This article appears in the February 17, 2023 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
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Lumumba: ‘This was the noble principle of his vision’
An excerpt from “Patrice Lumumba, a True African Hero,” by T.G. Mukengechay, which appeared in EIR, June 15, 2001:
The Congolese politician Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the first government of Congo, was brutally murdered on Jan. 17, 1961, in Katanga province, along with his companions Mpolo and Okito ... The decision on the liquidation of Lumumba was coordinated among the Belgian, American, and British government authorities … It is by no means exaggerated to say that it was a symbol that was murdered. This man incorporated the dignity of all the Africans who had been debased by injustice under colonial domination, persecuted, mutilated, and murdered. It was he who, in the days of independence, had pointed to healing the wounds of the colonial system. For this, they feared him—not because he had become some kind of communist or a racist, but precisely because he was too great for any racist ideology.
He knew and often said openly, that “our independence requires sacrifice.” He had a premonition that this sacrifice would be him, himself. But that did not frighten him. The force, the debasement, the discrimination had contrasted with an always greater, unbreakable hope. This was the noble principle of his vision and his behavior, for which he stood up to the ultimate consequences, full of confidence and credibility. Yet the Europeans would never tolerate a charismatic black man in the middle of Africa, despite all the protestations about freedom and democracy. He must disappear!
From the last available letter of Patrice Lumumba to his wife Paulie.
To the children whom I leave behind and whom I probably will never see again, I would like to say, that the future of the Congo is beautiful, and that upon them, as upon each Congolese, rests the sacred mission of reclaiming our independence and sovereignty. Because without justice, there is no dignity, and without independence, no free men.
One day history will pronounce her judgment. But it will not be the history which one learned at the United Nations, in Washington, Paris, or Brussels, but that which one will learn in the countries which have been freed from colonialism and its marionettes. Africa will write her own history. And it will be, north and south of the Sahara, a history of glory and dignity.
Don’t cry, my companion. I know that my country, which suffers so much, will know how to defend its independence and its freedom.
Long live the Congo! Long live Africa!
