yeah. agreed.

He looks like a tall man.

A Communist, no. But since the Soviets backed newly independent countries in their struggle to be independent from imperialism, he looked to the Soviets for help (like many anti-colonial leaders did). He was murdered by the CIA/Belgians/UN for not allowing the colonial powers to dominate his country post-independence. Millions of innocent Congolese have died thanks to the CIA, the colonial powers, and their lackey Mobutu. They destroyed that rich, beautiful country.They are unfortunately among the countless millions who were butchered on behalf of anti-communist terror. Lumumba was a great man and is held in the highest respect among real progressives worldwide. If he were allowed by anti-communist thugs to be prime minister we might be talking about an African renaissance in the DRC today instead of years of civil war and misery.

And Lumumba proves the necessity for a one-party state. If you give the opposition an inch, they will butcher you.

@Putin: While I agree with everything you said about the man, I do think it's easy to romanticize him. Just because the CIA fucked up Congo doesn't mean it would not have been fucked up in another way.

Aaaand I posted that a moment too late for it to make sense. The opposition in this case would have butchered him anyways, even if he had had the possibility and desire to create a one-party state.

Mind you, I think Lumumba would have been the best thing for Congo, I'm just saying that he would not have been a panacea.

There are few cases of 'fuck-up' worse than the Congo. So the odds of Lumumba making it just as bad I'd say are exactly zero.

I didn't say that Lumumba would have made it just as bad, but I do think there were more forces in play than just the anti-Communist powers and the glorious Lumumba. He was most definitely the best person for the Congo, and had the misfortune of being caught between powers ignorant and uninterested in the future of the Congo. Nevertheless, there were innumerable destabilizing factors that could have led the Congo in a descent that could, potentially, have brought it as low as it is today.

For instance, Lumumba may have been assassinated by someone other than the CIA a year into his premiership. The man was not operating in a bubble infringed upon solely by the United States and its allies.

yeah the baluba in particular really hated him, i dont think it had to do with foreign influence. that's not who killed him though, mind you.

so i'd say that i agree for the most part putin i just want to add that the UN had nothing to do with lumumba's death. the UN did everything it could to protect him, kasavubu, and even mobutu. their role was one of attempted neutrality, and their role was thankless.

all sides, mobutu, kasavubu, lumumba, USSR, the west, and the afro-asian bloc accused the UN of things they didnt do and demanded more than the UN was permitted to give.

however the americans and the belgians were certainly complicit in his assassination.

what do you think about hammarskjold's death? suspicious to you at all?

Complicit? I'd say they were more than complicit. Ever hear of Operation Barracuda? That was an explicit Belgian operation to wipe out Lumumba.

President Eisenhower openly declared his desire/intent to "get rid of" Lumumba, according to Eisenhower's own CIA chief in the Congo (Larry Devlin). People who worked in the Belgian government at the same (such as Ludo de Witte), who were explicitly sent there to organize secession in Katanga province, where Lumumba was murdered, - admit that the Katanga rebels were acting on Belgian orders. Money was covertly being sent by the Belgians to Lumumba's domestic rivals. They secretly sent in Belgians after they had been expelled to help Mobutu and others. This has been admitted by the very Belgians who were handed money and sent to the Congo. Belgian and American money was sent to Mobutu to pay off the army so they would support his coup.

Documents have been found which openly expose the fact that western governments, such as the UK and US, were openly discussing the need to *eliminate* Lumumba permanently, including Howard Smith of the MI5. He had of Mobutu's secret service, Victor Nendaka, admits that the Belgians placed a lot of pressure on them to transfer Lumumba to Katanga, and they knew that this would be a death sentence.

A Belgian police officer, Gerard Soete, said the following: "We hacked them in pieces and put them into the acid. As far as our acid because we had two bottles like that of acid, big bottles, but we hadn't got enough so we burned what we could in those bottles. For the rest I know that my helper made a fire and put them in and we destroyed everything."

Hammarskjold's death? I don't know. It was definitely convenient for the Americans and Belgians that he died at that time. But it may well have been an accident. Anyway he probably wouldn't have succeeded in ending the fighting anyway. If the damn fool hadn't helped the Belgians and Americans in 1960-1961, he probably wouldn't have needed to fly to Rhodesia in the first place.

how did he help the belgians in 60-61?

also, i know belgians basically killed him, when i said complicit i really meant to refer to the USA. the usa did in fact have an assassination plan but never carried it out. and they did in fact pay off mobutu and push him to do his coup. but that doesnt equal actually getting lumumba killed, it's just being complicit. as for the belgians though... there were belgian officers present at his death... so yeah.

i just wonder if these interpersonal rivalries would have happened at all and to what extent if foreign influence had been zero, hypothetically.

also, related question to anyone: why in your opinion was Nigeria able to recover relatively so quickly from its civil war than was congo from its crisis. both had valuable resources and a secession crisis.

be detailed. i am writing a paper on this myself and would love to bounce ideas around with you guys.

