[News] Toppling Lumumba: Canada’s Dark Role in the Congo

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/14/toppling-lumumba-canadas-dark-role-in-the-congo/ 



  Toppling Lumumba: Canada’s Dark Role in the Congo

by Yves Engler <http://www.counterpunch.org/author/bras7uw/> - July 14, 2016

56 years ago today the United Nations launched a peacekeeping force that 
contributed to one of the worst post-independence imperial crimes in 
Africa. The Organisation des Nations Unies au Congo (ONUC) delivered a 
major blow to Congolese aspirations by undermining elected Prime 
Minister Patrice Lumumba. Canada played a significant role in ONUC and 
Lumumba’s assassination, which should be studied by progressives 
demanding Ottawa increase its participation in UN “peacekeeping”.

After seven decades of brutal rule, Belgium organized a hasty 
independence in the hopes of maintaining control over the Congo’s vast 
natural resources. When Lumumba was elected to pursue a genuine 
de-colonization, Brussels instigated a secessionist movement in the 
eastern part of country. In response, the Congolese Prime Minister asked 
the UN for a peacekeeping force to protect the territorial integrity of 
the newly independent country. Washington, however, saw the UN mission 
as a way to undermine Lumumba.

Siding with Washington, Ottawa promoted ONUC and UN Secretary General 
Dag Hammarskjold’s controversial anti-Lumumba position. 1,900 Canadian 
troops participated in the UN mission between 1960 and 1964, making this 
country’s military one of its more active members. There were almost 
always more Canadian officers at ONUC headquarters then those of any 
other nationality and the Canadians were concentrated in militarily 
important logistical positions including chief operations officer and 
chief signals officer.

Canada’s strategic role wasn’t simply by chance. Ottawa pushed to have 
Canada’s intelligence gathering signals detachments oversee UN 
intelligence and for Quebec Colonel Jean Berthiaume to remain at UN 
headquarters to “maintain both Canadian and Western influence.” (A 
report from the Canadian Directorate of Military Intelligence noted, 
“Lumumba’s immediate advisers… have referred to Lt. Col. Berthiaume as 
an ‘imperialist tool’.”)

To bolster the power of ONUC, Ottawa joined Washington in channelling 
its development assistance to the Congo through the UN. Ghanaian 
president Kwame Nkrumah complained that this was “applying a restriction 
to Congo which does not apply to any other African state.” Ottawa 
rejected Nkrumah’s request to channel Congolese aid through independent 
African countries.

Unlike many ONUC participants, Canada aggressively backed Hammarskjold’s 
controversial anti-Lumumba position. External Affairs Minister Howard 
Green told the House of Commons: “The Canadian government will continue 
its firm support for the United Nations effort in the Congo and for Mr. 
Hammarskjold, who in the face of the greatest difficulty has served the 
high principles and purposes of the charter with courage, determination 
and endless patience.”

Ottawa supported Hammarskjold even as he sided with the Belgian-backed 
secessionists against the central government. On August 12 1960 the UN 
Secretary General traveled to Katanga and telegraphed secessionist 
leader Moise Tchombe to discuss “deploying United Nations troops to 
Katanga.” Not even Belgium officially recognized Katanga’s independence, 
provoking Issaka Soure to note that, “[Hammarskjold’s visit] sent a very 
bad signal by implicitly implying that the rebellious province could 
somehow be regarded as sovereign to the point that the UN chief 
administrator could deal with it directly.”

The UN head also worked to undermine Lumumba within the central 
government. When President Joseph Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba as prime 
minister — a move of debatable legality and opposed by the vast majority 
of the country’s parliament — Hammarskjold publicly endorsed the 
dismissal of a politician who a short time earlier had received the most 
votes in the country’s election.

