<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div id="container" class="container font-size5">
<div dir="ltr" style="display: block;" id="reader-header"
class="header"> <font size="-2"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/14/toppling-lumumba-canadas-dark-role-in-the-congo/"
id="reader-domain" class="domain">http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/14/toppling-lumumba-canadas-dark-role-in-the-congo/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Toppling Lumumba: Canada’s Dark Role in
the Congo</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">by <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/author/bras7uw/"
rel="nofollow">Yves Engler</a> - July 14, 2016<br>
</span></div>
</div>
<div class="content">
<div style="display: block;" dir="ltr" id="moz-reader-content">
<div
xml:base="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/14/toppling-lumumba-canadas-dark-role-in-the-congo/"
id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<div itemprop="articleBody" class="post_content">
<p>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”.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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’.”)</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <em>The Cold War </em>“[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.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>(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.”)</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
</div>
<p class="author_description"> <em><strong>Yves Engler’s</strong>
latest book is </em><em>Canada in Africa: 300 years of
Aid and Exploitation</em><em>.</em> </p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>