Who Killed Lumumba?

Lumumba's murder provoked world outrage

In 1956 Lumumba was a post office clerk; four years later he
would be prime minister. In between he had been an "evolue" – one of
Congo's tiny black middle class, a beer salesman and a prisoner, twice – once
for embezzlement, though he claimed his motivation was political, and once for
his political activities and inciting unrest.

Perhaps it was prison that radicalized him. By 1958 he had
co-founded a political party, the National Congolese Movement, the MNC.

"Lumumba was the only Congolese leader who rose above ethnic difficulties and tribal preoccupations that killed all the other parties"

Jean Van Lierde

According to Jean Van Lierde, then a young Belgian radical
who had befriended Lumumba, the MNC was distinctively pan-Africanist.

"Lumumba was the only Congolese leader who rose above
ethnic difficulties and tribal preoccupations that killed all the other
parties."

It was as leader of the MNC that Lumumba emerged as
Congo's first prime minister after elections in June 1960.

At the Independence Day celebrations of June 30th
Belgium's hostility to Lumumba deepened. Excluded from the official programme,
Lumumba was advised by Van Lierde to get up and make an impromptu speech. He
did, passionately denouncing the harsh brutalities and indignities suffered by
the Congolese under Belgian colonial rule. Diplomacy it was not.

Jean Van Leirde, friend and advisor to Patrice Lumumba

"The king was very angry. The Belgians wanted nothing to
do with him after that. People say it was this speech that brought his
end," says Van Lierde.

The road to independence was rocky. Within days the army
mutinied. Worse followed.

The mineral-rich Katanga province in the south declared
independence. Its leader, Moise Tchombe, a longtime enemy of Lumumba, was known
close to the Belgian industrial companies which mined the copper, gold and
uranium whose wealth had flowed back to Brussels for decades. Without Katanga
Congo's was an impoverished economy.

The researcher and historian, Ludo de Witte, who has
scrutinized documents held in the Brussels' archives for forty years, says the
Belgian government was secretly protecting its interests and directing Katanga's
secession from behind the scenes.

"The documents are very clear. All those officers and
functionaries were following orders from the Belgian government, and following
Belgian policy,"

Lumumba demanded that Belgian troops withdraw – they
didn't. He expelled Belgian diplomats and called on the United Nations to defend
the newly-independent state. He hinted that it might be necessary to ask the
Soviet Union to assist unilaterally. That set alarm bells ringing in the West.

A mutinational UN peacekeeping force was deployed.

Brigadier Inda Jit Rikhye, knew of the conspiracy

"It is on record in UN reports that Belgian civilian
personnel made it impossible for the UN civilian experts to work properly",
says Brigadier Indarjit Rikye, the Secretary-General's military representative
in Congo.

Lumumba was frustrated. Finally he accepted a consignment
of Soviet transport planes, military trucks and, it was suspected, guns. The
American ambassador in Leopoldville began referring to the prime minister as
"Lumumbavitch".

Sixty-seven days after he came to power, Patrice Lumumba
was sacked by state president Joseph Kasavubu. Lumumba, in turn, tried to sack
Kasavubu. It was stalemate.

Lumumba was placed under informal house arrest at the
prime minister's residence.

On October 6th, the Belgian Minister for African Affairs,
Count d'Aspremont Lynden, sent a cable to Katanga's capital, Elizabethville,
stating clearly that policy was now directed at the "definitive
elimination" of Patrice Lumumba.

"He was chained in the back of a truck. He was bleeding, his hair was dishevelled, he'd lost his glasses. But we could not intervene."

Brigadier Indarjit Rikye

In London's Whitehall, analysts at the British Foreign Office
were considering reports from the UK's ambassador in Leopoldville. One desk man,
later to become head of the internal security service MI5, opined I see only two
possible solutions to the problem. The first is the simple one of ensuring
Lumumba's removal from the scene by killing him. This should, in fact, solve the
problem."

Larry Devlin, the CIA station chief in Leopoldville
received orders from Washington to await the arrival of "Joe from
Paris".

"I recognised him as he walked towards my car, but
when he told me what they wanted done I was totally, totally taken aback",
says Devlin now. "Joe from Paris" was better known as the CIA's chief
technical officer, Dr Sidney Gottlieb. He had brought with him a special tube of
poisoned toothpaste. Devlin's job was to get the toothpaste into Lumumba's
bathroom.

