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How Patrice Lumumba’s assassination drove student activism, shaping the Congo’s future

Radicalised by the assassination of independence leader Patrice Lumumba, the student movement in the Congo pushed for full decolonisation of Congolese society and economy.

Pedro Monaville

DURING a recent visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), King Philippe of Belgium made a speech to the national parliament in Kinshasa expressing his ‘deepest regrets’ for the exploitation and oppression of Belgian colonialism.

The European nation ruled the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1908 until 1960. Before that, it had been a personal colony of Leopold II, Philippe’s great-great-granduncle, for more than 25 years.

Philippe also addressed students at the University of Lubumbashi, in the capital of the southeastern province of Katanga. ‘Today, let’s look towards the future,’ he urged. Philippe declined to expand on his regrets, and only mentioned the colonial past, ‘our shared history’, in veiled terms.

His exhortation to dissipate colonial memories is particularly problematic in Lubumbashi. It is only a few kilometres away from where Patrice Lumumba, the Congo’s first Prime Minister, was assassinated. This happened in the presence of the Katangese secessionist leader Moďse Tshombe and his Belgian advisers on 17 January 1961.

Lumumba’s tooth, which had been kept by the Belgian policeman who destroyed his body, will finally be repatriated to the DRC – a gesture his family have been requesting for a long time.

Belgian researcher Ludo De Witte has described Lumumba’s murder as the most important assassination of the 20th century. A charismatic leader, Lumumba embodied the struggle for pan-Africanism and Congolese unity. He unequivocally denounced Europe’s racist oppression of Africa. His vision of decolonisation, as a process of total liberation, marked millions of people in the Congo and around the world.

While Belgium has partly acknowledged its responsibility for the murder, no protagonists have been brought to justice. A parliamentary commission found that King Baudouin, the monarch at Congo’s decolonisation, was aware of plans to assassinate Lumumba. However, Baudouin’s complicity remains to be officially recognised.

The commission ‘tried in a way to limit the damages with its conclusions’ and shied away from linking Belgium directly to the assassination. That was because ‘the diplomatic, ideological and financial consequences would be extremely great’.

This might be why King Philippe is focusing on moving forward. His speech in Lubumbashi positioned Congolese students as a future-oriented group with whom Belgium could forge a new partnership.

But there’s a crucial element missing from this logic: the specific role historically played by university students in further entrenching decolonisation in the Congo. This appeared most strongly during the 1960s.

In a forthcoming book on the history of this movement, as well as in previous publications, I argue that Lumumba’s death triggered students towards the political left. It created a generation of intransigent activists. These students pushed for total liberation from exploitation and oppression, as Lumumba had envisioned.

Many students today still feel committed to this tradition, and might not easily accept the clean slate envisioned in the monarch’s call to turn away from the past.

Shifts in the student movement

Congolese only began accessing universities a few years before the end of the Belgian regime. This was much later than in other colonial territories in Africa. This was a deliberate move by colonial officials, afraid that educated Congolese would challenge the status quo.

But as the anticolonial struggle was taking off, the Belgians revised their judgement and authorised the opening of two universities. They hoped that having been given access to the last echelon of European education, educated Congolese would support the maintaining of strong ties between Belgium and the Congo.

In the late 1950s, some students adopted the moderate tone that the Belgians had wished for. Several leading student figures from this period, whom I interviewed for my book, told me how they had criticised the politicians as demagogues unfit to rule the Congo. They argued that only a properly trained elite like themselves, and not uneducated politicans, could lead the country towards development and prosperity.

But, in the aftermath of Lumumba’s assassination in 1961, the student movement shifted. Its orientation became a vocal voice in defence of a fully independent Congo and for a more radical break with the colonial era. Students became increasingly critical of their Belgian professors and began identifying with revolutionary figures from Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The murder opened the eyes of many to the violence of neocolonialism. Lumumba immediately became viewed as both a martyr and a hero by people around the world. This strongly impressed students and they felt like it was their role to continue the work he had started.

The student movement of the 1960s adopted Lumumba’s commitment to pan-African unity. It built on his conviction that independence involved more than a political transition. It had to be a revolutionary process that abolished economic exploitation and ensured mental liberation from colonial worldviews.

Student demands

Students denounced the continuous power of Belgian administrators and faculty at Congolese universities. They demanded the Africanisation of curricula and the democratisation of governing boards.

Their activism transformed higher education. It paved the way ultimately to the nationalisation of universities. But it also reverberated beyond university campuses, challenging the political elite’s refusal to continue the unfinished decolonisation of Congolese society and economy.

