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USA/Africa: New Evidence on Lumumba Death
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Aug 2, 2010 (100802)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
"A 1975 U.S. Senate investigation of alleged CIA assassinations
concluded that while the CIA had earlier plotted to murder Lumumba,
he was eventually killed 'by Congolese rivals. It does not appear
from the evidence that the United States was in any way involved in
the killing.' It is now clear that that conclusion was wrong." -
Stephen R. Weissman, author of new article "An Extraordinary
Rendition"
This AfricaFocus Bulletin includes, with permission, the abstract
and a short excerpt from the article, as well as an article by
Weissman published on AllAfrica.com on August 1, and a related
op-ed by William Minter, published in the Providence Journal on
August 1.
Weissman's full article, which appeared in Intelligence and
National Security Vol. 25, No. 2, 198-222, April 2010, is available
from the publisher at http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=jour~content=g923825305,
for readers at subscribing institutions or for a one-time fee of
$30.
The Bulletin also includes, for reference, a short excerpt from
Chapter 5 of William Minter's book King Solomon's Mines Revisited,
published in 1986, with a background analysis of "Ruling Out
Lumumba" in the context of U.S. Africa policy in the 1960s. The
full chapter is available on-line at
http://www.noeasyvictories.org/books/ksmr05.php
Two other AfricaFocus Bulletins released today on the web, but not
sent out by e-mail, contain updates on recent developments related
to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One, on the new law on
conflict minerals approved by the U.S. Congress, is at
http://www.africafocus.org/docs10/cgk1007a.php The other, examining
the need for greater accountability in the relationship of UN
peacekeeping forces to military operations in the DRC, is at
http://www.africafocus.org/docs10/cgk1007b.php
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins related to Congo (Kinshasa),
visit http://www.africafocus.org/country/congokin.php
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on U.S. policy, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/usa-africa.php
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note++++++++++++++++++++
New Evidence Shows U.S. Role in Congo Government Decision to Send
Patrice Lumumba to his Death
By Stephen R. Weissman
AllAfrica.com August 1, 2010
http://allafrica.com/stories/201008010004.html
[Stephen R. Weissman is author of "An Extraordinary Rendition," in
Intelligence and National Security, v.25, no.2 (April 2010) and
American Foreign Policy in the Congo 1960-1964. He is a former
Staff Director of the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee
on Africa.]
Fifty years ago, the former Belgian Congo received its independence
under the democratically elected government of former prime
minister Patrice Lumumba. Less than seven months later, Lumumba and
two colleagues were, in the contemporary idiom, "rendered" to their
Belgian-backed secessionist enemies, who tortured them before
putting them before a firing squad. The Congo would not hold
another democratic election for 46 years. In 2002, following an
extensive parliamentary inquiry, the Belgian government assumed a
portion of responsibility for Lumumba's murder.
But controversy has continued to swirl over allegations of U.S.
government responsibility, as the reception for Raoul Peck's
acclaimed film, Lumumba, demonstrated. After all, the U.S. had at
least as much, if not more, influence in the Congolese capital as
Belgium. It was the major financier and political supporter of the
U.N. peacekeeping force that controlled most of the country.
According to still classified documents that I first revealed eight
years ago, members of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA)
"Project Wizard" covert action program dominated the post-Lumumba
Congolese regime. However, a 1975 U.S. Senate investigation of
alleged CIA assassinations concluded that while the CIA had earlier
plotted to murder Lumumba, he was eventually killed "by Congolese
rivals. It does not appear from the evidence that the United States
was in any way involved in the killing."
It is now clear that that conclusion was wrong. A new analysis of
the declassified files of the Senate "Church" Committee (chaired by
Democratic Senator Frank Church), CIA and State Department, along
with memoirs and interviews of U.S. and Belgian covert operators,
establishes that CIA Station Chief Larry Devlin was consulted by
his Congolese government "cooperators" about the transfer of
Lumumba to sworn enemies, signaled them that he had no objection to
it, and withheld knowledge of the impending move from Washington,
forestalling the strong possibility that the State Department would
have intervened to try to save Lumumba. I detail this evidence in
a new article in the academic journal, Intelligence and National
Security, vol. 25, no. 2 (The full article is available from the
publisher at
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=jour~content=g923825305).
Here, briefly, are the most important new findings:
- Former U.S. officials who knew Lumumba now acknowledge that the
administration of former president Dwight D. Eisenhower
Administration mistakenly cast him as a dangerous vehicle of Soviet
influence.
