Hi Folks,
Thanks to the Canadian health care system (the best in the world), I am
glad to resume forwarding articles of interest to the list. I was rendered
horizontal for the past couple of weeks by a rather tenacious
micro-organism of unknown descript, hence the silence from my end.
By the way, does anyone have/remember the recipe for "Chakiri (sp?)"? I'll
be glad if you pass it along. For some reason, it has been on my mind all
day..... so, please help me quench the craving.
Sister Jabou, can you please change my GESO-USA subscription address to
"[log in to unmask]" ..... my lab. server (leed.chem.ubc.ca) will be down
for about a month (don't have time to work on it). Thanks!!
Y'all have an excellent week.
Cheers,
Madiba.
*********************************************************************
** Madiba Saidy, PhD; MCIC **
** Advanced Materials and Process Engineering Laboratory (AMPEL) **
** The University of British Columbia **
** 344-2355 East Mall **
** Vancouver, BC, CANADA V6T 1Z4 **
** **
** Email: [log in to unmask] / [log in to unmask] **
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
The London Guardian 15 January 2000
Belgium accused of killing African hero
Author urges parliamentary commission to quiz those involved in Patrice
Lumumba's murder
Ian Black in Brussels
Saturday January 15, 2000
Evidence of direct Belgian government complicity in the execution of the
Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba must be made public and those implicated
questioned, a historian demanded yesterday.
Lugo de Witte, a Flemish expert on Africa, called for a parliamentary
commission of inquiry to hear testimony under oath from former officials
involved in the 1961 killing of one of Africa's most charismatic
post-colonial leaders.
His 400-page book, just published in French, throws new light on one of the
darkest chapters in Belgium's long and rapacious relationship with Congo,
and establishes clear state responsibility for a brutal political murder.
Lumumba - popular, articulate and a hero of the anti-colonial struggle - was
just 36 when he became the first prime minister of the
independent Congo in June 1960.
But within a month a civil war erupted, provoked by the attempted secession
of the copper-rich Katanga province, led by Moise Tshombe. Tshombe recruited
Belgian, French and South African mercenaries to fight the government.
United Nations forces intervened in the biggest peacekeeping operation the
UN had mounted since being founded, but they did little more than maintain
the status quo.
Lumumba was deposed and an unknown colonel called Joseph-Desire Mobutu took
control of country, which he renamed Zaire, and remained a faithful friend
of the west until his overthrow in May 1997.
The United States saw the militant nationalist Lumumba as a communist
sympathiser; CIA involvement in plans to kill him has been long established
by senate hearings and declassified documents.
But Mr De Witte's research showed that by the time Lumumba was killed
Washington had little ability to operate on the ground in Congo and had
given way to Brussels. "Belgian officers had direct resposibility for his
assassination," he insisted yesterday.
A document signed by the then Belgian minister for Africa, Harold Aspremont
Lynden, in October 1960, said explicitly: "The main objective to pursue, in
the interests of the Congo, Katanga and Belgium, is clearly the final
elimination of Lumumba."
On January 17 1961, Lumumba, under arrest by Mobutu's forces, was
transferred to Katanga on a Sabena plane on the orders of Aspremont Lynden
and the Belgian foreign minister, Pierre Wigny.
He was assaulted in the presence of Belgian officers and tortured in a villa
guarded by Belgian troops, before being shot by an execution squad
supervised by a Belgian captain. His body was exhumed by a Belgian police
commissioner, Gerard Soete, and dissolved in acid.
In a macabre twist, Mr Soete admitted on Belgian television last year that
he had kept two of the victim's teeth, prompting calls for their return to
Congo. But he insisted he had later thrown them into the North Sea.
Much is now known about this 40-year-old mystery, but crucial information
remains buried in Belgian government files, including the records of a
secret Congo committee which met under the chairmanship of then prime
minister, Gaston Eyskens.
Last month the government approved the creation of a parliamentary
commission to investigate the episode, but its precise terms of reference
have yet to be decided.
"Any inquiry must have the power to conduct new research," Mr De Witte said.
"It is often assumed that the Belgian officials involved in the affair are
dead, but that is not so. These people must be questioned under oath, and if
that can be done there will be many more revelations."
After his death Lumumba became a powerful symbol of the anti-colonial
struggle. A university named after him was established in Moscow and became
a magnet for students from the third world.
In his political testament, written in jail shortly before he was killed, he
reflected: "One day history will have its say, but it will not be the
history they teach at the UN, in Washington, Paris or Brussels, but the
history they teach in countries freed from colonialism and its puppets.
"Africa will write its own history, and it will be one of glory and
dignity."
. L'Assassinat de Lumumba, Ludo de Witte, editions Karthala Paris
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