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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 12:50 PM
Original message
Patrice Lumumba: the most important assassination of the 20th century
Lumumba and US "friends" in Africa

"A half-century later, we should surely look back on the death of Lumumba with shame, for we helped install the men who deposed and killed him. In the scholarly journal Intelligence and National Security, Stephen R. Weissman, a former staff director of the House Subcommittee on Africa, recently pointed out that Lumumba’s violent end foreshadowed today’s American practice of “extraordinary rendition.” The Congolese politicians who planned Lumumba’s murder checked all their major moves with their Belgian and American backers, and the local C.I.A. station chief made no objection when they told him they were going to turn Lumumba over — render him, in today’s parlance — to the breakaway government of Katanga, which, everyone knew, could be counted on to kill him. Still more fateful was what was to come. Four years later, one of Lumumba’s captors, an army officer named Joseph Mobutu, again with enthusiastic American support, staged a coup and began a disastrous, 32-year dictatorship. Just as geopolitics and a thirst for oil have today brought us unsavory allies like Saudi Arabia, so the cold war and a similar lust for natural resources did then. Mobutu was showered with more than $1 billion in American aid and enthusiastically welcomed to the White House by a succession of presidents; George H. W. Bush called him “one of our most valued friends.” This valued friend bled his country dry, amassed a fortune estimated at $4 billion, jetted the world by rented Concorde and bought himself an array of grand villas in Europe and multiple palaces and a yacht at home. He let public services shrivel to nothing and roads and railways be swallowed by the rain forest. By 1997, when he was overthrown and died, his country was in a state of wreckage from which it has not yet recovered."


http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/01/lumumba-and-us-friends-in-africa.html



French News had a segment about this today. A Belgian man was explaining how they (the speaker was one of the people who did this) sawed Lumumba's body in small pieces and threw them into a 200 liter vat full of acid to destroy all traces of him.


Patrice Lumumba: the most important assassination of the 20th century

The US-sponsored plot to kill Patrice Lumumba, the hero of Congolese independence, took place 50 years ago today



Patrice Lumumba became the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1960, and was killed in 1961. Photograph: EPA


Patrice Lumumba, the first legally elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was assassinated 50 years ago today, on 17 January, 1961. This heinous crime was a culmination of two inter-related assassination plots by American and Belgian governments, which used Congolese accomplices and a Belgian execution squad to carry out the deed.

Ludo De Witte, the Belgian author of the best book on this crime, qualifies it as "the most important assassination of the 20th century". The assassination's historical importance lies in a multitude of factors, the most pertinent being the global context in which it took place, its impact on Congolese politics since then and Lumumba's overall legacy as a nationalist leader.

For 126 years, the US and Belgium have played key roles in shaping Congo's destiny. In April 1884, seven months before the Berlin Congress, the US became the first country in the world to recognise the claims of King Leopold II of the Belgians to the territories of the Congo Basin.

When the atrocities related to brutal economic exploitation in Leopold's Congo Free State resulted in millions of fatalities, the US joined other world powers to force Belgium to take over the country as a regular colony. And it was during the colonial period that the US acquired a strategic stake in the enormous natural wealth of the Congo, following its use of the uranium from Congolese mines to manufacture the first atomic weapons, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.

With the outbreak of the cold war, it was inevitable that the US and its western allies would not be prepared to let Africans have effective control over strategic raw materials, lest these fall in the hands of their enemies in the Soviet camp. It is in this regard that Patrice Lumumba's determination to achieve genuine independence and to have full control over Congo's resources in order to utilise them to improve the living conditions of our people was perceived as a threat to western interests. To fight him, the US and Belgium used all the tools and resources at their disposal, including the United Nations secretariat, under Dag Hammarskjöld and Ralph Bunche, to buy the support of Lumumba's Congolese rivals , and hired killers.

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jan/17/patrice-lumumba-50th-anniversary-assassination



War-crimes charges to be filed 50 years after Lumumba's assassination

By Slobodan Lekic (CP) – 1 hour ago

BRUSSELS — Activists plan to file a civil suit alleging war crimes by a dozen former Belgian officials they say participated in the assassination of Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba 50 years ago, a Brussels lawyer who heads the legal team said Monday.

...

The killing made Lumumba an anti-colonial martyr and a liberation symbol to many Africans and Asians. It inspired revolutionaries from South Africa and Cuba to Vietnam and Algeria.

"We want the case against the officials implicated in the murder to be airtight," said historian Ludo De Witte, who blamed the Belgian government for the killing in a 1999 book and is part of the group of activists.

