Soviet danger in the Congo

" - "

I think we overestimated the Soviet danger in the Congo

Allen W. Dulles, Director of the CIA, November 1960. AP - Byron Rollins

♦ Larry Devlin (1922-2008)

A veteran of World War II, in North Africa and in Europe, Devlin, who speaks French, was recruited by the CIA and landed in Leopoldville in July 1960. Suspicious, he circulated in town with a weapon in his pocket.

A few months earlier, during the “round table” in Brussels, he spotted young Mobutu and saw in him a delegate who was not hostile to the Americans.

In Léopoldville, the two men sympathize.

From the end of August, they have breakfast together several times a week.

It is through Devlin that the American money passes for Mobutu, who excels in blackmailing dollars: "

Larry, I cannot overthrow Lumumba without your support

On January 14, 1961, Devlin learned that Mobutu was going to deliver Lumumba to Tshombe.

As he knows that the US State Department risks telling him: "

Postpone the transfer until the Kennedy administration comes to power on January 20,

" he keeps the information secret and does not pass it on. in Washington that on January 17, just after the take-off of the plane which led Lumumba to certain death.

In June 1967, when he left the Congo, the future Marshal Mobutu gave him his photo with this dedication: “

To my excellent and old friend L. Devlin, for all that the Congo and its leader owe him

Larry Devlin, in Thomas Giefer's documentary, “A Colonial Style Death” (2008).

♦ King Baudouin (1930-1993)

In June 1955, in Stanleyville (now Kisangani), the first Baudouin-Lumumba meeting was cordial.

During a reception, the King of the Belgians is introduced to the young executive of the colonial posts, who manages to capture his attention for ten minutes.

But on June 30, 1960, in Léopoldville, Baudouin was outraged by Lumumba's anti-colonialist discourse.

A few weeks later, the king tries to bring down the Belgian government of Gaston Eyskens, which he considers too timid in the face of the Congolese nationalists.

He fails, but obtains that one of his trusted men, the falcon Harold d'Aspremont Lynden, is appointed Minister of African Affairs.

Baudouin, as heir to King Leopold II, believes that the Congo is an issue where he must play a direct role.

From July 1960, the Royal Palace maintained direct and regular links with the Katangese secessionists.

In October 1960, in a confidential letter to Moïse Tshombe, King Baudouin wrote: “

An association of eighty years like the one which united our two peoples creates emotional ties, too close for them to be dissolved by politics. of one man

[Patrice Lumumba].

"A week earlier, Belgium's military adviser to Tshombe wrote to him, via his chief of staff:"

We are completely neutralizing (and if possible physically ...) Lumumba.

Then comes the assassination of Lumumba.

Two months later, on March 13, 1961, Baudouin wrote to Tshombe: “

Be convinced that I highly appreciate the wisdom with which you have ruled Katanga under infinitely difficult and delicate circumstances.

An African veteran greets King Baudouin of Belgium (right), upon his arrival in Bukavu on December 27, 1959, in the former Belgian Congo.

AFP

♦ Gaston Eyskens (1905-1988)

In July 1960, taken aback by the mutiny of the Congolese soldiers and their exactions against the Belgians in the Congo, the Belgian Prime Minister sent the troops to Léopoldville and even considered establishing a Belgian military protectorate over the whole of the Congo (declassified note one of his political advisers).

Above all, by an airlift, Gaston Eyskens sent several thousand Belgian soldiers to Elisabethville (now Lubumbashi) to organize the secession of Katanga.

On August 15, 1960, Eyskens asked the Belgian advisers around Congolese President Joseph Kasa-Vubu to urge him to dismiss Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

It will be done on September 5th.

Two days earlier, d'Aspremont Lynden entered his government.

From that moment on, Eyskens entrusted the entire Congolese file to his Minister of African Affairs and gave him the means of his anti-Lumumba policy.

Secret funds amounting to 50 million Belgian francs (the equivalent of 3 million euros today, according to the evolution of the price index) are released for the sole use of d'Aspremont Lynden, who can then finance Congolese politicians, press campaigns and clandestine operations.

Until the fall of his government in March 1961, Eyskens supervised d'Aspremont Lynden's action within the Restricted Ministerial Committee for African Affairs, the “Congo Committee”, on which only three men sit: Eyskens, d ' Aspremont Lynden and Pierre Wigny, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

It is between these three men that everything is decided, in the greatest secrecy.

To this day, in the archives of the Belgian State, there is no trace of this Congo Committee.

Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and his Belgian counterpart Gaston Eyskens, June 30, 1960. AP - JEAN JACQUES LEVY

♦ Harold d'Aspremont Lynden (1914-1967)

Aristocrat, jurist and resistance fighter during World War II, on June 30, 1960, he was Gaston Eyskens' deputy chief of staff for two years already.

In July, during the first crisis between Brussels and Leopoldville, it was him that Eyskens sent to Elisabethville, at the head of a Belgian technical mission, to support the Katangese secessionist Moïse Tshombe.

From September 3, at the express request of King Baudouin, he returned to Brussels to take over the Ministry of African Affairs.