"It would put the man away", recalls Devlin, who
was aghast at the plan. "I had never suggested assassination, nor did I
believe that it was advisable," he says now. The toothpaste never made it
into Lumumba's bathroom. "I threw it in the Congo River when its usefulness
had expired."

Devlin says he suspected, but didn't know for sure, that
the order to assassinate Lumumba must have come from President Eisenhower
himself. In August this year, however, Devlin's suspicion was confirmed
officially by Washington – the order had come from the President.

Lumumba now made perhaps the worst decision of his life.
He decided to escape. Smuggled out of his residence at night in a visiting
diplomat's car he began a long journey towards Stanleyville. Mobutu's troops
were in hot pursuit. Finally trapped on the banks of the impassable Sankuru
River, he was captured by soldiers loyal to Colonel Mobutu.

He appealed to local UN troops to save him. The UN refused
on direct orders from headquarters in New York. He was flown first to
Leopoldville, where he appeared beaten and humiliated before journalists and
diplomats.

Gerard Soete, Comissioner of the Katangese Police, disposed of the evidence.

"He was chained in the back of a truck. He was bleeding,
his hair was disheveled, he'd lost his glasses", says Rikhye. "But we
could not intervene."

Further humiliation followed at Mobutu's villa, where
delighted young soldiers whooped with joy as they beat the elected prime
minister in full view of television cameras. Lumumba was dispatched first to
Thysville military barracks, one hundred miles from Leopoldville.

The Belgians demanded a more decisive ending – they wanted
Lumumba delivered into the hands of his most sworn enemy, President Tschombe of
Katanga. On January 15th 1961, the Belgian Minister for African Affairs wrote to
his apparatchiks in Elizabthville instructing them to inform Tschombe that he
must accept Lumumba without delay. It was in effect a death warrant. After a
moment's hesitation Tschombe agreed.

"He said 'You destroy them, you make them disappear. How you do it doesn't interest me,"

Gerard Soete

Lumumba was beaten again on the flight to Elizabethville on
January 17th. He was seized by Katangese soldiers commanded by Belgians and
driven to Villa Brouwe. He was guarded and brutalized still further by both
Belgian and Katangese troops while President Tschombe and his cabinet decided
what to do with him.

That same night it is said Lumumba was bundled into
another convoy that headed into the bush. It drew up beside a large tree. Three
firing squads had been assembled, commanded by a Belgian. Another Belgian had
overall command of the execution site. Lumumba and two other comrades from the
government were lined up against a large tree. President Tschombe and two other
ministers were present for the executions, which took place one at a time.

The following day Katang'as interior minister called a
senior Belgian policeman to his office with orders to conceal the killings.
"He said 'You destroy them, you make them disappear. How you do it doesn't
interest me," says Gerard Soerte. Soete and a companion exhumed the bodies
from shallow graves, hacked them into pieces and dissolved them in acid from the
Belgian-run mines nearby.

"We were there for two days," says Soete.
"We did things an animal wouldn't do. That's why we were drunk. Stone
drunk." When they ran out of acid, they made a fire for the last remains.
When they had finished, there was no trace of human remains.

Nothing was said for three weeks – though rumour spread
quickly. When Lumumba's death was formally announced on Katangese radio, it was
accompanied by an elaborately implausible cover involving an escape and murder
by enraged villagers. No-one believed it.

The research by Ludo de Witte and the recent testimony
from witnesses and accessories have caused soul-searching in Brussels. The
Belgian Parliament has opened a Commission of Inquiry into the events of forty
years ago.

"It is time to address our history," says Geert
Versnick, the MP who chairs the commission which has already begun taking
evidence. "If there was wrong-doing in some of our former colonies,
especially in the case of Mr Lumumba, then we should address our history."

The Commission's report is expected early next year.

Caroline Pare's Story

During the making of this film, producer Caroline Pare had
her passport taken by soldiers and was held prisoner for three days before being
thrown out of the country. Below is her own account of what happened.

Working in Kinshasa, capital of the Congo, is not your
traditional journalistic experience. In the first place I was not being granted
a visa. Despite my pleading urgency, I never did get one from the recently
closed down Knightsbridge embassy. In the end I traveled via Kenya where I
picked one up in a morning.

I won't dwell on the drive into town which ended in a smashed windscreen, my briefcase strap tying down the bonnet and a push start. But we eventually arrived at the hotel.