A Belgian parliamentary probe determined in 2002 that the government was "morally responsible" for Lumumba's death. Brussels officially apologized for its role in his death but refused to pay compensation to his family or to prosecute those involved.

A U.S. Senate committee found in 1975 that the U.S. administration had also hatched a separate plan to kill the Congolese leader because Washington viewed the leftist leader as a potential threat.

Congo's production of weapons-grade uranium vastly raised the stakes for the United States, which had used Congolese uranium to build the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945.

...

The Belgian army captain who commanded the firing squad, was given a new name and secretly transferred to the Belgian brigade in West Germany to avoid public exposure.

Lumumba was hastily buried after the execution. But Belgian policemen later dug up the corpse, dissolved it in acid and crushed the remaining bones to avoid turning the grave into a pilgrimage site.



Must watch movie: The Assassination of Patrice Lumumba

The Congo today







I am profoundly ashamed.
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Tierra_y_Libertad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 12:58 PM
Response to Original message
1. But..but..America is a peace loving country that supports democracy and human rights.
Unless it's inconvenient or interferes with cash flow.
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:05 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. The sham is thankfully falling apart.
I have hope that most Americans are decent people who, when made aware of what's done in their name, will wake up to that sham and put an end to it.
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hughee99 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:04 PM
Response to Original message
2. I'm not sure it was the MOST important of the 20th century, but
it's certainly a good case for the top 2 or 3 most important.
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:08 PM
Response to Reply #2
6. Which other assassinations would you put at the top?
Even though I have personal heroes, like Che, after reflection, I agreed with the author.

I hadn't given any thought to this question until today. Who else would you add?
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hughee99 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:10 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. Archduke Franz Ferdinand. n/t
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WinkyDink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:16 PM
Response to Reply #8
14. Not to mention the Romanovs.
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hughee99 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:19 PM
Response to Reply #14
18. I hadn't given it too much thought as to the others,
but Franz Ferdinand's assassination seemed to jump out immediately. Without his death, WWI may not happen and without that, the Romanov family may have remained in power.
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GSLevel9 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 04:00 PM
Response to Reply #18
47. good "what if"....
if reds had never defeated the whites... and Russia evolved into another European Democracy by the mid 20th century.

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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:35 PM
Response to Reply #14
29. Hardly. It was overkill, but they were already deposed, no?
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:21 PM
Response to Reply #8
19. Very important but in a different way, imo
That was, imo, jostling for imperial power because but I agree about it being one of the most important assassinations.

I think the difference between his assassination and Lumumba's is that World War I was in the making long before he was assassinated and the Austro-Hungarian government seized the assassination as an excuse to impose its authority over the region.
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GSLevel9 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:23 PM
Response to Reply #6
21. I've never understood the tears shed for Guevara...
He was a soldier... he fought, he died. People need to get over it. Live by the sword, die by the sword, right?
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:34 PM
Response to Reply #21
28. Soldier, doctor, diplomat, social theorist.
A lot of different people mourn Guevara for different reasons. He was not only a soldier, no.
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GSLevel9 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:13 PM
Response to Reply #2
12. yeah, far from #1
Edited on Mon Jan-17-11 01:14 PM by GSLevel9
Let's get real:


20th Century Assassinations

US President McKinley - 1901
King George I of Greece - 1913
Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand - 1914
Ghandi - 1948
US President John F. Kennedy - 1963
Malcom X - 1965
Martin Luther King Jr. - 1968
Robert F. Kennedy - 1968
Anwar Sadat - 1981
Yitzhak Rabin - 1995


I don't think Lumumba makes the top 10??
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:25 PM
Response to Reply #12
22. Franz Ferdinand is the only one I'd agree with
as much as I revere many of the others. With the exception of Malcolm X and Dr King' (nascently so), none of those were out to fight this horrible monster of imperialism that's killed and exploited so many people on a global scale.

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chervilant Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 01:29 AM
Response to Reply #22
57. First
Edited on Tue Jan-18-11 01:32 AM by chervilant
and foremost, I deeply appreciate your post. And, many of the responses I've read reinforce my research-driven perception that a significant percentage of US citizens are ego- and ethnocentric.

Second, I strongly encourage all of us to acknowledge the horrible monster of disaster capitalism which has spread its hedonistic and deadly tentacles throughout the world. It is THIS hydra that we must destroy, before it destroys us--if we're not already too late.

