Patrice Lumumba And The Congo Crisis

The impact of King Leopold II’s reign sent shock waves overseas. Despite his worldwide campaign to paint himself as Congo’s savior, King Leopold

My main focus on the History of the Congo was King Leopold and his total takeover of the country without ever once stepping foot in the region himself. King Leopold of Belgium who was nicknamed “The Butcher of Congo” slaughtered around ten million Africans in the Congo region between his rule over the country from 1885-1908. Léopold was the king of Belgium for forty-four years until his death in 1909. His rule over the Congo started with the scramble for Africa during the Berlin conference in 1884-1885. European countries like France, Great Britain, and Germany started looking towards Africa because they felt like they were preordained to expand their culture abroad but the underlining reason was because to profit off of the abundance of untouched natural resources Africa possessed. They all set up a meeting to discuss how Africa would be split up. Note at these meetings no Africans that actually were inhabitants of the region were present. At the end of the Berlin conference, European countries had claimed almost ninety percent of African territory. Britain had the most stakes in

This new country fresh from being colonized had an army but very few Congolese officers just mainly army regulars. The country kept many foreign officers as the military trained local soldiers for leadership positions. Many soldiers saw no chance for advancement and it seemed to be the same conditions as they experienced before independence. An atmosphere of discontent grew rampant for foreigners still in positions of power. On July 05, 1960 the army had a revolt against these white officers near Leopoldville. They also attacked many Europeans targets in the area. Large groups of mutineers paraded over the area attacking any foreign interest they could find. There was wide spread looting and pillaging. The white population was targeted primarily. With the area in total chaos and no one to police the unrest, the local white population had to flee. The majority of the white refugees had to go to Brazzaville and Stanleyville to escape certain death. The unstable government and the clear inability to control the military and the people created concern locally and internationally.

In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible, the reader is introduced to Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo, through the voices of the fictional Price women. Unlike the Price family, Patrice Lumumba was a non-fictional character who was elected and served only 7 months as the Congo’s Prime Minister. His reign was brought short by his execution in 1961. Though his tenure may have been short and occurred more than 50 years ago, Patrice Lumumba remains to this very day, an important man in history.

In July of 1956, Lumumba was sentenced to two years imprisonment for embezzling $2,520 from the post office for the Association des Evolués. After the Association returned the money, Lumumba’s sentence was reduced to 12 months, which began his career as a prisoner, leaving and re-entering the prison system for the next five years. During his 1956-1957 imprisonment, Lumumba wrote Congo, My Congo, 200 pages to “make a contribution towards the search for a solution for the present and future problems of the Congo” (Lumumba 7). Because this book was not published until after Lumumba’s death, it did not have an impact on the independence movement, but the views Lumumba wrote about certainly did.

With an estimated death toll of ten million people, King Leopold’s conquest of the Congo is recognized as one of the bloodiest holocausts in human history. The sheer brutality of this gruesome process triggered the world’s first international human rights movement. However, unlike the holocaust of Jews committed by the Nazi regime in mid-twentieth century Germany, the Belgian extermination of the Congolese has gone largely forgotten. In King Leopold’s Ghost, Adam Hochschild seeks to revive the fervor and vehemence with which the world remembers this tragedy. Prior to reading this book, my own understanding of the genocide in the Congo was that of just

Splattered across the history of the Congo, the blood of millions of Congolese drips down upon the pages of Adam Hochschild’s book, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, sorrowfully telling their tales of misery and slavery. Adam Hochschild manages to paint an elaborate picture of the horrors of the Free State of Congo, King Leopold II personal colony, accurately detailing every minute facet of the Congo—from its exploratory birth, grizzly childhood, and uncertain present. However, Hochschild does fail to paint completely balanced picture. Yes, the story of the Congo is brutal, but the hard-earned resources extracted from there did some good across other parts of the world. The story of the Congo all starts with King Leopold II of Belgium—the king who desperately wanted to put Belgium, and himself, on the map of wealth and prestige.