After General Mobutu Sese Seko staged a coup in 1965, he attempted to co-opt students and change their ideas about radical independence.

However, Mobutu’s uneven adherence to the ideal of Congolese nationalism alienated the students. By the end of the 1960s, university students continued to oppose Mobutu’s increasingly dictatorial power. This was despite the fact that the regime suppressed critical voices.

Their protests were violently repressed and did not succeed in immediately challenging the president. Yet, they planted seeds that grew over the years and led to the powerful movement for democratisation of the 1990s. I believe that this significantly weakened Mobutu’s power and contributed to his ultimate downfall in 1997.

In June 1970, when King Baudouin went on the first Belgian royal visit of the Congo since independence, he stopped, together with President Mobutu, at Lovanium University in Kinshasa. In an interview with students from that time, they told me how they sprayed the royal delegation with water. It was an expression of their opposition to the regime and unfinished decolonisation of their university.

King Philippe didn’t experience an incident like this. Yet, it doesn’t mean that students aren’t looking critically at the relationship between Belgium and the Congo. Students rose up in 2015 against then President Joseph Kabila’s attempt to change the constitution. Recently, they have protested against the ongoing war and massacres of civilians in Eastern Congo.          

Pedro Monaville, a historian of modern Africa, is a Professor at New York University Abu Dhabi. His first book, Students of the World: Global 1968 and Decolonization in the Congo, is coming out with Duke University Press in July 2022. This article was originally published in The Conversation (theconversation.com) under a Creative Commons licence.

‘We shall make the Congo the pride of Africa’

Patrice Lumumba’s vision of liberation and justice for the Congo found powerful expression in his speech – reproduced below – at the ceremony of proclamation of the country’s independence on 30 June 1960.

Men and women of the Congo,

Victorious independence fighters,

I salute you in the name of the Congolese Government.

I ask all of you, my friends, who tirelessly fought in our ranks, to mark this June 30, 1960, as an illustrious date that will be ever engraved in your hearts, a date whose meaning you will proudly explain to your children, so that they in turn might relate to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren the glorious history of our struggle for freedom.

Although this independence of the Congo is being proclaimed today by agreement with Belgium, an amicable country, with which we are on equal terms, no Congolese will ever forget that independence was won in struggle, a persevering and inspired struggle carried on from day to day, a struggle in which we were undaunted by privation or suffering and stinted neither strength nor blood.

It was filled with tears, fire and blood. We are deeply proud of our struggle, because it was just and noble and indispensable in putting an end to the humiliating bondage forced upon us.

That was our lot for the eighty years of colonial rule and our wounds are too fresh and much too painful to be forgotten.

We have experienced forced labour in exchange for pay that did not allow us to satisfy our hunger, to clothe ourselves, to have decent lodgings or to bring up our children as dearly loved ones.

Morning, noon and night we were subjected to jeers, insults and blows because we were ‘Negroes’. Who will ever forget that the black was addressed as ‘tu’, not because he was a friend, but because the polite ‘vous’ was reserved for the white man?

We have seen our lands seized in the name of ostensibly just laws, which gave recognition only to the right of might.

We have not forgotten that the law was never the same for the white and the black, that it was lenient to the ones, and cruel and inhuman to the others.

We have experienced the atrocious sufferings, being persecuted for political convictions and religious beliefs, and exiled from our native land: our lot was worse than death itself.

We have not forgotten that in the cities the mansions were for the whites and the tumbledown huts for the blacks; that a black was not admitted to the cinemas, restaurants and shops set aside for ‘Europeans’; that a black travelled in the holds, under the feet of the whites in their luxury cabins.

Who will ever forget the shootings which killed so many of our brothers, or the cells into which were mercilessly thrown those who no longer wished to submit to the regime of injustice, oppression and exploitation used by the colonialists as a tool of their domination?

All that, my brothers, brought us untold suffering.

But we, who were elected by the votes of your representatives, representatives of the people, to guide our native land, we, who have suffered in body and soul from the colonial oppression, we tell you that henceforth all that is finished with.

The Republic of the Congo has been proclaimed and our beloved country’s future is now in the hands of its own people.

Brothers, let us commence together a new struggle, a sublime struggle that will lead our country to peace, prosperity and greatness.

Together we shall establish social justice and ensure for every man a fair remuneration for his labour.

We shall show the world what the black man can do when working in liberty, and we shall make the Congo the pride of Africa.

We shall see to it that the lands of our native country truly benefit its children.

We shall revise all the old laws and make them into new ones that will be just and noble.

We shall stop the persecution of free thought. We shall see to it that all citizens enjoy to the fullest extent the basic freedoms provided for by the Declaration of Human Rights.