That people can argue about your basic contention regarding Lumumba's assasination is quite telling. Do these unfortunates want to maintain the facade of a benevolent and democratic United States? I know that the truth is a bitter pill to swallow, but willful ignorance is far worse.
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 10:57 AM
Response to Reply #57
66. Thanks
As an expat who lived all over the world, I'm constantly shocked by that too. Our schools and media bend over backwards to format us that way.

The truth is very bitter to swallow.

I think there's room to believe someone else's assassination could have been more important but a list of mostly Americans makes me very sad at how far we have to go. I'm encouraged that the number of people who think as world citizens is growing.

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Retrograde Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 02:18 PM
Response to Reply #12
43. I think Lumumba's death hasn't gotten as much press as the others
Possibly because he was African. The list you propose is heavily slanted towards the West, not excluding Ghandi, who was educated in Britain and was heavily influenced by British colonial practices.

The Congo was big news in the late 50s, IIRC, and I remember hearing about Lumumba's assassination at the time, but it's hardly mentioned anymore. Had Lumumba not been overthrown and killed the Congo may have turned into a more stable country (hard to say how it could get much worse).
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chervilant Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 01:40 AM
Response to Reply #12
58. hmm...
"Let's get real"?

Did you google a list of 20th century assassinations, then cull those names that you personally feel should be in the top ten? Then, did you decide to post a snarky negation of the op's assertion? Or, was that your initial agenda?

Do you feel you've brought anything meaningful to this discussion? I mean, really?
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chervilant Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 01:52 AM
Response to Reply #2
59. Well,
from the vantage point of having just read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, I strongly encourage any curious, skeptical human being anywhere on this planet to consider how likely it is that Pappy Bush and his corporatist cronies were flexing their 'disaster capitalism' muscles to insure that only the 'right people' would have access to and control over such vital Congolese resources as cobalt, gold, diamonds, copper, uranium and coltan.

How much longer are we going to look away as the Corporate Megalomaniacs relentlessly impose their radical income inequity on the entire population of this planet?
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Cerridwen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:06 PM
Response to Original message
4. K & R
I just have no words to add at this point.

Sorry, Catherina. This isn't much of an addition to your work.

Well, I'm trying to post but DU's not coming up for me this second.

Ah, there it is.
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:09 PM
Response to Reply #4
7. I was having problems posting too.
Thanks C. I don't know much about Lumumba but now I want to know more.
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RufusTFirefly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:23 PM
Response to Reply #7
20. There's also an excellent biopic about Lumumba called "Lumumba"
Edited on Mon Jan-17-11 01:30 PM by RufusTFirefly


I saw it at a film festival more than 10 years ago. It was chilling to see Mobutu in Lumumba's inner circle, knowing what would eventually transpire.

Apparently the CIA hurried to have Lumumba assassinated while Eisenhower was still in office as they had their doubts as to whether the incoming President, John F. Kennedy, would approve such an action. That's why Lumumba was murdered 50 years ago today. A few days later and we would've had a new administration.

The film I saw at the festival and the copy I own are actually different. In the original film, a certain American official is mentioned by name during a scene when Lumumba's assassination is being planned. He threatened suit, and the distributor, Zeitgeist Video, removed the mention rather than face legal action that almost certainly would've jeopardized its very survival.
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:29 PM
Response to Reply #20
25. Thank you! I just came to post the following when I saw your post


...

Similar revelations have surfaced from the US side. Last year, the government released archive material related to the Kennedy assassination that included an interview with the White House minute-taker under the Eisenhower administration, Robert Johnson.

In a meeting held with security advisers in August 1960, two months after Congo achieved its formal independence from Belgium, Eisenhower ordered the CIA to “eliminate” Lumumba, according to Johnson’s account.

“There was a stunned silence for about 15 seconds and the meeting continued,” Johnson recalled.

The CIA’s director, Allen Dulles, referred to the Congolese leader as a “mad dog.”

Among the American agents on the ground in the Congo was a young CIA man working under diplomatic cover, Frank Carlucci, who tried to work his way into Lumumba’s confidence in the months before the murder. Carlucci went on to become national security advisor and defense secretary in the Reagan administration and is today the chairman of the Carlyle Group, the influential merchant bank that includes George Bush Sr. among its directors.

