*NewAfrican*

FEBRUARY 2000

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      CONGO

      COVER STORY

      Lumumba: The implications

      Analysis by Francois Misser.

      If the Belgian commission of inquiry concludes that the country bears
a major responsibility in the assassination of Lumumba, the decision may
have a snowball effect on Belgium, Congo itself, America and its allies
France and Britain; and finally the United Nations and the African
continent.

      According to the political scientist, Jean-Claude Willame, author of
Patrice Lumumba: La Crise Congolaise Revisitee, it is no coincidence that
the decision by the Belgian parliament to examine the country's
responsibility in the assassination, has come now.

      Willame, based at the African Institute in Brussels, thinks the
decision has domestic political undercurrents. He thinks that Louis Michel,
the current Belgian foreign minister, who strongly backed the idea to set up
the inquiry, may be out to embarrass the Social-Christian Party (SCP) which
ceased to be part of the ruling coalition last June.

This is the first time since 1961 that the SCP has been out of  government.

      In fact, the main Belgian political figures at the time of Lumumba's
assassination - namely, Harold d'Aspremont Lynden (African affairs
minister), Pierre Wigny (foreign minister) and Gaston Eyskens (prime
minister) - did all belong to the SCP. But none will be able to defend
himself before the inquiry because they are all dead.

      However, with the exception of the Green Party which did not exist at
the time of Lumumba's death, the other main parties in Belgium cannot be
said to have a clean record over Lumumba's murder. As pointed out recently
by the Belgian daily, Le Soir, the socialists who are part of the current
government coalition did not object whatsoever to the hostile government
policy against Lumumba. And Louis Michel's own Liberal Party, in fact, did
have many friends in the circle of Belgian officials who supported Lumumba's
arch-enemy, Moise Tshombe.

      In the end, the inquiry may catch the entire Belgian political
apparatus in the net, except for the communists who supported Lumumba. All
the main parties, if not actively involved in the policy that led to
Lumumba's death, were at least indifferent.

      All this, of course, will be interesting for historians, but it is
unlikely to lead to criminal charges. Not only because the main Belgian
actors suspected of complicity in the murder are all dead, but also because,
under Belgian law, criminal offences over 20 years old cannot be brought to
trial. As such, the survivors of the Lumumba murder squad could well sleep
safely in their beds, knowing that 40 years after the event they are not
likely to go to prison for the crime, or be asked to pay large
compensations.

      However, from the political and moral perspective, if the Belgian
state admits its responsibility in the murder, it might be difficult to turn
down claims for compensation by Lumumba's family or from the Congolese
nation itself.

      "If the inquiry confirms what De Witte wrote", says Dr Jean-Baptiste
Sondji, a former health minister in Kabila's government, "it will not be
enough for the Belgian government to apologise. Belgium will have to pay for
what is seen by most Congolese as its responsibility in the creation of 40
years of misery and tragedy in the Congo."

      Foreign minister Michel is planning a goodwill visit to Congo in the
first quarter of this year, and the Belgian government wants to clear the
slate in the interest of rapproachement between Brussels and Kinshasa,
before Michel's visit.

      But this goodwill gesture, obviously intended to please Kabila, may
yet become his embarrassment. Which is why Kabila's government did not jump
for joy when Belgium announced the establishment of the inquiry in early
December. Some Congolese politicians opposed to Kabila, such as George
Kimba, are already saying: "Belgium cannot apologise to the government of
Kabila which betrayed the independence of Congo by allowing neighbouring
states to recolonise the country".

      Kabila himself claims to be a Lumumbist. In fact, in the early 60s, he
was a leader of the youthwing of Lumumba's MNC party in Albertville (now
Kalemie). Kabila's supporters in Belgium, including Ludo Martens (leader of
the Workers Party), say Kabila is a "genuine Lumumbist" who, just like
Lumumba himself 40 years ago, has become the victim of a "Western plot" led
by the US. According to Martens, the same powers that killed Lumumba are now
behind the plot to destabilise Kabila.

      On the whole, the Belgian inquiry may reopen more old wounds than
close them. It may even threaten the very cohesion of Kabila's government.
The current cabinet in Kinshasa includes Lumumba's daughter Julienne and
Tshombe's daughter Isabelle. How the two cabinet ministers will take the
revelations to come out from the Belgian inquiry, is anybody's guess.