How did he help them? Well let's see. 1-He/the UN did not pressure the Belgian troops to leave, no deadline for their departure was given. 2 - UN troops were sent, but not to the secessionist province of Katanga. 3-The UN prevented Lumumba from retaking Katanga. 4-Hammarskjold makes a deal in which the UN enters Katanga in exchange for allowing the Belgian troops there to stay. 5- After the coup by Kasavabu, Hammarskjold had both the airports and the media shut down, so Lumumba could do nothing to mobilize troops and the population to restore him to power. 6-The UN funnels US money to Congolese troops so they would be pacified when the coup occurred. 7-When Lumumba was in house arrest, the UN dismissed negotiators that wanted a settlement in which parliament would reopen and Kasuvabu and Lumumba would be reconciled. They essentially kept him locked up and refused to entertain any proposals to reopen parliament until after his death. 8-Lumumba asked for protection right before he was abducted, brutally tortured, and executed. The UN didn't lift figure to either protect or rescue Lumumba.

On the Nigeria point, I would assume because the Nigerian government was strong enough to put the rebellion down quite ruthlessly. Whereas in the two civil wars in the Congo the rebels won, and the first case the government was overthrown and the Rwandan military never really left. Plus you add the whole debacle of the Hutu/Tutsi rivalry in the east especially in the aftermath of '94 plus the fact that eastern Zaire was so distant from the population centers and capital of the country. You also have to mention the fact that Mobutu had spent decades weakening the military because he saw it as a threat to his power. He weakened it so much he had to hire foreign mercenaries to put down rebellions. The military in Nigeria has intervened repeatedly in Nigerian politics and has been the most powerful institution in Nigeria. That makes a big difference.

man you are wholly wrong about the un.

point 1: yes he did.
point 2: he didnt send them there because there would have been bloodshed, and indeed he finagled a couple hundred swedish troops into the elisabethville airport early on.
point 3: no they didnt, the awful disarray the ANC was in did
point 4: so what? its pragmatism
point 5: this was no hammarskjold's decision, the decision was taken by the interim director of ONUC, Cordier i think his name was who came after Bunche and before Dayal.
point 6: this money was ordered a week prior in a totally unrelated incident with the intent of preventing further chaos and bloodshed, not least the lynching of lumumba at the ghana officer's mess at camp leopold.

i know less about the situation after that, so i have no comment on 7 and 8

what made the nigerian government stronger though? i mean i agree with the assessment, but what was it?
thats not meant to patronize you its a genuine question.

From the little I've read about Nigeria, it really is just the military. The state itself wasn't necessarily any stronger (though it had an easier time, geographically, to work towards centralization than in Congo), but the military was repeatedly able to take control and quickly consolidate rule under a strong man. Mind you, it doesn't necessarily look like things turned out very well with most of them, either.

One has to consider that Nigeria was brought into conditions of independence with much more institution-building than the Congo. Nigeria had been experimenting with British style democracy for decades prior to independence. Belgium was not prepared at all to leave the Congo. The government that was haphazardly put in place before they left was very weak. So, Nigeria has had a stronger institutional core than the Congo.

Also, one has to look at where population is concentrated in both countries. It is much easier to govern a country when your population is concentrated all in one area, or your population centers are easy to get to from the center of government. Look at where Kinshasa is in relation to the other major population centers in the Congo. The second two largest cities are in Katanga. The top cities in the Congo are all over the place. It is very easy for a secessionist government to set up shop in such conditions. The population in Nigeria is concentrated in the South.
http://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-569870.288.html

ok so i have:

-state of the military (presumable a colonial legacy) and
-state of education/institution building (also a colonial legacy)

i've been leaning this way myself. seems like that's the most sensible root cause.

also the geographical point is an interesting one that i've considered too....
can you think of any sources that might actually make that point? that congo's disparate geography contributed to its downfall?

because i'd like to include but I dont want to just speculate.. i'll need a source.

anyway. thanks.

Yes, Jeffrey Herbst makes this point. I've using his work for my own research on state building. The book is States and Power in Africa.

He actually has useful maps too, which help make this point very well.

Herbst's other book - African Militaries and Rebellion, is also worth looking at.

cool, thanks. i appreciate that. i'll look into him.