Once she understood the U.S.’s true participation, guilt for her country consumed her, ashamed that she had never known what was going on at the time and ashamed for what had happened. While the rest of the world played the events like that of a chess game (Kingsolver 317), with Lumumba and the rest of the Congolese as their pawns, the Congo was helpless to do

Many Africans were put into the work force, leading up to a wage labour force in the Congo twice as large as any other African colony. On June 30th, 1960, the Congo achieved independence, becoming the Republic of Congo- Léopoldville. Patrice Lumumba was voted as president. The country was very unstable; regional tribal leaders held far more power than the central government and democracy began to break down. Lumumba asked the USSR for assistance. The United States viewed their presence as an attempt to take advantage of the situation and gain proxy state in the area. The US looked to replace Lumumba, and on September 14th, 1960, the government was overthrown and Lumumba was arrested. “Lumumba was taken to Thysville prison, then flown to Katanga Province, and finally beaten so savagely they couldn’t return the body to his widow without international embarrassment” (Kingsolver 323). However, poor relations with the groups in the Congo, the involvement of Belgium in the Congo affairs, and intervention of parties of the Cold War led to five years of political crisis and war from 1960-1965, ending with power seized by Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. “I rad the page they’d folded back: Soviet Plan Moves Forward in Congo.” It said Khrushchev wanted to take over the Belgian Congo and deprive the innocent savages of becoming a free society, as part of his plan for world domination” (Kingsolver 161). In the 1970’s, the warring tribes of Angola had agreed to a peace plan, putting

The Eisenhower administration is defined to have “developed the tactic of covert action, used by the Central Intelligence Agency to interfere with suspected communist governments abroad.” Threats of unseating and assassinating the prime minister, Patrice Lumumba arose in the United States due to the possibility of the Congo transforming into a Communist state. The United Nations’ refusal to help Lumumba unify Congo in removing Belgian troops fuelled this. Lumumba asked the Soviet Union for assistance. The Soviet Union wanted to have an advantage over the United States in having gained an alliance with an African country and helped to provide

Imperialism helped the Belgians discriminate, segregate, brutally torture, and even kill the Congolese in genocidal proportions worse than the Holocaust, for economic benefit. Imperialism is what let the Belgians easily seized all control of the Congolese’ supply of ivory, rubber, and minerals for economic power and benefit. Because the Congolese did not want to be controlled the Belgians inflicted brutal control over the people, then after that they started killing them in inhumane ways. The Congolese’ also lost most of their own culture, but when the Belgians invaded their country and took over they did bring religion and education. Overall the Belgians destroyed the Congo because of their greed, and their past is still remembered today.

Over the course of human history, many believe that the “Congo Free State”, which lasted from the 1880s to the early 1900s, was one of the worst colonial states in the age of Imperialism and was one of the worst humanitarian disasters over time. Brutal methods of collecting rubber, which led to the deaths of countless Africans along with Europeans, as well as a lack of concern from the Belgian government aside from the King, combined to create the most potent example of the evils of colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s. The Congo colonial experience, first as the Congo Free State then later as Belgian Congo, was harmful to that region of Africa both then and now because of the lack of Belgian and International

Africa was not treated as if African people were already living there but as “an expanse of empty space waiting to be filled by the cities constructed through the magic of European industry.” (101) What occurred in the Congo was also happening in neighboring countries by other world leaders but, the Congo had the most rubber. For example, Germany controlled Cameroon and Portugal ruled Angola by the same tactics as Leopold. However, the Congo was exploited the most due to American and British politics about WWI. In the end, “men who carried it out for Leopold were no more murderous than many Europeans elsewhere in Africa.”

The bad luck that seems to always plague Condo is a result of the failure of democracy and the of the Congo is due to the post-independence failure to consolidate democracy, a failure that is primarily a function of the deception of the civilians presumption of their political and military chiefs, placed the exploitation of resources over the security of their people. (Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. "Political Dimensions of the International Debt Crisis." (1989): 1-3. Web.) After failed attempts to halt the growing conflict the Democratic Republic of Congo tiredly signed the Agreement for a Cease-fire in Lusaka July 10th 1999. The main components of the treaty included: immediate ceasefire; the founding of the Joint Military Commission

This is a tale of horror and tragedy in the Congo, beginning with the brutal and exploitative regime of King Leopold II of Belgium, and culminating with the downfall of one of Africa’s most influential figures, Patrice Lumumba. The Congo is but one example of the greater phenomenon of European occupation of Africa. The legacy of this period gives rise to persistent problems in the Congo and throughout Africa. Understanding the roots and causes of this event, as focused through the lense of the Congo, is the subject of this paper.