Leaders Articulate National. Pan-African Interests Against Imperialism

Kwame Nkrumah speaking at the Organization of African Unity Summit in 1964 in Egypt calling for a continental unity government for Africa. 2009 marks the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Leaders articulate national, Pan-African interests against imperialism

AFRICAN FOCUS By Tafataona Mahoso
Zimbabwe Sunday Mail

Africans may learn from the Anglo-Saxon fear and hatred of Patrice Lumumba and President Robert Mugabe several historical insights:

First is the hysterical, desperate desire among the Anglo-Saxon leaders, their media hacks and African collaborators to portray Lumumba and Mugabe in their respective times as crazy and isolated leaders hated by the African people. The progressive Belgian author Ludo de Witte exposes this false alibi effectively:

“If it is true that Lumumba was an isolated politician, why did Brussels, Washington, (London) and New York set up such a gigantic and long-lasting military operation, including the deployment of several thousand Belgian soldiers and Blue Berets, operations of destabilisation, murder and corruption, as well as a huge media campaign? Surely the Western powers which led these operations did not ignite one of the biggest crises since the Second World War solely to get rid of an isolated . . . political leader (hated by the Congolese masses)?”

The same question can be asked about the current onslaught on Zimbabwe and President Mugabe by the very same powers led by the US. Just read part of US President Barrack Obama’s renewal of former US President George W. Bush’s Executive Orders 13328 of 2003, 13391 of 2005 and 13469 of 2008 by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of the US. Obama’s renewal of these imperialist piracy powers extends George W. Bush by one year, calling the actions of President Mugabe’s government to empower the African majority “the unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States of America” and suggesting that what Mugabe’s government has done through land reform and economic indigenisation and empowerment programmes has precipitated “a national emergency” in the US.

Therefore, through Obama’s Bush order and through renewed EU sanctions against the same Zimbabwe — the entire Anglo-Saxon world is invited to throw against Zimbabwe everything they have, short of direct military intervention. No sane power would mobilise such awesome imperialist instruments against one unpopular, isolated and discredited leader!

Second, the Anglo-Saxon powers have created such a huge anti-Mugabe media industry and mobilised their diplomatic, political and economic systems against Mugabe precisely because Mugabe has had the courage and privilege to pursue and implement the vision of African independence and sovereignty which Lumumba was never given a chance to put into practice.

As Ludo de Witte testifies: “Patrice Lumumba totally broke away from the Congolese (petty-bourgeois) elite and its ambitions. He resolutely decided on real decolonisation to benefit the masses . . . Lumumba shaped a nationalism which rested on three . . . pillars: revolutionary and coherent nationalism, political action relying on a mass movement, and an internationalist perspective . . . The national democratic tasks were to free the country from the iron grip of imperialism and create an independent nation; to set up a democratic republic . . .; and finally to develop a truly national economy to meet the needs of the (African) population. The final objective was to build a unified nation state in which all peoples and regions (of Congo) considered themselves essential components of (Congolese) society.”

In other words, the examples of Lumumba and Mugabe are feared by imperialist powers because they threaten not only the imperialist investment in divide-and-conquer strategies but also the African petty bourgeois class collaborating with imperialism through the cultivation of “tribal” chauvinism and factionalism.

Here is a small sample of instances in which key players in the Congo crisis created an alibi for the Anglo-Saxon powers: Belgian African Affairs Minister Count Harold d’Aspremont to his Ambassador in Congo, Jan Vanden Bloock, on January 20 1961: “It seems to me a political necessity, firstly to ensure a tight guard, tight guard, repeat tight, on Lumumba, secondly, to avoid ill treatment and suppression.”

Vanden Bloock’s reply: “Can assure you that no Belgian has been involved in guarding Lumumba and company so far, and never will be since Katangan authorities consider Lumumba’s treatment their own exclusive prerogative.”

US State Department to US Consul William Canup, January 18 1961, paraphrased by Ludo de Witte:

“Washington drew its consul’s attention to Press communiqués saying Lumumba had been beaten severely in the presence of a white officer. If this turned out to be true, Consul Canup was requested to let Tshombe know that “the US government deplores such treatment” and must insist he receive “humane treatment”.

United Nations, after its Congo representative Andrew Cordier, a US citizen, had conspired with Congo President Kasavubu to put Lumumba under house arrest, deny him all media access and close all airports to anyone likely to assist the legitimate Congolese government of Prime Minister Lumumba:

“UN representatives insisted they could not interfere in internal affairs and that, if the president (Kasavubu) could keep the initiative (to overthrow Lumumba), the presence of the Blue Berets could work to this advantage.”

The US objection to reports of brutality was not to the ill-treatment of Lumumba and his colleagues. It was ill-treatment “in the presence of whites” which became an issue because that would be seen to mean that the whites controlled the brutality and approved of it. Such a view would mean the Anglo-Saxon powers would be blamed for the coup d’etat, the murders, and the massacres for which they should be expected to suffer consequences in Africa and beyond.

