Opening the Secret Files on Lumumba's
Murder
By Stephen R. Weissman
Washington Post,
July 21, 2002
Reposted by permission of the author. Dr.
Weissman was staff director of the U.S. House of Representatives
subcommittee on Africa from 1986 to 1991. He has done extensive research
on U.S. policy in the Congo as well as other African
countries.
In his latest film, "Minority Report," director
Steven Spielberg portrays a policy of "preemptive action" gone wild in
the year 2054. But we don't have to peer into the future to see what
harm faulty intelligence and the loss of our moral compass can do. U.S.
policies during the Cold War furnish many tragic examples. One was U.S.
complicity in the overthrow and murder of Congolese Prime Minister
Patrice Lumumba.
Forty-one years ago, Lumumba, the only leader ever
democratically elected in Congo, was delivered to his enemies, tortured
and summarily executed. Since then, his country has been looted by the
U.S.-supported regime of Mobutu Sese Seko and wracked by regional and
civil war.
The conventional explanation of Lumumba's death has
been that he was murdered by Congolese rivals after earlier U.S.
attempts to kill him, including a plot to inject toxins into his food or
toothpaste, failed. In 1975, the U.S. Senate's "Church Committee" probed
CIA assassination plots and concluded there was "no evidence of CIA
involvement in bringing about the death of Lumumba."
Not so. I have obtained classified U.S. government
documents, including a chronology of covert actions approved by a
National Security Council (NSC) subgroup, that reveal U.S. involvement
in -- and significant responsibility for -- the death of Lumumba, who
was mistakenly seen by the Eisenhower administration as an African Fidel
Castro. The documents show that the key Congolese leaders who brought
about Lumumba's downfall were players in "Project Wizard," a CIA covert
action program. Hundreds of thousands of dollars and military equipment
were channeled to these officials, who informed their CIA paymasters
three days in advance of their plan to send Lumumba into the clutches of
his worst enemies. Other new details: The U.S. authorized payments to
then-President Joseph Kasavubu four days before he ousted Lumumba,
furnished Army strongman Mobutu with money and arms to fight pro-Lumumba
forces, helped select and finance an anti-Lumumba government, and barely
three weeks after his death authorized new funds for the people who
arranged Lumumba's murder.
Moreover, these documents show that the plans and
payments were approved by the highest levels of the Eisenhower
administration, either the NSC or its "Special Group," consisting of the
national security adviser, CIA director, undersecretary of state for
political affairs, and deputy defense secretary.
These facts are four decades old, but are worth
unearthing for two reasons. First, Congo (known for years as Zaire) is
still struggling to establish democracy and stability. By facing up to
its past role in undermining Congo's fledgling democracy, the United
States might yet contribute to Congo's future. Second, the U.S.
performance in Congo is relevant to our struggle against terrorism. It
shows what can happen when, in the quest for national security, we
abandon the democratic principles and rule of law we are fighting to
defend.
In February, Belgium, the former colonial power in
Congo, issued a thousand-page report that acknowledged "an irrefutable
portion of responsibility in the events that led to the death of
Lumumba." Unlike Belgium, the United States has admitted no such moral
responsibility. Over the years, scholars (including myself) and
journalists have written that American policy played a major role in the
ouster and assassination of Lumumba. But the full story remained hidden
in U.S. documents, which, like those I have examined, are still
classified despite the end of the Cold War, the end of the Mobutu regime
and Belgium's confession.
Here's what they tell us that, until now, we didn't
know, or didn't know for certain:
* In August 1960, the CIA established Project
Wizard. Congo had been independent only a month, and Lumumba, a
passionate nationalist, had become prime minister, with a plurality of
seats in the parliament. But U.S. presidential candidate John F. Kennedy
was vowing to meet "the communist challenge" and Eisenhower's NSC was
worried that Lumumba would tilt toward the Soviets.
The U.S. documents show that over the next few
months, the CIA worked with and made payments to eight top Congolese --
including President Kasavubu, Mobutu (then army chief of staff), Foreign
Minister Justin Bomboko, top finance aide Albert Ndele, Senate President
Joseph Ileo and labor leader Cyrille Adoula -- who all played roles in
Lumumba's downfall.
The CIA joined Belgium in a plan, detailed in the
Belgian report, for Ileo and Adoula to engineer a no-confidence vote in
Lumumba's government, which would be followed by union-led
demonstrations, the resignations of cabinet ministers (organized by
Ndele) and Kasavubu's dismissal of Lumumba.
* On Sept. 1, the NSC's Special Group authorized CIA
payments to Kasavubu, the U.S. documents say. On Sept. 5, Kasavubu fired
Lumumba in a decree of dubious legality. However, Kasavubu and his new
prime minister, Ileo, proved lethargic over the following week as
Lumumba rallied supporters. So Mobutu seized power on Sept. 14. He kept
Kasavubu as president and established a temporary "College of
Commissioners" to replace the disbanded government.
