„Like every other activity in the world, revolution always follows a tortuous road, never a straight one.“ (Mao Zedong)
This month marks the 95th anniversary of the birth of the leader of the National Independence struggle in the Congo, Patrice Lumumba. The revolutionary independence movement was against the dirty plans of the imperialists, the Belgian and US imperialists, to keep their control over Congo, which is why the imperialists planned the murder against him. In January 1961 Patrice Lumumba, the first Premier of the Republic of the Congo, Joseph Okito, President of the Senate, and Maurice Mopolo, Minister of Youth and Sports, were cruelly murdered by imperialism and its agents. That cowardly terrorist attack against the self-determination of the nations, against the wave of national liberation movements not only in Africa, but in the whole suppressed world, was strongly condemned by the oppressed people‘s in the world. The news of the murder of the Congolese national hero, has started waves of angry protests among the people of the world, against the attacks by the United States and Belgian imperialists and the US controlled United Nation forces. In Cairo, about 10.000 people demonstrated in front of the Belgian embassy and forced the U.N. offices in Cairo to lower the U.N. flag to shreds. Demonstrations have taken place in Conakry, Khartoum, Bamako, Lagos, Rabat, Zanzibar and Johannesburg, under the slogan „Imperialism get out of Africa!“. In Asia, Latin America, Soviet Union, mass protests were held to condemn the murder of Lumumba. Demands were raised for severe punishment of the murderers and principal plotters of the murder, against the imperialist aggression and intervention in the Congo and for the recognition and support of the legal Congolese Government. In then socialist China mass gatherings were held against the murder of Lumumba and to support the struggle against imperialism, more than 700.000 peoples went on the street only in the capital of the People‘s Republic. Here we want to publish a statement of the „Peking Review“ from 19th of February in 1961, which shows the interests and role of the imperialist plans with the attack against national liberation movements. It also underlines the imperialist role of the United Nations, which is especially today still a very important instrument for oppression in Africa. In the statement the former Premier Keita of the Mali Republic is quoted: „The Afro-Asian people and all who genuinely oppose imperialism should draw conclusions from this. The U.N. has become a tool of the big colonialist and imperialist powers for demonation. It has become, in their hands, an organization for the liquidation of staunch anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist leaders.“ The statement „New and Old Colonialists, Get Out of the Congo!“ is also an important expression of international support and solidarity between the suppressed and exploited, to stand shoulder to shoulder in the struggle against the main enemy of the people, US imperialism. The shameful murder of Lumumba was also condemned in a statement of Mao Zedong, who explains about the dirty plans of the imperialists, why they did the attack. He writes: „The United states has all along attempted to control the Congo. It has used the United Nation forces to perpetrate every kind of villainy there. It murdered the Congolese national hero Lumumba and subverted the lawful Congolese Government. It imposed the puppet Tshombe on the Congolese people and dispatched mercenary troops to suppress the Congolese national-liberation movement. And now, in league with Belgium and Britain, it is carrying out direct armed intervention in the Congo. The purpose of U.S. imperialism is not only to control the Congo, but also once again to enmesh the whole of Africa – particularly the newly independent African countries – this time in the toils of U.S. neo-colonialism.“ When the revolutionaries remind now about the life and murder of Lumumba, they also should keep in mind the teachings of the struggle, the cruel nature of imperialism and its lackeys and support the struggle for national independence and self-determination against imperialism.
For interested readers, we want to share also the last letter from Patrice Lumumba. The letter was written to his wife, just before his death in 17th of January in 1961.
“My beloved companion, I write you these words not knowing whether you will receive them, when you will receive them, and whether I will still be alive when you read them. Throughout my struggle for the independence of my country, I have never doubted for a single instant that the sacred cause to which my comrades and I have dedicated our entire lives would triumph in the end. But what we wanted for our country — its right to an honorable life, to perfect dignity, to independence with no restrictions — was never wanted by Belgian colonialism and its Western allies, who found direct and indirect, intentional and unintentional support among certain high officials of the United Nations, that body in which we placed all our trust when we called on it for help. They have corrupted some of our countrymen; they have bought others; they have done their part to distort the truth and defile our independence. What else can I say? ‘That whether dead or alive, free or in prison by order of the colonialists, it is not my person that is important. What is important is the Congo, our poor people whose independence has been turned into a cage, with people looking at us from outside the bars, sometimes with charitable compassion, sometimes with glee and delight. But my faith will remain unshakable. I know and feel in my very heart of hearts that sooner or later my people will rid themselves of all their enemies, foreign and domestic, that they will rise up as one to say no to the shame and degradation of colonialism and regain their dignity in the pure light of day. We are not alone. Africa, Asia, and the free and liberated peoples in every corner of the globe will ever remain at the side of the millions of Congolese who will not abandon the struggle until the day when there will be no more colonizers and no more of their mercenaries in our country. I want my children, whom I leave behind and perhaps will never see again, to be told that the future of the Congo is beautiful and that their country expects them, as it expects every Congolese, to fulfill the sacred task of rebuilding our independence, our sovereignty; for without justice there is no dignity and without independence there are no free men. Neither brutal assaults, nor cruel mistreatment, nor torture have ever led me to beg for mercy, for I prefer to die with my head held high, unshakable faith, and the greatest confidence in the destiny of my country rather than live in slavery and contempt for sacred principles. History will one day have its say; it will not be the history taught in the United Nations, Washington, Paris, or Brussels, however, but the history taught in the countries that have rid themselves of colonialism and its puppets. Africa will write its own history and both north and south of the Sahara it will be a history full of glory and dignity. Do not weep for me, my companion; I know that my country, now suffering so much, ‘will be able to defend its independence and its freedom. Long live the Congo! Long live Africa! Patrice”