White officers in Katanga who either participated in or were fully aware of the torture, beating and assassination of Prime Minister Lumumba and his two lieutenants included: Commander of the Gendermerie Major Guy Weber; Police Commissioner Frans Verscheure; Major Paul Perrard; Second Lieutenant Roger Leva; Armand Joe Verdickt; and Colonel Frederic Vandewalle. Belgian Minister of African Affairs Count Harold d'Aspremont in fact ordered the transfer of Lumumba and his colleagues from Leopoldville to Katanga with the intention of having them murdered by the traitor Moise Tshombe, who was ordered to accept the prisoners.

Tshombe, Mobutu, Kasavubu and their puppet regimes were in fact being directed by the imperialist powers through Brussels. But the first official announcement of the deaths of the three Congolese leaders said that they had broken out of custody and run into a crowd of angry peasants who murdered them! Their bodies could not be found because African “tribesmen” were sworn cannibals!

In Congo as in Zimbabwe there were strategic reasons for demanding a convincing system of African masks and alibis for Anglo-Saxon crimes. The first reason was East-West (and now North-South) relations. China and the Soviet Union were feared as powers that could exploit Anglo-Saxon crimes to gain influence in Congo; just as today China, India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa and Iran are also feared as trading partners who can render illegal sanctions ineffective against Zimbabwe and win popular local support for their bilateral relations. This explains persistent white Rhodesian attacks on South Africa and the recent ill-treatment of South African President Jacob Zuma by the British Press during Zuma’s visit in Britain in March 2010.

The second reason for imperialist anxiety was African, Pan-African and NAM recognition for the Tshombe regime. Any African leader in Congo or Zimbabwe who appeared to be too much of an Anglo-Saxon puppet would not be recognised by independent Africa and NAM. That is why the US and Belgium had to sacrifice Tshombe and his puppet regime after using him.

The third but not least strategic reason for imperialist anxiety was popular African opinion inside Congo and Zimbabwe and in the rest of Africa. Through the efforts of Kwame Nkrumah, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sekou Toure, Julius Nyerere and Ahmed Ben Bella — the name “Tshombe” became the worst expression of African contempt for an African stooge and sell-out. As primary school children in Standard One and Two, we knew that to be called Tshombe was the worst curse on earth and in heaven.

This popular African opinion was also most feared and therefore
most manipulated by Anglo-Saxon powers because popular and properly informed African opinion could spell doom for their settlers, their companies, their ambassadors, spies, missionaries, journalists and NGOs who were also the main vehicles for manipulating African opinion and masking imperialist crimes. The US was, and still is, the master in creating masks and alibis. It relied on prior embedding, as John Perkins was to confirm in 2004 in his Confessions of an Economic Hitman. The CIA first attempted to kill Lumumba through poisoning. But by the time of the coup d'etat, the North Americans restricted themselves to facilitating Belgian crimes by providing logistical support and intelligence.

Through the CIA, the United States created many masks for Anglo-Saxon intervention. Within Lumumba’s coalition government the CIA was already using Foreign Minister Justin Bomboko, President Joseph Kasavubu and Cyril Adoula to make internal requests and demands consistent with the US intervention strategy. For this reason, the US could afford to ignore Bomboko’s secret request for US marines and opt for use of soldiers of co-opted Third World states under the UN peacekeeping cover still controlled by the US. Bomboko had made that request behind Lumumba’s back.

Therefore supposed UN officials, including UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, gave two sets of instructions to their subordinates in the peacekeeping mission: Secret operational orders for execution were according to US strategic goals; filed memoranda, telegrams and Press statements were only for diplomatic and rhetorical purposes and they adhered to UN rules which they pretended to enforce.

The Belgian regime in Brussels made sure that all the ministers of the government of Katanga, including Tshombe himself, were controlled by white private secretaries who reported directly to Brussels or through the Belgian Ambassador. The secret order from Brussels to have Lumumba delivered to traitor Moise Tshombe was delivered to Tshombe by his white private secretary, Jacques Bartelous.

In addition, correct information was relayed to Belgium and back either by hand or through telephone calls, while telegrams and filed memoranda carried the masking information intended to mislead the African population and the world at large.

All the governments and media of the Anglo-Saxon powers claimed that Patrice Lumumba was arrested by his own fellow African leaders and later killed by ordinary villagers because he was universally hated.

In the book From Congo to Soweto: US Foreign Policy Toward Africa since 1960, Henry F. Jackson demonstrates that the idea that Lumumba was killed by his own people because they suddenly started hating him is a blatant lie according to all the evidence available. In terms of our comparison of Congo in 1960 and Zimbabwe in 2010, it is clear that one contrast is that Robert Gabriel Mugabe is hated by Anglo-Saxon powers today for partly achieving what Lumumba could envision but not achieve in 1960: Jackson writes:

The CIA and the Belgians instigated President Kasavubu to dismiss Lumumba as Prime Minister. The CIA then instigated the head of the UN mission, a US citizen by the name of Andrew Cordier, to deny Lumumba access to any media or to his party. The UN put Lumumba under house arrest. When Lumumba successfully escaped, it was the CIA who helped Mobutu and Kasavubu to intercept him before he could reach his supporters or any media outlet.

The biggest lesson from all lessons we can learn from what happened to the African revolution in Congo in 1960 and what is happening to the African revolution in Zimbabwe in 2010 is that African interests can be secured against imperialism only if Africans unite behind those leaders who articulate national and Pan-African interests against imperialism.