CIA hand seen in Patrice Lumumba death
PHOTO/FILE
Patrice Lumumba, taken in 1960. He was assassinated in January 1961.
On January 17, 1961, Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was executed.
His body was later sawed and doused in acid by Belgian police Commissioner Gerald Soete, to obliterate evidence in what has gone down as Africa’s “most important assassination of the 20th century.”
In 2000, Soete showed a Belgian TV crew Lumumba’s tooth that he kept as a memento.
Lumumba was murdered together with Joseph Okito, deputy president of the Congolese senate and Maurice Mpolo, Minister for Information.
In, The Assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Belgian sociologist Ludo de Witte, notes that the murders were carried out by Belgian security agents with the nod of the CIA, who had missed doing the same via less gruesome means.
The Eisenhower administration feared Lumumba’s open support of Communism would place the mineral rich country at the hands of their archrivals, the Soviets.
Lumumba, who despite his foresight and charisma, barely went past primary education, had to be stopped.
And as CIA director Allen Dulles wrote at the time: “…we conclude that his (Lumumba’s) removal must be an urgent and prime objective.”