- Covert CIA actions against the Lumumba government, often
dovetailing with Belgian ones, culminated in Colonel Joseph
Mobutu's military coup, which was "arranged and supported and
indeed managed" by the CIA alone, according to Devlin's private
interview with the Church Committee staff.
- The CIA station and U.S. embassy provided their inexperienced and
politically weak Congolese prot�g�s with a steady stream of
political and military recommendations. The advice arrived both
before Congolese government decisions and shortly afterwards when
foreign advisers were invited in to offer feedback. Devlin's
counsel was largely heeded on critical matters, especially when it
came to Lumumba. Thus Mobutu and former president Joseph Kasavubu
were persuaded to resist political pressures to reconcile with
Lumumba, and Mobutu reluctantly acceded to Devlin's request to
arrest him. After both Devlin and the American ambassador
intervened, the government dropped its plan to attack U.N. troops
guarding Lumumba. And after Lumumba was publicly brutalized by
Mobutu's troops, the U.S. Embassy -- under pressure from the State
Department, which was concerned about African governments' threats
to pull out of the U.N. Force -- pushed Kasavubu into promising
Lumumba "humane treatment" and a "fair trial.".
- In this context of U.S. adviser-Congolese leader interactions,
Devlin's decision not to intervene after he was informed by a
"government leader" of a plan to send Lumumba to his "sworn enemy"
signaled that he had no objection to the government's course. It
was also seen that way by Devlin's Belgian counterpart, Colonel
Louis Marliere, who later wrote, "There was a 'consensus' and ...no
adviser, whether he be Belgian or American, thought to dissuade
them." Considering Congolese leaders' previous responsiveness to
CIA and U.S. e\mbassy views, Devlin's permissive attitude was
undoubtedly a major factor in the government final action. (Its
last minute switch of sending Lumumba to murderous secessionists in
Katanga instead of murderous secessionists in South Kasai does not
change the crucial fact that Devlin gave a green light to
delivering Lumumba to men who had publicly vowed to kill him)
- Furthermore, shortly before the transfer, Mobutu indicated to
Devlin that Lumumba "might be executed," according to a Church
Committee interview. Devlin did not suggest that he offered any
objection or caution.
- Cables show that Devlin did not report the impending rendition to
Washington for three days (i.e. until it was already under way),
forestalling the strong possibility that the State Department would
have intervened to try and protect Lumumba as it had done several
weeks earlier. When news came that Lumumba had been flown to
Belgian-supported Katanga (but before it became known that he was
already dead), a top State Department official called in the
Belgian ambassador to complain about Belgian advisers' possible
contribution to the Congolese government's "gaffe" and to insist
upon the need for "humane treatment."
- The Church Committee failed to uncover the full truth about the
U.S. role because of its inattention to the covert relationship
between the CIA and Congolese decision makers, CIA delays in
providing key cables, and political pressure to water down its
original draft conclusions.
Devlin died in 2008 after consistently denying any knowledge of his
Congolese associates' "true plans" for Lumumba, and maintaining
that he had "stalled" the earlier CIA assassination plot. Yet
declassified CIA cables disprove his claims.
One horrible crime cannot, by itself, change history. But the
murder of Patrice Lumumba, the most dynamic political leader the
Congo has ever produced, was a critical step in the consolidation
of an oppressive regime. At the same time, it crystallized an
eventual 35-year U.S. commitment to the perpetuation of that
regime, not just against Lumumba's followers but against all
comers. In the end, Mobutu's kleptocracy would tear civil society
apart, destroy the state, and help pave the way for a regional war
that would kill millions of people.
There can no longer be any doubt that the U.S., Belgian and
Congolese governments shared major responsibility for the
assassination of Patrice Lumumba in Katanga. The young prime
minister was an imperfect leader during an unprecedented and
overwhelming international crisis. But he continues to be honored
around the world because he incarnated --- if only for a moment ---
the nationalist and democratic struggle of the entire African
continent against a recalcitrant West.
If the U.S. government at last publicly acknowledged - and
apologized for --- its role in this momentous assassination, it
would also be communicating its support for the universal
principles Lumumba embodied. What better person to take this step
than the American president, himself a son of Africa?
An Extraordinary Rendition
Stephen R. Weissman
Intelligence and National Security
Vol. 25, No. 2, 198-222, April 2010
Abstract
Controversy over alleged CIA responsibility for the 1961
assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba continues to
swirl despite a negative finding by the US Senate Church Committee
in 1975. A new analysis of declassified and other Church Committee,
CIA and State Department documents, memoirs of US and Belgian
covert operators, and author interviews with former executive
branch and Church Committee officials shows that the CIA Congo
Station Chief was an influential participant in the Congo
Government's decision to "render" Lumumba to his bitter enemies.