According to Larry Devlin, then the CIA station chief in Leopoldville (Kinshasa), the agency’s chief technical officer arrived in the African nation shortly after the “elimination” order from Eisenhower. With him he brought a tube of poisoned toothpaste that was to be placed in the Congolese leader’s bathroom. The improbable plot was dropped, however, in favor of a more direct method. Lumumba was delivered into the hands of his bitterest political enemy, Moises Tshombe, the secessionist leader of Katanga.

The assassination took place less than seven months after the Congo had declared its independence, with Lumumba as its first prime minister.

...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jan2002/lumu-j16.shtml
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BlueMTexpat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 09:33 AM
Response to Reply #20
61. Thank you for this post. nt
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:06 PM
Response to Original message
5. The Poisonwood Bible has the best recounting of this story
I've ever read.
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:10 PM
Response to Reply #5
9. Like I've said before, the things I learn from you
Thanks. I didn't even know she wrote such a book and will look for it.
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:12 PM
Response to Reply #9
11. It's a long, long way from Tucson and The Bean Trees.
Edited on Mon Jan-17-11 01:13 PM by EFerrari
:hi:
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Tierra_y_Libertad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:10 PM
Response to Reply #5
10. Terrific book.
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:17 PM
Response to Reply #10
16. Imo, it's one of the most brilliant novels of the 20th.
I always really liked Kingsolver's novels and was totally unprepared for the LEAP she took in that one. Like going out for a walk and ending up in orbit. lol
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Tierra_y_Libertad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:46 PM
Response to Reply #16
34. I read it aloud to my wife.
We've been doing that for 30 years. Well, I do the reading, she applauds.

Here's another author you might like.

http://www.amazon.com/Half-Yellow-Chimamanda-Ngozi-Adichie/dp/1400095204/ref=pd_sim_b_1
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:49 PM
Response to Reply #34
37. That looks interesting!
Thanks for the tip, I don't know this author.
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roody Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 10:45 PM
Response to Reply #16
51. La Lacuna, I think her latest, is very good and historical fiction also.
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 01:45 PM
Response to Reply #51
72. I've not been reading fiction at all but must read that.
:)
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scarletwoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 09:20 PM
Response to Reply #72
77. Oh yes, you really must read it!
I've read most of Kingsolver's novels except Animal, Vegetable, Mineral and Prodigal Summer.

The Lacuna is absolutely stunning! From the Bonus Army encampment in DC to the McCarthy Red Scare era, it's an amazing journey through U.S. politcal history, wrapped around heartbreakingly intimate portrayals of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Trotsky in exile. It's a breathtaking multi-layered feast.
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BlueMTexpat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 09:35 AM
Response to Reply #16
62. LOL - great minds! nt
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Scruffy1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 12:50 AM
Response to Reply #5
56. This book should be on everyones reading list.
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BlueMTexpat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 09:28 AM
Response to Reply #5
60. If the world were fair, that book would be considered
a 20th-century American classic - up there with the best. But likely because it dealt, in part, with this assassination and mentions other things that were happening in Africa at the time in an honest way (it also deals with religious fanaticism and "bringing God" to the so-called godless), it will never be (allowed to be) recognized as such. It's also very long and written in different "voices," so it is somewhat of a "technically" difficult book.
But it's well worth the effort.
It is also, as you say, a far cry from The Bean Trees, which I also love for different reasons.
Barbara Kingsolver is an extremely talented and multi-faceted writer.
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 01:43 PM
Response to Reply #60
71. You're probably right but, just as Beloved put the Middle Passage
back into our cultural history, TPB might be where this event enters the English canon.

Not too many pages in I thought, move over, Toni, you've company. One of those funny moments when a reader becomes a little conscious of mastery. Have to read it again now. :)
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BlueMTexpat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 03:00 PM
Response to Reply #71
73. Me too - enjoy! nt
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scarletwoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 09:28 PM
Response to Reply #5
80. It's very powerful. I knew who Lumumba was, I remembered the news when he was killed.
However, it was The Poisonwood Bible that really brought home what was really going on.
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WinkyDink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:15 PM
Response to Original message
13. Oh, but the US GOVT would NEVER enter into murderous conspiracies! Tin-foil! Tin-foil!
MIHOP.
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:33 PM
Response to Reply #13
27. Forgive me. I lost me head there for a minute. What on earth was I thinking?
:hi:
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villager Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:17 PM
Response to Original message
15. A busy spate of CIA backed-killings 'round then: Guevara, Lumumba, Diem... JFK,
Edited on Mon Jan-17-11 01:22 PM by villager
...setting the stage, as the articles note for what "our" politics (and that of the globe) has been ever since...