Lumumba attempted to respond to his dismissal with a nationwide 
broadcast, but UN forces blocked him from accessing the main radio 
station. ONUC also undermined Lumumba in other ways. Through their 
control of the airport ONUC prevented his forces from flying into the 
capital from other parts of the country and closed the airport to Soviet 
weapons and transportation equipment when Lumumba turned to Russia for 
assistance. In addition, according to /The Cold War /“[the Secretary 
General’s special representative Andrew] Cordier provided $1 million — 
money supplied to the United Nations by the US government — to [military 
commander Joseph] Mobutu in early September to pay off restive and 
hungry Congolese soldiers and keep them loyal to Kasavubu during his 
attempt to oust Lumumba as prime minister.”

To get a sense of Hammarskjold’s antipathy towards the Congolese leader, 
he privately told officials in Washington that Lumumba must be “broken” 
and only then would the Katanga problem “solve itself.” For his part, 
Cordier asserted “[Ghanaian president Kwame] Nkrumah is the Mussolini of 
Africa while Lumumba is its little Hitler.”

(Echoing this thinking, in a conversation with External Affairs Minister 
Howard Green, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker called Lumumba a “major 
threat to Western interests” and said he was “coming around to the 
conclusion” that an independent Western oriented Katanga offered “the 
best solution to the current crisis.”)

In response to Hammarskjold’s efforts to undermine his leadership, 
Lumumba broke off relations with the UN Secretary General. He also 
called for the withdrawal of all white peacekeepers, which Hammarskjold 
rejected as a threat to UN authority.

A number of ONUC nations ultimately took up Lumumba’s protests. When the 
Congolese prime minister was overthrown and ONUC helped consolidate the 
coup, the United Arab Republic (Egypt), Guinea, Morocco and Indonesia 
formally asked Hammarskjold to withdraw all of their troops.

Canadian officials took a different position. They celebrated ONUC’s 
role in Lumumba’s overthrow. A week after Lumumba was pushed out 
prominent Canadian diplomat Escott Reid, then ambassador to Germany, 
noted in an internal letter, “already the United Nations has 
demonstrated in the Congo that it can in Africa act as the executive 
agent of the free world.” The “free world” was complicit in the murder 
of one of Africa’s most important independence leaders. In fact, the top 
Canadian in ONUC directly enabled his killing.

After Lumumba escaped house arrest and fled Leopoldville for his power 
base in the Eastern Orientale province, Colonel Jean Berthiaume assisted 
Lumumba’s political enemies by helping recapture him. The UN Chief of 
Staff, who was kept in place by Ottawa, tracked the deposed prime 
minister and informed Joseph Mobutu of Lumumba’s whereabouts. Three 
decades later the Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec, born Berthiaume told an 
interviewer: “I called Mobutu. I said, ‘Colonel, you have a problem, you 
were trying to retrieve your prisoner, Mr. Lumumba. I know where he is, 
and I know where he will be tomorrow. He said, what do I do? It’s 
simple, Colonel, with the help of the UN you have just created the core 
of your para commandos — we have just trained 30 of these guys — highly 
selected Moroccans trained as paratroopers. They all jumped — no one 
refused. To be on the safe side, I put our [Canadian] captain, Mario 
Coté, in the plane, to make sure there was no underhandedness. In any 
case, it’s simple, you take a Dakota [plane], send your paratroopers and 
arrest Lumumba in that small village — there is a runway and all that is 
needed. That’s all you’ll need to do, Colonel. He arrested him, like 
that, and I never regretted it.”

Ghanaian peacekeepers near where Lumumba was captured took quite a 
different attitude towards the elected prime minister’s safety. After 
Mobutu’s forces captured Lumumba they requested permission to intervene 
and place Lumumba under UN protection. Unfortunately, the 
Secretary-General denied their request. Not long thereafter Lumumba was 
executed by firing squad and his body was dissolved in acid.

In 1999 Belgium launched a parliamentary inquiry into its role in 
Lumumba’s assassination. Following Belgium’s lead, the Standing 
Committee on Foreign Affairs should investigate Canada’s role in the 
Congolese independence leader’s demise and any lessons ONUC might hold 
regarding this country’s participation in future UN missions.

/*Yves Engler’s* latest book is //‪Canada in Africa: 300 years of Aid 
and Exploitation//./

-- 
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