Caroline Pare

Luckily I had arranged for my driver-cum-fixer, Roger, to
meet me and as soon as he arrived the whole nightmarish experience changed. He
whisked me off to his broken down car and returned to the fray. He emerged
fifteen minutes later having dropped US$50. I thought it was a bargain! I won't
dwell on the drive into town which ended in a smashed windscreen, my briefcase
strap tying down the bonnet and a push start. But we eventually arrived at the
hotel.

My first assignment was to get the precious foreign
journalist accreditation. I was told the office I needed was on the 8th floor
but I was to get out at the 10th as the lift could not stop at 8. The doors
opened to pitch black. I stumbled around feeling my way along manky walls to the
stairwell and eventually spotted light as I emerged on the 8th floor.

The place seemed deserted and reminded me of the film
Barton Fink but when I knocked on door 825 I was called in. The window was
shattered and the ministry official sat behind an empty desk in front of which,
placed on the floor, were two car seats for visitors to sit in.

My first visit was to a man called Jonas Mukamba. He and some thugs were rumoured to have beaten Patrice Lumumba nearly to death on an aeroplane back in '61 and I wondered if he wanted to talk about it.

Caroline Pare

It was to be a long process to get the accreditation – three
days in fact – but I eventually got the precious piece of paper and began work.
I was making a documentary about the killing of the first Prime Minister of the
Congo, Patrice Lumumba, in 1961. Today Congo is in the throes of civil war but I
assumed this 40 year old story would be straightforward to make. My first visit
was to a man called Jonas Mukamba. He and some thugs were rumoured to have
beaten Patrice Lumumba nearly to death on an aeroplane back in 1961 and I
wondered if he wanted to talk about it.

The driver pulled up outside and took my business card to
the gateman. At that very moment the car doors were flung opened and soldiers
pushed in beside me, AK47s and all. We were force to drive into the compound and
the large gates slammed behind us.

Passport, mobile phones and car keys were taken. Nothing was said. We waited.

Caroline Pare

Passport, mobile phones and car keys were taken. Nothing was
said. We waited. Myself, my taxi driver (poor man) and my fixer. Two or three
hours later our interrogators came. Who they were we never knew. Mine was
charming, spoke immaculate French and wore spotless civilian clothes. He asked
an odd list of questions about my family then as he left he reassuringly advised
us to be a little patient as we would have to wait a few minutes more.

He was being economical with the truth. We were kept at
Mukamba's house for the next three days. We were never told why we were there or
if or when we were going to be released.

We were kept at Mukamba's house for the next three days. We were never told why we were there or if or when we were going to be released.

Caroline Pare

I ranted and raved at the soldiers as our first day turned
into night. But when, at around midnight, there were sounds of someone being
beaten up by the soldiers in the compound and Mukamba's daughter came rushing
into the house crying I bit my tongue. I only pleaded for our guards to get us
some food as none of us had eaten, or drunk, all day. They eventually agreed but
having no vehicle themselves they decided that Pierre, the taxi driver could
drive them to the Grand Hotel and buy some for us.

I scratched the number of the British Consul on a piece of
paper and whispered to Pierre that if he could he should pass it to the hotel
staff. He turned out to be a hero and despite having two soldiers guarding him
managed to pass the note.

The days dragged by. There was nothing to do. I spent my
time talking to Camille, my Congolese fixer, about today's war, independent
Congo's short and turbulent history and the failings of the international
community.

Our story ends happily. We were released in the middle of
the night in a bizarre ceremony involving a lot of besuited men in a gloomy
foreign Ministry room.

Sitting under arrest in Jonas Mukamba's sitting room I learnt a powerful lesson about what Congolese citizens feel about what is going on.

Caroline Pare

We were handed over from Military Intelligence to the
Interior Ministry, to the Foreign Office and finally to the British consul on
the understanding that she put me on the first plane out of there the next
morning.

It was only after my release that I discovered that Jonas
Mukamba had been arrested the day before our arrival on suspicion of plotting a
coup d'etat. Plotting with the rebels supported by Uganda.

I was very sorry to leave Kinshasa. It may be a mad kind
of place but it is also the most interesting. It's the American Wild West in the
twenty first century.

Reporter: David Akerman

Producer: Caroline Pare

Series Producer: Farah Durrani

Editor: Fiona Murch