Tag: Ludo de Witte

The Web of Media Lies : Repression of the Press when it serves a Narrative

On By Dr. Y.In Great Moments, Great PeopleLeave a comment
Sekou Toure, Cover Time Magazine, Feb. 16, 1959

The western media have been pouring vitriol against African leaders who stand for justice, and equality for their people. In recent years, the web of lies they have woven against the leaders of the AES has been quite thick. However, it is nothing new: we just have to travel down memory lane to the days of Sekou Touré of Guinea, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Amilcar Cabral of Cabo Verde and Guinea Bissau, Patrice Lumumba of Congo, Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivoire, and more recently John Magufuli of Tanzania, or Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, it is nothing new. In some countries, many of the independence leaders have seen their names and struggles erased from the history books, to be replaced by these lies.

In his book The Assassination of Lumumba, Ludo de Witte details on page 12,that in 1961, at the height of the Congolese crisis, the media of those days used the usual techniques:

The Assassination of Lumumba by Ludo De Witte

Faced with unconstitutional secessions which eroded the very foundations of the state, Lumumba’s government found itself forced to take measures against the press organs that openly sided with the coup leaders. The Belgian press took this as an opportunity to launch even harsher attacks on the Congolese government. From Leopoldville, Manu Ruys entitled an article: “Lumumba Restricts Press Freedom”. New blended imperceptibly into a call to arms againt the Congolese government: “Prime Minister Lumumba’s brutal condemnation of federalism [in fact secessions!] … We are in a police state where the future is no longer secure. “

Don’t these words sound familiar? Just a month ago, the German DW titled Sahel juntas are ‘crushing’ basic freedoms. In February, it was Humans Rights Watch which was saying that the Military Juntas continue their repression… Yet the same media are silent about the repression in other places with docile puppets. The examples are countless, and one thing is certain: History repeats itself! The question is… are we going to be awake or remain asleep while they lie about our leaders?

Mainstream Media does not Change over the Years : Lumumba’s Case

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Patrice Lumumba

The mainstream media’s portrayal of leaders who want true change has not changed over the years. The moment the leader wants to serve the will of its people, or change the country, or improve the conditions of his or her people, or even get a fair deal, he is treated the worse, called all sorts of name. In his days, once Patrice Lumumba gave his independence speech, and asked for the true freedom of the people of Congo, they pulled down the big guns, figuratively, and literally. Reading the headlines from then is like reading all the headlines today about the leaders of the AES Sahel, or countless others who fought for their people’s freedom. In his book “The Assassination of Lumumba,” Ludo de Witte, Verso (2001) detailed how the Belgian press dragged Lumumba. One example can be found on page 10.

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The press campaign against Lumumba’s government reached its most scurrilous in La Libre Belgique. An article on 19 July about Lumumba’s stay at Blair House, the official residence for foreign heads of state visiting the United States, reported: “At Blair House, an old lady looks after the guests. She is white. Let us hope nothing happens to her.” [as if Lumumba would stoop so low… I guess to these media, a Black man is a menace to a white lady… remember Emmett Till?] Marcel de Corte, a lecturer in moral philosophy, made a thinly veiled public appeal to end Lumumba’s life. In the 27 July editorial, he wrote: “Look at Lumumba. … He’s a barbarian. … Officers [Belgian officers on the Ndjili plain] cry with rage because a manly act from them would have delivered the planet from his bloody cheek.” Not without cause La Gauche commented on 4 March 1961: “The press probably did not treat Hitler with as much rage and virulence as they did Patrice Lumumba.”

The Only Remain of Lumumba Finally Returned, 61 years after His Assassination

On By Dr. Y.In Great Moments, Great People2 Comments

Patrice_Lumumba_official_portrait
Patrice Lumumba

In 2020, Patrice Lumumba’s Children asked the Belgian King Philip for their Father’s Remains in an open letter. Today, Lumumba‘s golden tooth has been returned to his family and country 61 years after his assassination. For the history, Patrice Lumumba was the prime minister of Congo in 1960, and was assassinated by a coalition led by Belgium, and the US in 1961. At the time of his assassination, it was decided that no trace would be left of his body; thus Belgian officer Gerard Soete and his team dug up and, with a saw dismembered the corpse of Lumumba and his comrades Joseph Okito and Maurice Mpolo, and dissolved them in sulfuric acid while the bones were ground and scattered. We know this from a documentary which aired in 2000 where Soete showed two teeth which he said had belonged to Lumumba. He had taken Lumumba’s teeth as souvenir.  In 2016, Ludo De Witte, author of the book “The assassination of Lumumba,” lodged a legal complaint against Soete’s daughter after she showed a gold tooth, which she said had belonged to Lumumba, during an interview with a newspaper. De Witte’s work has been essential in shattering the official Belgian government silence regarding the assassination of Lumumba.