Moreover evidence strongly suggests the Station Chief withheld his
advance knowledge of Lumumba's fatal transfer from Washington
policymakers, who might have blocked it. Flaws in the Church
Committee's verdict are traced to CIA delays in providing key
cables, staff overreliance on lawyers' methodology, and political
pressure to water down original draft conclusions. What happened in
Lumumba's case provides insight into the contemporary problem of
establishing accountability in US anti-terrorist programs. Current
rendition policies are also characterized by ambiguous performance
standards for covert operators on the ground and difficulty in
pinpointing US responsibility within the intimate relationship
between the CIA and foreign government clients. The Church
Committee's experience clarifies the conditions for meaningful
outside regulation of anti-terrorism operations today.
Excerpts
[in film footage taken after Lumumba's capture, available on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGnGFaJqmzU] "a tall dark man in his
30s with a small beard and mustache and open collared white shirt
sits in the back of an army truck, his hands bound behind him. One
of the numerous non-American soldiers around him brutally pulls his
hair to raise his face to the cameras; another gratuitously
tightens his bonds, causing him to grimace in pain. ... The young
Commander watches his men abusing the prisoner, smiling
occasionally. The CIA - a strong backer of the Commander - had been
trying to kill or capture the 'target' for months. Recently, the
CIA Station Chief had met with security officials to make sure the
right roads were blocked and troops alerted. According to the CIA
Director, the prisoner's background was 'harrowing' and 'his
actions indicate that he is insane'. Within weeks of this incident,
the authorities decided to transfer the prisoner to another
government - one that had threatened to kill him. They immediately
informed the local CIA Station Chief of their plan. Three days
later, the prisoner and two colleagues were hustled onto a plane
bound for enemy territory. Savagely beaten throughout the flight,
the prisoners were taken away after landing and never seen again."
U.S.-Africa 'reset' requires honesty about America's wrongs
Providence Journal August 1, 2010
http://www.projo.com
By William Minter
Washington
To celebrate 50 years of African independence, President Barack
Obama will hold a town hall meeting this week with 120 African
youth leaders. The president will probably revisit themes from his
visit to Ghana last year: that Africa's future is up to Africans,
and that neither colonial exploitation nor Cold War interventions
are valid excuses to evade African responsibilities.
He's undoubtedly correct about that, as African activists agree.
But there are also lessons from the past that should not be
ignored. Over the last five decades, decisions made in Washington
and other global capitals have profoundly influenced what happens
in Africa. Fresh evidence confirms U.S. responsibility in one of
the most notorious cases of Cold War intrigue: the assassination of
Patrice Lumumba.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of 17 African countries
celebrating a half century of independence this year. Today, it is
the most fragile of Africa's large regional powers and it remains
the one most exposed to external influences that fuel conflict.
In July 1960, newly elected Congolese prime minister Patrice
Lumumba visited Washington. His quest: to ask the United States to
urge Belgium, the Congo's former colonial ruler and a U.S. ally, to
withdraw its troops from the Congo, where it had intervened only a
month after independence. Instead of helping, U.S. policymakers
quickly decided that Lumumba "threatens our vital interests in
Congo and Africa generally," in the words of the U.S. ambassador to
Belgium.
U.S. policy, the ambassador continued in an internal cable, "must
be to destroy Lumumba government as now constituted."
As documented by the Senate's Church Committee in 1975, the
National Security Council then decided to authorize "any particular
activity which might contribute to getting rid of Lumumba." The CIA
instigated a coup by Col. Joseph Mobutu, who would rule over the
Congo with an iron fist until his death in 1997. Mobutu's troops
captured Lumumba and handed him over to a Belgian-backed
secessionist regime in Congo's Katanga province. Lumumba was
executed on Jan. 17, 1961, only days before President John F.
Kennedy took office.
The Church Committee concluded that there was insufficient evidence
to confirm U.S. involvement in the murder plot. But new evidence
published in July in the scholarly journal Intelligence and
National Security tells another story. It confirms that CIA Station
Chief Larry Devlin gave the nod to Mobutu to hand over Lumumba to
secessionists who had vowed to kill him. Using newly declassified
Church Committee files, CIA cables, and interviews with Belgian and
U.S. intelligence officials, political scientist Stephen R.
Weissman, a former staff director of the House Africa Subcommittee,
concludes that there can no longer be any doubt: The U.S.
government shared responsibility with the Belgian and Congolese
governments for killing the elected Congolese leader.