In a telex of October 6, he wrote to the Belgian Technical Mission in Elisabethville: “

The main objective to be pursued in the interests of the Congo, Katanga and Belgium is obviously the final elimination of Lumumba

In permanent contact with Colonel Marlière, Mobutu's Belgian military adviser, he is at the heart of the project to transfer the prisoner Lumumba to Katanga.

On January 16, 1961, he telexed to Elisabethville: “

Minaf Aspremont insisted personally on President Tshombe that Lumumba be transferred to Katanga as soon as possible

The next day, Lumumba is transferred to death.

Of the politics of Baudouin, Aspremont Lynden is sometimes the skilful designer, sometimes the cold performer.

In these years of decolonization, d'Aspremont Lynden was the Jacques Foccart of Belgium.

Undated photo of Count Harold d'Aspremont Lynden.

AFP

♦ Louis Marlière (died in 2000)

Lieutenant-colonel of the Belgian army and former chief of staff of the Public Force - the Belgian colonial army - he is the key man in the government of Brussels alongside Mobutu in Leopoldville.

From September 1960, the two men spoke to each other every day.

It is through Marlière that the Belgian secret funds go to the “Binza group” (Mobutu, Bomboko, Nendaka, etc.).

From October 1960, the Belgian officer campaigned for the transfer of Lumumba to Katanga.

He thinks that the UN is less present in Elisabethville than in Leopoldville.

Lumumba will therefore be more vulnerable with Tshombe than with Mobutu.

On January 14, 1961, when he learned that Mobutu was going to deliver Lumumba to Tshombe, Louis Marlière, like his American alter ego Larry Devlin, did nothing to dissuade him.

On the contrary, it facilitates this transfer.

To a Belgian officer of the Katangese gendarmerie, he transmits: "

Ask for the agreement of the Jew

[Moïse Tshombe]

to receive Satan

[Patrice Lumumba]".

He later wrote: “

There was a consensus

[in favor of this transfer].

No adviser, whether Belgian or American, has thought of opposing it.

Louis Marlière, in Thomas Giefer's documentary, “Une mort de style colonial” (2008).

♦ Mobutu (1930-1997)

It is Patrice Lumumba who gives him the short ladder.

In April 1960, the young journalist Mobutu was delegated from the Congolese National Movement - Lumumba's party - to the economic round table which was preparing for independence.

Among the twenty Congolese participants in the discussions in Brussels, Mobutu is the only one to have been military.

One day, Lumumba, who made him his private secretary, said to him during a cabinet meeting: "

Listen, go get yourself a uniform, come back and I will appoint you colonel

On September 14, 1960, Mobutu overthrows Lumumba.

On December 2, after having him captured on the road to Stanleyville, he throws him in prison.

Embarrassed by the TV images on the ill-treatment that Lumumba undergoes, Mobutu declares: “

In his cell, he sleeps in a good bed.
Two doctors came to see him.
Does the UN believe that Lumumba would have done this if he had taken me prisoner?

Mobutu then convinced himself that there was now a fight to the death between "

the communist Lumumba

" and himself.

But as he does not want to break his political career by sullying his hands with the blood of his enemy, he delivers him to the executioners of Katanga.

Colonel Mobutu Sese Soko answers questions from the media, September 16, 1960 © AFP / UPI

♦ Joseph Kasa-Vubu (1917-1969)

The first nationalist leader to be thrown into prison by the Belgians in January 1959, the former seminarian Kasa-Vubu fought, a year later, for the release of Lumumba and obtained it.

In June 1960, after the victory of the Congolese National Movement (MNC) of Lumumba in the legislative elections in May, a coexistence took place.

Kasa-Vubu, the dean, is elected president by a college of electors, while Lumumba becomes prime minister.

In July, the two men still agree to fight against Katangese secession.

But in August, when the Russians and Americans enter into the big Congolese game, they fall out.

On September 5, pushed by the Belgians, Kasa-Vubu dismisses Lumumba.

The problem is, he lacks determination in the face of a combative Lumumba who gets another vote of confidence in Parliament.

On September 14, with the agreement of the Americans, Colonel Mobutu overturns the table.

From then on, Kasa-Vubu served as a foil to the new strongman of the Congo.

Kasa-Vubu keeps Congo's seat at the UN, while Mobutu, under the cover of this international legitimacy, can put Lumumba under house arrest.

Joseph Kasa-Vubu is not in the inner circle of Mobutists, but he is a sure ally.

On January 13, 1961, when Lumumba's jailers mutinied in Thysville (now Mbanza-Ngungu) and threatened to release their prisoner, Mobutu and Nendaka requisitioned him and took him with them to calm the troops.

After his return to Léopoldville, on the morning of January 14, is there a meeting that seals Lumumba's fate?

And if so, is Kasa-Vubu participating?

Sixty later, historians continue to debate it.

What is certain is that Kasa-Vubu does nothing against the transfer of Lumumba to Katanga.

Joseph Kasa-Vubu (c), President of DR Congo, Justin Bomboko, November 7, 1960. Justin Bomboko will be Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of Patrice Lumumba.

AFP

♦ Justin Bomboko (1928-2014)

Commissioner for Foreign Affairs in the team that Mobutu installed in power on September 14, 1960, Bomboko, the shrewd maneuver, manages to weaken Lumumba's position on the international scene.