On edit: After doublechecking, I guess Guevara's killing came in that "second round" in the late 60's, which included RFK and, alas -- Happy Birthday, Sir -- Martin Luther King, as well...
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:46 PM
Response to Reply #15
35. All free men of the world must be prepared to avenge the crime of the Congo. -- Guevara.
He talked about the Congo in this UN address of 12/11/64. ( I can't believe I once lived in a world where Che Guevara addressed the UN.) It's prophetic in so many ways. He talks about imperialism and colonialism but also about the use of mercs, about nuclear disarmament and the MIC, rejects the "two Chinas" policy, anticipates the wages of the IMF. It's sort of amazing.



http://www.embacubalebanon.com/cheonu.html
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villager Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:56 PM
Response to Reply #35
40. Well, hell, no wonder he had to go. Like King getting around to leading a "poor people's march"
that had to be stopped.

And sadly, it was.
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 09:27 PM
Response to Reply #40
79. That was King's kiss of death. No way were they going to let him
wake American people up about poverty, its causes deeply rooted in capitalism and its solutions not rooted in capitalism.
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 09:25 PM
Response to Reply #35
78. The next year he went to the Congo to fight against the people who assassinated Lumumba
and try to spark a revolution against Mobutu's corrupt pro-Western puppet regime.

Thank you so much for this link. I'm listening to him speak now and getting chills. I was telling my mom how jealous I am of her, that she got to live through the Cuban revolution and others throughout the world. She was as excited over Tunisia as I was. Yeah mom!
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BlueMTexpat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 09:56 AM
Response to Reply #15
65. If they weren't considered "assassinations," here are some other
VERY nasty CIA-sponsored "coups" in the 1950s, which have had far-reaching and horrific consequences for the people in those countries.

Iran's Mossadeq: http://www.iranchamber.com/history/coup53/coup53p1.php http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

Guatemala's Guzman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

Laos (concurrently with Vietnam): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Laos

Installing Papa Doc in Haiti: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Haiti And now Baby Doc has returned.

No wonder Ike warned about the MI complex. He knew firsthand what was going on.

The list goes on into the 60s, 70s and beyond. Here's one very interesting timeline: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html

********
To our everlasting shame, no one has yet been held accountable.



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malaise Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:18 PM
Response to Original message
17. What a great post
Thank you
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:26 PM
Response to Reply #17
23. Thanks Malaise. That's quite a compliment coming from you. n/t
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malaise Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 02:02 PM
Response to Reply #23
41. My father had very deep feelings about that assassination
He was heartbroken.
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sabrina 1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:26 PM
Response to Original message
24. And there are people who question U.S. backing for the
coups in Venezuela and Honduras.

It's getting harder for the Empires of the world, the old British Empire wore itself out abusing people around the globe but it's still operating in league with the new Empire.

I hope those war criminals are charged even if they are dead. It should be a lesson to war criminals everywhere that no matter how much time passes, they will not escape justice. It's for the victims and their descendants.

I hope we stop lecturing the world on human rights now. There is just too much evidence that we do not have the moral authority to do that and apparently never did.

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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:30 PM
Response to Reply #24
26. +1 n/t
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felix_numinous Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:43 PM
Response to Reply #26
32. America needs to look in the mirror
and face all that has been done in our names.
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:49 PM
Response to Reply #32
36. Yes we do. I wish there was a way to force that.
With the advent of the internet, I think people are learning the truths they never learned in school and changing. This is why Glenn Beck rails against how Che's thoughts are influencing our kids today.
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hootinholler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:40 PM
Response to Reply #24
30. It's not clear to me that we are a new empire
:shrug:

Seems to be the same empire with a new face.

-Hoot
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:50 PM
Response to Reply #30
38. Which all comes back to capitalism imo.
If we don't change from a capitalistic system, nothing can change, no matter how good the intentions of the people we put in charge. The profit has to come from someone's tears.
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sabrina 1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 02:16 PM
Response to Reply #30
42. Mmm, could be. But that was the antithesis of what the FF
had in mind for this country. I don't know, I think we built our own Empire and the old Empires were only too pleased to offer their expert advice and continue to benefit from the raping and pillaging of the rest of the world.

I'm not sure how it happened that this country that started with such noble ideals and basically a blue-print on how to achieve them over the course of time, sank pretty quickly into becoming exactly what we claim to oppose.
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:42 PM
Response to Original message
31. Lumumba: I have to agree with you, also in terms of its consequences internationally.
Edited on Mon Jan-17-11 01:43 PM by JackRiddler
At the dawn of decolonialization, his assassination was a message that the imperialists were determined to stay in charge, and would wage war to do so, and would punish with death those leaders who did not conform to the neo-imperialist regime.