      Already Tshombe's other daughter, Marie, has said Belgium must also
investigate "its responsibility" in the kidnapping and murder in Algiers in
1969 of her father. In the book, Le Rapt de Tshombe (Tshombe's kidnapping)
published in Brussels in 1997, Tshombe's nephew, Joseph, accused Belgian and
French spies of involvement in his uncle's abduction and death.

      Lumumba's son, Francois, no friend of Kabila's like his sister
Julienne, has already called on all Congolese who have something to tell
about his father's assassination, to come forward and testify before the
Belgian inquiry. Other Lumumbists such as Patrice's cousin, Albert Onawelho
Lumumba, (chairman of the Mouvement National Congolais-Lumumba) who lives in
exile in the UK say they are all ready to give evidence before the inquiry.
Onawelho was Lumumba's secretary and claims to be the custodian of his will.

      Beyond Congo, the investigations into Lumumba's murder may well spur
Burundi (another former Belgian colony) to ask Brussels to also investigate
the death of their national hero, Prince Louis Rwagasore, who was shot dead
on 13 October 1961 in Bujumbura by one Kageorgis, a Greek national, who was
believed to be working at the time for Belgian intelligence.

      Rwanda (yet another Belgian colony) also suspect that Mwami (King)
Charles Rudahigwa Mutara III who died in exile across the border, in
Burundi, in 1959 was murdered by Belgian agents. The King died suddenly
after receiving an injection from a Belgian doctor. His people say he was
poisoned.

      In Africa itself, Lumumba's investigation may encourage the families
of other nationalists who died at the hands of the colonialists to demand
similar investigations, and eventually compensation.

      Beyond Africa, Britain and France may have something to tell about
their roles in Lumumba's demise. Historians say Gen Alexander, the Briton
seconded to Ghana as chief of defence staff, could not have played the role
he played against Lumumba without some support from his home country.
France, on the other hand, supported Kasavubu to the hilt, including
allowing him the use of the national radio in neighbouring Congo Brazzaville
to broadcast vitriolic propaganda against Lumumba at the time the UN had
seized Lumumba's radio in Leopoldville.

      As for the US, historians say its responsibility in Lumumba's
assassination runs second, if not first, to Belgium's. America's diabolical
role in the Congo is well documented in book after book, and the Belgian
inquiry is likely to put the US further in the dock.

      The United Nations is next to follow. By allowing itself to be used by
the major powers who wanted Lumumba dead, the UN cannot escape blame (and
some responsibility) for the eventual outcome.

      To the very end, the UN instructed its troops to do nothing to save
Lumumba. Madeleine Kalb in her book, Congo Cables, quotes the Swedish
general, Karl von Horn as saying that when the Ghanaian commander in Kasai
requested permission to rescue Lumumba, "we were

instructed [by the UN high command] to refuse the request, and [instead]
issue orders to the Ghanaians not to intervene."

      From Von Horn's own account (contained in his book, Soldat de la Paix
(Soldier of Peace, published in Paris in 1966), he had little sympathy for
Lumumba. "Unlike Lumumba," Von Horn wrote, "Mobutu seemed to me as an
authentic patriot who did not waste his time playing with communist
theories."

      When Lumumba was transferred from Port Francqui to Elisabethville,
there were six Swedish UN soldiers at the airport but, says Kalb, they did
nothing to prevent his death.

      Then too, is the still unexplained plane crash on the Zambian side of
the border, near Ndola, in which the UN Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold,
and his adviser Wenschoff died in September 1961. Hammarskjold had arrived
in Leopoldville on 13 September and announced three days later that he would
go to Ndola, in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) where Tshombe was living in
self-imposed exile, to arrange a ceasefire in the Congo.

      Hammarskjold duly left Leopoldville on 17 September for Ndola but did
not arrive. The next day the wreckage of his plane was found near Ndola. The
only survivor of the crash died later, being unable to give any clues as to
what actually happened.

      As Nkrumah wrote in his book, Challenge of the Congo: "There have been
several theories about [the plane crash], none of them entirely credible and
the circumstances of Hammarskjold's death remain obscure. But as in the case
of the murder of Lumumba, there are doubtless people living who can throw
light on the tragedy and one day perhaps they may be induced to tell what
they know".

      Is the Belgian inquiry the "one day" Nkrumah talked about?

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