On this day 57 years ago, African martyr Patrice Emery Lumumba was murdered. He was the first prime minister of Congo, elected to the position after his country's independence from Belgium in June 1960. Just months after his appointment, he was forced out of office and mercilessly killed. His remains were then reportedly dipped in acid so that nothing of him existed anymore. However, since his death he has become a martyr of the African independence struggle, revered across the continent.
Last year the Trump administration declassified more documents regarding the assassination in 1963 of US President John F. Kennedy. Surprisingly, researchers found their-in documents relating to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. Both deaths happened only three years apart and both have been widely attributed to United States government officials and agencies including the CIA. Now a newly declassified House Intelligence Committee document that was found in the Kennedy assassination files says: "According to Richard Bissell who was the CIA Deputy Director of Plans at the time, he was aware of plans within the Agency concerning the possible assassination of Patrice Lumumba and that "a case officer was directed to look into the possibilities." Now one could question if it is legal in the US for any government agency or any individual to look into assassinating any individual. Or whether it is legal to utilize government resources (the CIA and "a case officer") to see whether US government officials can conduct an assassination. Remember that the target in Congo is an unarmed innocent legitimate civilian leader who is not a declared enemy of the United States and who is also the Prime Minister of a sovereign country that is not at war with, nor attacking the US. For the record, on 10th August 2000, an article written by American journalist Martin Kettle for the UK's Guardian newspaper stated that US President Dwight Eisenhower directly ordered the CIA to "eliminate" Patrice Lumumba. Which piec "The evidence [of Eisenhower's order] comes in a previously unpublished 1975 interview with the person who wrote the minutes at a White House meeting in August 1960 where Eisenhower and his national security advisers discussed the Congo crisis. Robert Johnson who wrote the minutes of the meeting, said in the interview that he vividly recalled the president turning to Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, "in the full hearing of all those in attendance, and saying something to the effect that Patrice Lumumba should be eliminated". Mr Johnson recalled that "There was stunned silence for about 15 seconds and the meeting continued."" Mr Johnson revealed the White House exchanges in 1975, when he was interviewed by the Senate intelligence committee inquiry into US covert action. The committee confirmed that the CIA had conspired to kill Patrice Lumumba on Eisenhower's direct orders. It also appears that British intelligence was part of the assassination plot together with the Belgians and the CIA. Baroness Daphne Park who was known as the "Queen of Spies" after four decades as one of Britain's top female intelligence agents, is believed to have been sent by British intelligence service MI6 to the Belgian Congo in 1959 under an official diplomatic guise as the Belgians were on the point of being ousted from the country. While discussing with Labour peer Lord Lea about the uproar surrounding Lumumba's abduction and murder, and recalling the theory that MI6 might have had something to do with it, Baroness Park reportedly admitted. 'We did, I organised it. Lumumba would have handed over the whole lot to the Russians: the high-value Katangese uranium deposits as well as the diamonds and other important minerals largely located in the secessionist eastern state of Katanga." It appears Western countries conspired to have the Congolese leader assassinated in order to preserve their exclusive exploitation of Congo. I remember my father installing a grand, life-size painting of Patrice Lumumba at the entrance of State House Entebbe in memory of the African leader. May his soul continue to rest in eternal peace.
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