It would be a refreshing sign of honesty if President Obama were to
acknowledge this shared U.S. responsibility when he meets with
African youth, as well as the need for critical scrutiny of U.S.
influence today. The flawed Cold War assumptions that painted
Lumumba as a threat have been discarded. But a rapid expansion of
U.S. military involvement in Africa, which began under the George
W. Bush administration, continues under Obama. This raises the risk
of new flawed judgments of complex African realities. The record
already shows some dubious consequences.
Whether under the umbrella of humanitarian action, as in the Congo,
or of counterterrorism, as in Somalia, U.S. involvement can fuel
conflict rather than promote African or U.S. security.
One danger is that African security forces can themselves threaten
their own people, as illustrated by today's Congo. Despite a peace
agreement in 2002 and elections in 2006, conflict has continued,
particularly in eastern Congo. Horrific abuses of civilians,
especially rape, have been the hallmark of this war. The United
States and other countries are training Congolese government
troops, but this has not stopped them from committing as many
atrocities as rebel soldiers. Simply strengthening security forces,
without curbing human-rights abuses, is a recipe for disaster.
Calls for more military intervention in Somalia, following the
recent terrorist bombing in Kampala, should also be examined
skeptically. The threat from the extremist group Al-Shabaab is
real. But a U.S.-backed Ethiopian intervention in Somalia in
December 2006 escalated the conflict and aided the rise of
Al-Shabaab. The United States, with two failed wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, should be wary of falling into a similar trap in
Africa. Nor should it encourage its African allies to adopt
America's flawed security paradigms.
President Obama has inspired hope in Africa and around the world.
Africans who heed his call to build the future, however, must still
reckon with the stubborn fact that the United States can be an
obstacle as well as a partner.
Uncle Sam in the Congo
[excerpted from Chapter 5 of King Solomon's Mines Revisited, by
William Minter]
On February 15, 1961, Ambassador Adlai Stevenson addressed the
United Nations Security Council as it debated a Soviet resolution
condemning UN complicity in the death of Congo Prime Minister
Patrice Lumumba, announced to the world only a few days earlier. A
scream from a woman in the visitor's gallery shattered his first
words. Voices shouted, "Murderers," "Lumumba," "You Ku Klux Klan
motherfuckers." Maya Angelou, one of some seventy black American
demonstrators, relates that her group had planned to stand silently
protesting Lumumba's murder. But the call for protest, bringing
several hundred people south from Harlem to midtown Manhattan, had
released bitter anger, anger that linked white hypocrisy and
indifference to black deaths, whether in Africa or America.
Demonstrators on 42nd Street later that evening chanted "Congo yes,
Yankee no" before being dispersed by mounted police.'
That same day, according to the New York Times, President Kennedy
pledged U.S. support to a new military junta in El Salvador and
said he was considering a ban on $80 million of agricultural
exports from Cuba. James Reston reported on the highest authority
that "the Kennedy administration is not going to allow the
communization of the Congo even if it has to intervene militarily
to stop it." And U.S. officials said demonstrators around the world
"sought wrongly to identify the United States and the United
Nations with a killing with which they had nothing to do."'
The officials quoted may have been cynical in their denial. Or
perhaps, due to bias or ignorance, they were unable to recognize
what was obvious to the demonstrators. In the U.S. political
context, the protesters' views could easily be dismissed as
extremist, influenced by communist or black-nationalist ideology.
Nevertheless, it is indisputable in retrospect that the accusations
were correct. The United States government, operating through
agencies as diverse as the United Nations and the Central
Intelligence Agency, was indeed the leading factor behind Lumumba's
removal from office and his assassination.
The dramatically internationalized "Congo crisis" took priority on
the agendas of three U.S. presidents -- Eisenhower, Kennedy, and
Johnson. Indeed, the papers on this one country, in the national
security files of the Kennedy-Johnson years, outweigh in sheer
physical bulk those on all the rest of Africa combined. And the
Mobutu regime, which the United States then put in power, became a
key component in defining U.S. regional policy. The outcome in the
Congo also set back the anticolonial war against Portugal and
reinforced a multitude of ethnocentric and cold-war images for
Western publics.
It was to the accompaniment of conflict in the Congo that Portugal
and Britain played out their own versions of the last stages of
colonial rule. And for the United States, this abrupt baptism in
crisis management revealed and strengthened assumptions that were
to hold sway elsewhere, where the United States was less actively
involved.
[full chapter text available at
http://www.noeasyvictories.org/books/ksmr05.php]
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
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