On November 22, 1960, the UN General Assembly recognized the Congolese delegation composed by Kasa-Vubu and Mobutu, to the detriment of the Lumumba delegation.

And five days later, Lumumba has to play his tricks by escaping from the villa where he is under house arrest.

With Mobutu, Nendaka and a few others, Bomboko was then part of the “Binza group”, this anti-lumumbist circle which met in the evening at one or the other's house in the Binza-Pigeon district of Léopoldville.

In the aftermath of the January 13 mutiny in the Thysville camp, it is undoubtedly within this “Binza group” that the decision to send Lumumba to Katanga was taken.

Bomboko will he have remorse afterwards?

Fifty years later, in July 2010, he confided in the newspaper

Le Phare.

He returns to the execution by Mobutu of another opponent, Pierre Mulele.

We are in October 1968 and he says: “

After noticing this kidnapping of Mulele, irritated I went to point out to President Mobutu that the Lumumba file was still burning and that it was not prudent to encumber itself more with that of Mulele.
Unfortunately for me, this was one of the causes of the crack in my relations with President Mobutu, a crack that will cost me the sad and famous Ekafela prison.

Fifty years after Lumumba's torture, Bomboko relieves his conscience.

To our knowledge, he is the only member of the "Binza group" who, once in his life, has half-heartedly expressed a sense of regret over the state crime of January 17, 1961.

The Congolese Justin Marie Bomboko in 1960. Wikimedia

♦ Victor Nendaka (1923-2002)

National Security Commissioner after the putsch of September 14, 1960, Nendaka is tough.

In Léopoldville, he watches everyone and plots police machinations.

He was so feared that he would later be called “the Oufkir of the Congo” - named after the Moroccan security chief who had Mehdi Ben Barka assassinated.

In the “Binza group”, he was then Mobutu's closest companion.

On January 13, he goes to Thysville with Mobutu to convince the jailers of Lumumba to stop their mutiny and especially not to release their prisoner.

On the morning of the 14th, he returned to Léopoldville, still in the company of Mobutu.

The same day is decided the transfer of Lumumba towards death.

Hard to believe that he does not bear part of the responsibility.

Forty years later, in July 2001 in Brussels, before the Belgian parliamentary commission responsible for establishing responsibility for this crime, he is gentle as a lamb and declares: "

They have too often tried to pass me off as the scapegoat. in this Lumumba folder.
I was a civil servant, I carried out orders.
I still depended on my superiors

"But he finally let go:"

It had become dangerous to leave Lumumba at the Thysville camp.

»Mobutu, Kasa-Vubu, Bomboko, Nendaka… All were afraid of Lumumba.

♦ Moses Tshombe (1919-1969)

These two never got along… From the Brussels “round table” in February 1960, Tshombe and Lumumba argue out loud in the halls of the conference.

The first, who heads the Confederation of Tribal Associations of Katanga (CONAKAT), wants a future federal Congolese state, where Katanga can keep the benefits of its rich subsoil.

The second wants a future unitary state.

On July 11, when Tshombe seceded, Lumumba accused him of being a straw man in the service of the Belgian capitalists of the Union minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK).

Between them, it is immediately the war of words, then the war itself.

In fact, without Belgian military support, Tshombe knows he will not be able to hold out for long.

Also, in mid-January 1961, when the Belgians sent him several messages asking him insistently to receive the prisoner Lumumba, he felt obliged to accept.

The next evening, when the former Prime Minister arrived, he seemed to hesitate for a few minutes on what to do with him.

Then he agrees with the opinion of his "Minister of the Interior", Godefroid Munongo.

It will be death.

♦ Godefroid Munongo (1925-1992)

In Elisabethville, he is nicknamed “the sweeper”… More than Tshombe, it is Munongo who is the strong man of secessionist Katanga.

In October 1958, at the birth of CONAKAT, he only ceded the number 1 position to the businessman Tshombe because he was a civil servant of the Belgian State.

On August 13, 1960, a month after the Katanga secession, when Lumumba wanted to go personally by plane to the rebel province, Munongo, Katanga's “Minister of the Interior”, wrote to all the gendarmeries in the towns where he could land: “

If he manages to enter Katanga in one way or another, he must, in that case, disappear

At the same time, he declares: "

It is my skin or that of Lumumba.
He promised to burn me in a public place in Elisabethville if he came here, but I won't miss him.

On the evening of January 17, 1961, he did not miss it.

Nine years after the events, the Belgian mercenary René Rougefort, who took part that evening in guarding Lumumba in a villa near the Elisabethville airport, reports this final exchange, half in Swahili, half in French , before Lumumba left for the firing squad… Munongo: “

Anakufa

(He must die)”.

Tshombe: “

No, no, no

”.

Munongo: “

If you didn't have Lumumba on your feet, you wouldn't have Sendwe

[Jason Sendwe, leader of the Baluba rebellion in Katanga]

on your feet.
If you don't want to do it, I will.

"Tshombe:"

And the UN?
And the Belgian government?

"Munongo:"

Don't care.

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