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Ludo De Witte. The Assassination of Lumumba. Translated by Ann Wright and Renée Fenby. London: Verso, 2003. 187 pp. Map. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Chronology. Index. $27.00. Cloth. $15.00. Paper.
If you go to the United Nations Web site and search for Dag Hammarskjøld, you will find the customary laudatory biographical profile of the former secretary-general (www.un.org/Depts/dhl/dag/legacy). You will also find a quotation from the current head of the U.N., Kofi Annan, praising Hammarskjøld. This is ironic, given that Annan's predecessor played a role in the assassination of his fellow African, the democratically elected prime minister of Zaire, Patrice Lumumba. It may be that Annan is simply following protocol, or it may be that he has yet to read Ludo De Witte's The Assassination of Lumumba. This meticulously researched book relates how Hammarskj01d, in the interest of pro-West cold war politics, contributed to handing over Lumumba to his worst enemies, resulting in his imprisonment, torture, and brutal murder.
De Witte actually goes beyond the usual cold war explanation of Lumumba's murder. He sets out to show that Lumumba's fate was determined by Western powers, with the complicity of select Congolese elites, not just for blatant cold war interests, but more important, for the covert "colonial reconquest" of the vastly resource-rich region. The real powers-that-be were the corporations and industrial magnates. Although the United States (under both Eisenhower and Kennedy) and the United Nations conspired against Lumumba, De Witte lays the greatest blame on the Belgian government: "Belgians were pulling all the strings," he says in...