Decolonisation 

Despite the examples of recent African history, such as the Mau Maus. Colonialism had to go. Britain belatedly realised it and its post Mau Mau process was relatively peaceful. France, however, was reluctant to let its African colonies go. It was not alone.

Belgium and Portugal proved reluctant too. Belgium’s resulted in chaos, as it simply withdrew without a decolonisation process. Instead the Congo had a destabilisation process. No sooner had the country achieved independence than divisions rose to the surface. The President, Joseph Kasa-Vubu was conservative and favoured a federal republic. The Prime Minister, one of the outstanding leaders of Africa’s liberation struggles, Patrice Lumumba, was a nationalist, who favoured a centralised republic.

From Bad to Worse

Relations between the former colony and colonial power began badly on June 30th 1960 at independence. The Belgian King Baudoin I told the Congolese how benevolent and beneficial Belgian rule had been for them. This outraged the Congo’s young Prime Minister. Lumumba swiftly disabused the Belgians of such notions.

“We have witnessed atrocious sufferings of those condemned for their political opinions or religious beliefs, exiled in their own country, their fate truly worse than death itself”, Lumumba told Baudoin and the Belgian delegation. “Who will ever forget the massacres where so many of our brothers perished, the cells into which those who refused to submit to a regime of oppression and exploitation were thrown?”

And then there was the genocide – one of the worst in history – that Baudoin’s ancestor Leopold II had inflicted on the Congo. Colonialism had been anything but beneficial for the Congo, and it had sown the seeds for yet more misery. The die had been cast.

Destabilisation

And then there were the secessionists. Katanga was a mineral rich province, still ripe for exploitation, both economic and political. Led by Moïse Tshombe, Katanga, attempted to secede. Its ‘army’ largely consisting of Belgian mercenaries served a ‘movement’ fomented and utilised by Belgian colonialists and industrialists who feared the future and were keen to protect their interests and privileges.

This, combined, with the internal disputes within the government, created a toxic situation and it marked Lumumba for assassination. Then US President Dwight Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, among others, wanted a permanent solution to the ‘Lumumba problem’.

Exploited

The growing divisions between Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu provided the pretext needed. The government was ineffective. It had failed to resolve the secessionist problem and the disagreement in the government had rendered it ripe for an unscrupulous take-over. The conditions required to disguise a coup as being in the national interest had been carefully fomented.

On September 5th 1960 Kasa-Vubu announced that he had dismissed Lumumba. The Prime Minister refused to accept it and countered by informing the President that he had dismissed him. The situation degenerated further. On September 14th, with the tacit approval of the western governments, Joseph Désiré Mobutu turned on his mentor.

Lumumba was arrested and he was kept under house arrest until he was allowed to escape – the pretext to deny responsibility for his murder.

National Hero

Lumumba was betrayed into capture and murder by Mobutu, a man Lumumba had misread and promoted. Lumumba was murdered on the orders of secessionist leader Moïse Tshombe. Few tears were shed by the western powers for Lumumba then, yet from the chaos that followed, a brutal kleptocratic dictator seized power and inflicted over three decades of poverty and misery on his people.

Faced with an insurrection, led by long-term foe Laurent-Désiré Kabila, Mobutu eventually fled to Morocco. One of the most brutal and corrupt tyrants in African history died in exile in September 1997, a few months after he fled. Mobutu’s legacy of brutality and corruption cost the Democratic Republic of Congo dear. Kabila was killed by members of his Presidential Guard in 2001. He was succeeded by his son Joseph.

Never Recovered

The former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda once said that Africa never recovered from the February 1966 coup that overthrew Dr Kwame Nkrumah. There’s stiff competition in very dirty processes in many countries for events that Africa has not recovered from.

A decade of change – the 1960s – began with hopes that were soon dashed. Five years before the coup that toppled Nkrumah, the Father of Pan-Africanism, Lumumba was murdered.