* The CIA financed the College and influenced the
selection of commissioners. The College was dominated by two Project
Wizard participants: Bomboko, its president, and Ndele, its
vice-president. Another CIA ally, Lumumba party dissident Victor
Nendaka, was appointed chief of the security police.
* On Oct. 27, the NSC Special Group approved
$250,000 for the CIA to win parliamentary support for a Mobutu
government. However, when legislators balked at approving any prime
minister other than Lumumba, the parliament remained closed. The CIA
money went to Mobutu personally and the commissioners.
* On Nov. 20, the Special Group authorized the CIA
to provide arms, ammunition, sabotage materials and training to Mobutu's
military in the event it had to resist pro-Lumumba forces.
The full extent of what one U.S. document calls the
"intimate" relationship between the CIA and Congolese leaders was absent
from the Church Committee report. The only covert action (apart from the
assassination plots) the committee discussed was the August 1960 effort
to promote labor opposition and a no-confidence vote in the
Senate.
How did Lumumba die?
After being ousted Sept. 5, Lumumba rallied support
in parliament and the international community. When Mobutu took over,
U.N. troops protected Lumumba, but soon confined him to his residence.
Lumumba escaped on Nov. 27. Days later he was captured by Mobutu's
troops, beaten and arrested.
What happened next is clearer thanks to the Belgian
report and the classified U.S. documents. As early as Christmas Eve
1960, College of Commissioners' president Bomboko offered to hand
Lumumba over to two secessionist leaders who had vowed to kill him. One
declined and nothing happened until mid-January 1961, when the central
government's political and military position deteriorated and troops
guarding Lumumba (then jailed on a military base near the capital)
mutinied. CIA and other Western officials feared a Lumumba
comeback.
On Jan. 14, the commissioners asked Kasavubu to move
Lumumba to a "surer place." There was "no doubt," the Belgian inquiry
concluded, that Mobutu agreed. Kasavubu told security chief Nendaka to
transfer Lumumba to one of the secessionist strongholds. On Jan. 17,
Nendaka sent Lumumba to the Katanga region. That night, Lumumba and two
colleagues were tortured and executed in the presence of members of the
Katangan government. No official announcement was made for four
weeks.
What did the U.S. government tell its Congolese
clients during the last three days of Lumumba's life? The Church
Committee reported that a Congolese "government leader" advised the
CIA's Congo station chief, Larry Devlin, on Jan. 14 that Lumumba was to
be sent to "the home territory" of his "sworn enemy." Yet, according to
the Church Committee and declassified documents, neither the CIA nor the
U.S. embassy tried to save the former prime minister.
The CIA may not have exercised robotic control over
its covert political action agents, but the failure of Devlin or the
U.S. embassy to question the plans for Lumumba could only be seen by the
Congolese as consent. After all, secret CIA programs had enabled this
group to achieve political power, and the CIA had worked from August
through November 1960 to assassinate or abduct Lumumba.
Here, the classified U.S. chronology provides an
important postscript. On Feb. 11, 1961, with U.S. reports from Congo
strongly indicating Lumumba was dead, the Special Group authorized
$500,000 for political action, troop payments and military equipment,
largely to the people who had arranged Lumumba's murder.
Devlin has sought to distance himself from Lumumba's
death. While the CIA was in close contact with the Congolese officials
involved, Devlin told the Church Committee that those officials "were
not acting under CIA instructions if and when they did this." In a
recent phone conversation with Devlin, I posed the issue of U.S.
responsibility for Lumumba's death. He acknowledged that, "It was
important to [these] cooperating leaders what the U.S. government
thought." But he said he did "not recall" receiving advance word of
Lumumba's transfer. Devlin added that even if he had objected, "That
would not have stopped them from doing it."
By evading its share of moral responsibility for
Lumumba's fate, the United States blurs African and American history and
sidesteps the need to make reparation for yesterday's misdeeds through
today's policy. In 1997, after the Mobutu regime fell, the Congolese
democratic opposition pleaded in vain for American and international
support. Since then, as many as 3 million lives have been lost as a
result of civil and regional war. The United States has not supported a
strong U.N. peacekeeping force or fostered a democratic transition. The
collapse in late April 2002 of negotiations between Congolese factions
threatens to reignite the smoldering conflict or ratify the partition of
the country.
Our government's actions four decades ago in Congo
also have special meaning after the tragedy of Sept. 11. They warn that
even as we justly defend our land and our people against terrorists, we
must avoid the excessive fear and zeal that lead to destructive
intervention betraying our most fundamental principles.