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Congo
eagerly ended a more than one decade break in relations with its old colonial
ruler Saturday, welcoming Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt on the first visit by
a Belgian leader since end of the the Cold War. At the same time, Congolese
Prime Minister Joseph Kabila and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni will
meet in Tanzania on Wednesday for the first time to talk about the peace
process in the Congo, which has been wracked by a regional war involving six
countries - including Uganda - since 1998. It's
a fitting moment for reflection, coming nearly forty-one years to the day after
the Congo's independence from Belgium. It's also 76 years after the birth of
Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Congo. "Lumumba,"
the new movie by Haitian-born film maker Raoul Peck, tells the story of Patrice
Lumumba, who rose to power in 1960 as a leader the Congo's independence
movement and was assassinated just over six months later in January 1961. Lumumba's
pan-Africanism and his vision of a united Congo gained him many enemies. Both
Belgium and the United States actively sought to have Lumumba overthrown or
killed. Belgium was determined to maintain control over its former colony,
while the United States sought to protect its access to the Congo's vast
resources. The two countries turned to an ambitious young Colonel named Mobutu
Sese Seko, who helped betray Lumumba and was implicated in his assassination. Mobutu
went on to rule the Congo with U.S. support for more than thirty years before
he was ousted in 1997, after stealing billions from his country people. The
legacy of Lumumba's assassination in the Congo, potentially one of the richest
countries in Africa, is especially bitter. Six foreign armies are now fighting
in the Congo and an estimated 2 million people have died from fighting, disease
and starvation since Rwanda and Burundi invaded the Congo in 1998. Patrice
Lumumba's dream for the future of the Congo is today a walking nightmare. These
words are from the last letters Patrice Lumumba wrote, a note to his wife:
"All during the length of my fight for the independence of my country, I
have never doubted for a single instant the final triumph of the sacred cause
to which my companions and myself have consecrated our lives." "We
are not alone. Africa, Asia, and free and liberated people from every corner of
the world will always be found at the side of the Congolese" "History
will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that Brussels, Paris,
Washington or the United Nations will teach, but that which they will teach in
the countries emancipated from colonialism and its puppets. Africa will write
its own history, and it will be, to the north and to the south of the Sahara, a
history of glory and dignity." When
"Lumumba" premiered last week in New York at the Human Rights Watch
International Film Festival I had a chance to speak to Raoul Peck. We sat
upstairs as the film played in the theater below us. Guest:
Related link: Story: THE ROLE OF THE U.S. AND U.S. CORPORATIONS IN THE ASSASSINATION OF
PATRICE LUMUMBA In
the New York Times' review of Raoul Peck's film "Lumumba" last week,
the role of the United States and the CIA in the assassination of the first
Prime Minister of the Congo is relegated to a single sentence. The role of
U.S., Belgian and other mining corporations in supporting the dismembering of
the Congo and aiding the rise of Joseph Mobutu escapes the New York Times'
version of history entirely. Most
history books treat the crisis in the Congo as a Cold War struggle between the
U.S. and the USSR. But there was another struggle, one among Western business
interests for access to the Congo's vast mineral wealth. It was these struggles
that help to explain U.S. support for Belgium intervention in the Congo during
the Eisenhower Administration - and U.S. support for UN intervention under
President Kennedy. Guests:
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