In 1965 Mobutu seized power after a coup. This was his second coup. Five years earlier Mobutu, with the support of Belgium, Britain and the USA, led a coup that placed Lumumba under arrest. He was allowed to escape. In reality, he was delivered into the hands of Tshombe’s secessionist mercenaries to be killed.

]]> https://fittedin.org/fittedin/?feed=rss2&p=1342 0 https://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=1003 https://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=1003#comments Sun, 08 Mar 2015 00:00:57 +0000 http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=1003 Read more]]> by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (March 7^th 2015)

Consolidation

The defeat of the Kabaka (ruler of the Kingdom of Buganda) Mutesa II neutralised both him and also his party Kabaka Yekka. Defections from it to the Uganda Peopleʼs Congress ended Mutesaʼs influence and the relevance of his party at least for the time being. The Democratic Party also suffered defections. Uganda was on its way to becoming a one-party state, but Ugandan Prime Minister Milton Obote was still a long way from ultimate power, as divisions in the Uganda Peopleʼs Congress reappeared.

Obote still had some way to go to see off all the threats. His political astuteness had outmanoeuvred Mutesa II. The Democratic Party was no longer a threat to win elections, but dissenters in the ruling Uganda Peopleʼs Congress were the new threat, or rather they were an old threat emboldened to take on Obote. They were gifted an opportunity in early 1966 through the carelessness of Oboteʼs military protégé, a then Colonel Idi Amin.

An African Tyrant

The outstanding leader of the Congoʼs liberation struggle from Belgium Patrice Lumumba had been murdered on January 17^th 1961 after being delivered to Katangan secessionists by his former protégé Joseph Désiré Mobutu. Shorn of its gifted leader the Congo-Léopoldville as it then was soon descended into chaos, which was exploited by Mobutu to seize power through a coup dʼétat.

Mobutuʼs coup had the tacit support of the Western powers due to Cold War politics. That decision left the Congolese people suffering the tender mercies of the despot for three decades. Armed opposition included Pierre Mulele, Nicholas Olenga and future President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Laurent-Désiré Kabila.

Opposition to Mobutu was organised in Africa if that is the right word, as it was incredibly disorganised. Che Guevara despaired of the lack of organisation by Kabila. Nevertheless, African leaders, including Obote quickly saw the danger Mobutu posed and conspired with Congolese opposition to oust him forcibly. Aminʼs carelessness gave Oboteʼs opponents in the Uganda Peopleʼs Congress their chance.

No Confidence

Congo was rich in resources. It was soon plundered by both sides. Mobutuʼs corrupt and brutal kleptocracy all but ruined the country. Kabila, like other armed opponents trafficked ivory and gold – they had little choice to fund their struggle. Obote chose to support Olenga, but it soon backfired.

Amin deposited a gold bar stamped by the Congolese government into his personal account in 1966. It was brazen. The account was credited with $17,000. Oboteʼs opponents had their opportunity.

They discovered that Obote had used the Ugandan army, especially Colonel Amin to interfere in the crisis in the Congo. Amin claimed that the money had been used to purchase weapons from the Chinese for General Olenga, but Olenga said that he never received them. That enabled Oboteʼs opponents to accuse Amin and Obote among others of corruption, aided and abetted by Olengaʼs claims. Amin said the weapons had been bought, but were intercepted in Kenya.

Oboteʼs Coups

Oboteʼs opponents in the Uganda Peopleʼs Congress took advantage while he was away from Kampala. The vote of no confidence was near unanimous, but Obote outmanoeuvred the partyʼs General Secretary Grace Iginbira and her allies by staging a coup against his own government, arrested his party opponents and imposed a new constitution without debate or a vote. He concentrated powers in the Prime Ministerʼs Office and took away the autonomy of the regional kingdoms.

Faced with dissent in Buganda from the Kabaka, Obote sent in troops under Aminʼs command to subdue the opposition, which Amin did once Obote lost patience and demanded results. The Kabaka Mutesa II escaped and fled into exile. The Constitution, dividing Buganda into four districts, imposed martial law. Obote had outmanoeuvred his opponents – now he had to deliver without opponents to out-muscle or blame if things went wrong.