I cannot imagine what Lumumba’s children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren and all children of mother Congo must feel… it is so painful! It is like the beginning of some closure for the family. Is what was done to Lumumba not considered a crime against humanity? Is returning Lumumba’s tooth supposed to be enough?

Below are some excerpts from the BBC article, “Patrice Lumumba: Why Belgium is returning a Congolese hero’s golden tooth.”

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DRC_Lumumba_Children_tooth returned 20220620
Lumumba’s Children during the return of his tooth in Belgium (Source: TheBusinessExecutive.net)

A gold-crowned tooth is all that remains of assassinated Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba.

Shot dead by a firing squad in 1961 with the tacit backing of former colonial power Belgium, his body was then buried in a shallow grave, dug up, transported 200 km (125 miles), interred again, exhumed and then hacked to pieces and finally dissolved in acid.

The Belgian police commissioner, Gerard Soete, who oversaw and participated in the destruction of the remains took the tooth, he later admitted.

He also talked about a second tooth and two of the corpse’s fingers, but these have not been found.

The tooth has now been returned to the family at a ceremony in Brussels.

Soete’s impulse to pocket the body parts echoed the behaviour of European colonial officials down the decades who took remains back home as macabre mementoes.

… For Lumumba’s daughter, Juliana, the question is whether the perpetrators were human. “What amount of hatred must you have to do that?” she asks.

“This is a reminder of what happened with the Nazis, taking pieces of people – and that’s a crime against humanity,” she told the BBC.

… Nevertheless, there seemed to be a personal element to the way Lumumba was vilified and pursued. The total destruction of the body, as well as a way to get rid of the evidence, seems like an effort to obliterate Lumumba from the memory. There would be no memorial, making it almost possible to deny that he existed at all. It was not enough just to bury him.

But he is still remembered.

… [Juliana Lumumba] recognises that her father “belongs to the country, because he died for Congo… and for his own values and convictions of the dignity of the African person“.

She acknowledges that the handing over of the tooth in Belgium and bringing it back to the Democratic Republic of Congo is symbolic “because what remains is not really enough. But he has to come back to his country where his blood was shed.”

The tooth will be taken around the vast country before being buried in the capital.

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Lumumba’s Children Ask Belgian King for their Father’s Remains

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Patrice_Lumumba_official_portrait
Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of Congo

Early this month, I shared with you that the Belgian King Expressed his ‘Deepest Regrets’ for Colonial Past in Congo, by sending a letter to the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)  Felix Tshisekedi on the day of the celebration of the DRC’s independence from Belgium. I told you that those were empty words, and that coincidentally, King Philippe had forgotten to include the period from 1908 to the independence of Congo, and the treacherous role played by Belgium in the assassination of the Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

Lumumba detained
Lumumba detained, a few days before his death

Now the children of Patrice Lumumba, led by his daughter Juliana Amato Lumumba, have asked the Belgian king to prove his good faith by sending back the remains of their father. These remains are parts that were taken, like Lumumba‘s teeth, from his body at the time of his murder. We know from a documentary which aired in 2000 that Belgian Police Commissioner, Gerard Soete, told AFP that he and acolytes had decapitated Lumumba’s body and those of two others, Joseph Okito and  Maurice Mpolo, and subsequently dissolved them in acid. In another documentary that same year, Soete showed two teeth which he said had belonged to Lumumba. He took Lumumba’s teeth as souvenir.  In 2016, Ludo De Witte, author of the book “The assassination of Lumumba,” lodged a legal complaint against Soete’s daughter after she showed a gold tooth, which she said had belonged to Lumumba, during an interview with a newspaper.

According to AFP, Juliana Lumumba’s letter was written and addressed to the Belgian monarch on June 30, which happens to be the 60th anniversary of the Independence of the Democratic Republic of Congo from Belgium.

“We, Lumumba’s children, call for the just return of the relics of Patrice Emery Lumumba to the land of his ancestors,” Juliana said in the letter.

In Juliana Lumumba’s letter, which she said was written on behalf of her “wider family”, she said that her father was a “hero without a grave”.

“The remains of Patrice Emery Lumumba are being used on the one hand as trophies by some of your fellow citizens, and on the other as funereal possessions sequestered by your kingdom’s judiciary.”