We shall eradicate all discrimination, whatever its origin, and we shall ensure for everyone a station in life befitting his human dignity and worthy of his labour and his loyalty to the country.

We shall institute in the country a peace resting not on guns and bayonets but on concord and goodwill.

And in all this, my dear compatriots, we can rely not only on our own enormous forces and immense wealth, but also on the assistance of the numerous foreign states, whose cooperation we shall accept when it is not aimed at imposing upon us an alien policy, but is given in a spirit of friendship.

Even Belgium, which has finally learned the lesson of history and need no longer try to oppose our independence, is prepared to give us its aid and friendship; for that end an agreement has just been signed between our two equal and independent countries. I am sure that this cooperation will benefit both countries. For our part, we shall, while remaining vigilant, try to observe the engagements we have freely made.

Thus, both in the internal and the external spheres, the new Congo being created by my government will be rich, free and prosperous. But to attain our goal without delay, I ask all of you, legislators and citizens of the Congo, to give us all the help you can.

I ask you all to sink your tribal quarrels: they weaken us and may cause us to be despised abroad.

I ask you all not to shrink from any sacrifice for the sake of ensuring the success of our grand undertaking.

Finally, I ask you unconditionally to respect the life and property of fellow-citizens and foreigners who have settled in our country; if the conduct of these foreigners leaves much to be desired, our Justice will promptly expel them from the territory of the republic; if, on the contrary, their conduct is good, they must be left in peace, for they, too, are working for our country’s prosperity.

The Congo’s independence is a decisive step towards the liberation of the whole African continent.

Our government, a government of national and popular unity, will serve its country.

I call on all Congolese citizens, men, women and children, to set themselves resolutely to the task of creating a national economy and ensuring our economic independence.

Eternal glory to the fighters for national liberation!

Long live independence and African unity!

Long live the independent and sovereign Congo!  

A letter from prison

Almost immediately after independence, the Congo plunged into crisis sparked by an army revolt, a secessionist movement in mineral-rich Katanga province and the intervention of Belgian troops. In the ensuing political disorder, Patrice Lumumba was detained in Thysville prison, where he wrote the following letter to his wife reaffirming his commitment to Congolese independence and dignity.

My dear wife,

I am writing these words to you, not knowing whether they will ever reach you, or whether I shall be alive when you read them.

Throughout my struggle for the independence of our country I have never doubted the victory of our sacred cause, to which I and my comrades have dedicated all our lives.

But the only thing which we wanted for our country is the right to a worthy life, to dignity without pretence, to independence without restrictions.

This was never the desire of the Belgian colonialists and their Western allies, who received, direct or indirect, open or concealed, support from some highly placed officials of the United Nations, the body upon which we placed all our hope when we appealed to it for help.

They seduced some of our compatriots, bought others and did everything to distort the truth and smear our independence.

What I can say is this – alive or dead, free or in jail – it is not a question of me personally.

The main thing is the Congo, our unhappy people, whose independence is being trampled upon.

That is why they have shut us away in prison and why they keep us far away from the people. But my faith remains indestructible.

I know and feel deep in my heart that sooner or later my people will rid themselves of their internal and external enemies, that they will rise up as one in order to say 'No' to colonialism, to brazen, dying colonialism, in order to win their dignity in a clean land.

We are not alone. Africa, Asia, the free peoples and the peoples fighting for their freedom in all corners of the world will always be side by side with the millions of Congolese who will not give up the struggle while there is even one colonialist or colonialist mercenary in our country.

To my sons, whom I am leaving and whom, perhaps, I shall not see again, I want to say that the future of the Congo is splendid and that I expect from them, as from every Congolese, the fulfilment of the sacred task of restoring our independence and our sovereignty.

Without dignity there is no freedom, without justice there is no dignity and without independence there are no free men.

Cruelty, insults and torture can never force me to ask for mercy, because I prefer to die with head high, with indestructible faith and profound belief in the destiny of our country than to live in humility and renounce the principles which are sacred to me.

The day will come when history will speak. But it will not be the history which will be taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or the United Nations.

It will be the history which will be taught in the countries which have won freedom from colonialism and its puppets.

Africa will write its own history and in both north and south it will be a history of glory and dignity.

Do not weep for me. I know that my tormented country will be able to defend its freedom and its independence.

Long live the Congo!

Long live Africa!   

Source: Patrice Lumumba: The Truth about a Monstrous Crime of the Colonialists, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961. Transcribed by Thomas Schmidt.

*Third World Resurgence No. 351, 2022, pp 62-65
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