The Assassination of Lumumba By Ludo de Witte Published by Jacana (2001) ISBN: 1-919931-15-5 FOLLOWING the assassination of the then Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo Patrice Lumumba on January 17 1961, the Belgians; former colonisers of Congo thought they had triumphed. A ‘traitor’, a ‘villain’ had fallen is the message they sold to the world. They claimed it was the case of his people turning against him. The crime that resulted in the unfortunate fate of Lumumba was being an advocate for African unity, black empowerment and calling for the nationalisation of resources. The waves of change were sweeping across Africa with more and more nationalists rising up against colonial rule. To them, silencing Lumumba would be a warning to any other African leader who would dare take the same route he had. What they did not anticipate was that this would not be a setback in the fight to liberate Africa, but an inspiration to his fellow men and women. In his last letter to his wife before his assassination, Lumumba wrote, “History will one day have its say; it will not be the history taught in the United Nations, Washington, Paris, or Brussels, however, but the history taught in the countries that have rid themselves of colonialism and its puppets.” “Africa will write its own history and both north and south of the Sahara it will be a history full of glory and dignity.” He might have been labelled a ‘traitor’, ‘villain’, but true to his words, Africa is telling the real history, Lumumba was and will always be one of Africa heroes. In the book The Assassination of Lumumba, Belgian writer, Ludo de Witte interrogates the ‘real’ story behind Lumumba’s assassination and the extent the Belgians went to try and cover up their involvement. Witte dispels the Belgian claims that Lumumba was killed by his own people. It was Lumumba’s speech during the Congo Independence Day celebrations on June 30 1960 that irked the foreign dignitaries. Lumumba had apparently stepped over the boundary. He was giving credit for independence to the Africans, something the former colonisers despised. The Belgians had told the Congolese, “Do not compromise the future with hasty reforms, and do not replace the structures that Belgium hands over to you until you are sure you can do better.” However, Lumumba was singing from a different hymn book, Witte notes. “No Congolese worthy of the name can ever forget that it is the struggle that we won, a struggle waged each and every day, a passionate idealistic struggle, and a struggle in which no effort, privation, suffering, or drop of our blood was spared,” Lumumba said. Lumumba, as Witte writes, was calling for the return of the land of Congo to its people, something the Belgians were not willing to do. According to Witte, the Belgians used the media and penetrated the army in an effort to tarnish the image of Lumumba to his people. This is a method employed even today by the West to try and silence African leaders championing black empowerment. We have seen that strategy used on President Robert Mugabe and former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi to mention, but a few. Witte rubbishes the notion by the Belgians that Lumumba was killed by a group of villagers who were angry at him. Witte argues it was the Belgians who had more to lose if Lumumba had remained alive. The Congolese adored him and supported his principles. All that was shown to them was his supposedly two teeth and a bullet which was said to have been taken from his skull. They might have denied the Congolese and indeed the rest of Africa the chance to mourn its hero and know his place of burial, but that would not erase his good and hard works from the minds of the people. “Throughout my struggle for the independence of my country, I have never doubted for a single instant that the sacred cause to which my comrades and I have dedicated our entire lives would triumph in the end,” were some of Lumumba’s last words. And true to his words and sense of determination, today because of the commitment by the people in the mould of Lumumba, the continent commemorates 52 years since the formation of the then Organisation African Unity, now the African Union.