Patrice Emery Lumumba

Historical Biography *

 Lumumba was born in the village of Onalua in Kasai
province, Belgian Congo. He was a member of the small Batetela tribe, a fact
that was to become significant in his later political life. His two principal
rivals, Moise Tshombe, who led the breakaway of the Katanga province, and Joseph
Kasavubu, who later became the nation's president, both came from large,
powerful tribes from which they derived their major support, giving their
political movements a regional character. In contrast, Lumumba's movement
emphasized its all-Congolese nature.

After attending a Protestant mission school, Lumumba went
to work in Kindu-Port-Empain, where he became active in the club of the évolués
(educated Africans). He began to write essays and poems for Congolese journals.
Lumumba next moved to Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) to become a postal clerk and
went on to become an accountant in the post office in Stanleyville (now
Kisangani). There he continued to contribute to the Congolese press.

In 1955 Lumumba became regional president of a purely
Congolese trade union of government employees that was not affiliated, as were
other unions, to either of the two Belgian trade-union federations (socialist
and Roman Catholic). He also became active in the Belgian Liberal Party in the
Congo. Although conservative in many ways, the party was not linked to either of
the trade-union federations, which were hostile to it. In 1956 Lumumba was
invited with others to make a study tour of Belgium under the auspices of the
Minister of Colonies. On his return he was arrested on a charge of embezzlement
from the post office. He was convicted and condemned one year later, after
various reductions of sentence, to 12 months' imprisonment and a fine.

When Lumumba got out of prison, he grew even more active
in politics. In October 1958 he founded the Congolese National Movement (Mouvement
National Congolais; MNC), the first nationwide Congolese political party. In
December he attended the first All-African People's Conference in Accra, Ghana,
where he met nationalists from across the African continent and was made a
member of the permanent organization set up by the conference. His outlook and
terminology, inspired by pan-African goals, now took on the tenor of militant
nationalism.

In 1959 the Belgian government announced a program
intended to lead in five years to independence, starting with local elections in
December 1959. The nationalists regarded this program as a scheme to install
puppets before independence and announced a boycott of the elections. The
Belgian authorities responded with repression. On October 30 there was a clash
in Stanleyville that resulted in 30 deaths. Lumumba was imprisoned on a charge
of inciting to riot.

The MNC decided to shift tactics, entered the elections,
and won a sweeping victory in Stanleyville (90 percent of the votes). In January
1960 the Belgian government convened a Round Table Conference in Brussels of all
Congolese parties to discuss political change, but the MNC refused to
participate without Lumumba. Lumumba was thereupon released from prison and
flown to Brussels. The conference agreed on a date for independence, June 30,
with national elections in May. Although there was a multiplicity of parties,
the MNC came out far ahead in the elections, and Lumumba emerged as the leading
nationalist politician of the Congo. Maneuvers to prevent his assumption of
authority failed, and he was asked to form the first government, which he
succeeded in doing on June 23, 1960.

A few days after independence, some units of the army
rebelled, largely because of objections to their Belgian commander. In the
confusion, the mineral-rich province of Katanga proclaimed secession. Belgium
sent in troops, ostensibly to protect Belgian nationals in the disorder. But the
Belgian troops landed principally in Katanga, where they sustained the
secessionist regime of Moise Tshombe.

The Congo appealed to the United Nations to expel the
Belgians and help them restore internal order. As prime minister, Lumumba did
what little he could to redress the situation. His army was an uncertain
instrument of power, his civilian administration untrained and untried; the
United Nations forces (whose presence he had requested) were condescending and
assertive, and the political alliances underlying his regime very shaky. The
Belgian troops did not evacuate, and the Katanga secession continued.

Since the United Nations forces refused to help suppress
the Katangese revolt, Lumumba appealed to the Soviet Union for planes to assist
in transporting his troops to Katanga. He asked the independent African states
to meet in Léopoldville in August to unite their efforts behind him. His moves
alarmed many, particularly the Western powers and the supporters of President
Kasavubu, who pursued a moderate course in the coalition government and favoured
some local autonomy in the provinces.

On September 5 President Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba. The
legalities of the move were immediately contested by Lumumba. There were thus
two groups now claiming to be the legal central government. On September 14
power was seized by the Congolese army leader Colonel Joseph Mobutu (president
of Zaire as Mobutu Sese Seko), who later reached a working agreement with
Kasavubu. In October the General Assembly of the United Nations recognized the
credentials of Kasavubu's government. The independent African states split
sharply over the issue.

In November Lumumba sought to travel from Leopoldville,
where the United Nations had provided him with provisory protection, to
Stanleyville, where his supporters had control. With the active complicity of
foreign intelligence sources, Joseph Mobutu sent his soldiers after Lumumba. He
was caught after several days of pursuit and spent three months in prison, while
his adversaries were trying in vain to consolidate their power. Finally, aware
that an imprisoned Lumumba was more dangerous than a dead Prime Minister, he was
delivered on January 17, 1961, to the Katanga secessionist regime, where
he was executed the same night of his arrival, along with his comrades Mpolo
and Okito. His death caused a national scandal throughout the world, and,
retrospectively, Mobutu proclaimed him a "national hero."

The reasons that Lumumba provoked such intense emotion are
not immediately evident. His viewpoint was not exceptional. He was for a unitary
Congo and against division of the country along tribal or regional lines. Like
many other African leaders, he supported pan-Africanism and the liberation of
colonial territories. He proclaimed his regime one of "positive
neutralism," which he defined as a return to African values and rejection
of any imported ideology, including that of the Soviet Union.

Lumumba was, however, a man of strong character who
intended to pursue his policies, regardless of the enemies he made within his
country or abroad. The Congo, furthermore, was a key area in terms of the
geopolitics of Africa, and because of its wealth, its size, and its contiguity
to white-dominated southern Africa, Lumumba's opponents had reason to fear the
consequences of a radical or radicalized Congo regime. Moreover, in the context
of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's support for Lumumba appeared at the time as
a threat to many in the West.

 

[Edited from
Encyclopedia Britannica

with additional paragraph in italics from filmmaker Raoul Peck]