It's hard to think if the people of any former colony were simply allowed to go without first paying a horrific price with consequences to this day. The British stirred up the partition of India, killed who knows how many freedom fighters in Kenya, punished Egypt and Iran with war and coups. The French conducted genocidal wars in Algeria and Vietnam, and handed off the latter to the even worse US invasion. The death of Lumumba as an inspiring leader of international note and the establishment of a US-French-Belgian backed dictatorship in the Congo was a significant part of the international reaction and dis-spiriting of the Third World.
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:44 PM
Response to Reply #31
33. What you said Jack! Well said. n/t
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blindpig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 01:52 PM
Response to Original message
39. Colonialism under another name is still the same. n/t
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 02:19 PM
Response to Reply #39
44. Check this out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drlpkQTPr0Y

French resistance rap. Very big in Tunisia.
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blindpig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 03:47 PM
Response to Reply #44
45. Thank you

damn that was great, gonna spread it around.
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 03:54 PM
Response to Original message
46. Great OP !
Malcolm X spoke at length, and many times, about this. He also included information about Tsombe, the ammoral individual that Uncle Sam placed in power.
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 11:14 AM
Response to Reply #46
70. Do you have that handy? I'd like to read it and learn.
I can google it too but if you have it handy, that would be great. Thans H2OMan :hi:
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malaise Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 05:34 PM
Response to Original message
48. Have you seen this?
&cate_rss=General

<snip>
Legal activists say they will file a civil suit alleging war crimes by a dozen former Belgian officials they say participated in the assassination of Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba.

Lumumba, executed 50 years ago Monday, became prime minister when Belgium granted independence to Congo in 1960. But Brussels and Washington opposed him because he wanted to nationalize Congo's lucrative copper and uranium mines.

Christophe Marchand, the attorney who heads the legal team, said on Monday the suit was supposed to have been filed last year but was delayed due to volume of documents that needed to be studied.

A Belgian parliamentary probe determined in 2002 the government was "morally responsible" for Lumumba's death. But Brussels refused to pay compensation or to prosecute those involved.

Different justice indeed!!
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 11:12 AM
Response to Reply #48
69. How *colonial* of them.
When we examine the debt Europe and North America owe all the countries we plundered, it's staggering. No wonder no one wants to start paying up.
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htuttle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 05:40 PM
Response to Original message
49. Death and Taxes (a poem)
Edited on Mon Jan-17-11 05:41 PM by htuttle
The poet is a FB friend of mine, and I posted this poem on DU back in 2004 after I heard Tom read it at an anti-war rally. For a lot of people listening, it was the first time they'd heard some of these names.

DEATH AND TAXES

The assassinations have not ended.
Here are your tax dollars at work.

Crazy Horse 1877
Sitting Bull 1890
Geronimo 1909
Annie Mae Aquash 1978

The assassinations have not ended.
Here are your tax dollars at work.

Emiliano Zapata 1919
Cesar Sandino 1932
Salvador Allende 1973
Oscar Romero 1980

The assassinations have not ended.
Here are your tax dollars at work.

Patrice Lumumba 1960
Malcolm X 1965
Martin Luther King, Jr. 1968
Ken Saro Wiwa 1995

The assassinations have not ended!
Here are your tax dollars at work!


Tom Neale
http://www.madpoetry.org/previous/059fpoem.html
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 09:18 PM
Response to Reply #49
76. Great poem. I'm embarrassed to admit that I need to look up 3 people
I never heard of these three:

Annie Mae Aquash 1978

Cesar Sandino 1932

Ken Saro Wiwa 1995


Thanks. I appreciate the opportunity to learn about them.
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 08:42 PM
Response to Original message
50. Kicking because this should never be forgotten.
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leftstreet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 10:47 PM
Response to Original message
52. K&R
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Odin2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-17-11 10:52 PM
Response to Original message
53. K&R!
:grr:
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defendandprotect Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 12:17 AM
Response to Original message
54. Thank you -- back tomorrow to read -- !!
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Starry Messenger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 12:22 AM
Response to Original message
55. k & r
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Donald Ian Rankin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 09:37 AM
Response to Original message
63. Franz Ferdinand, JFK, Ghandi. N.T.
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 09:52 AM
Response to Original message
64. Kick & maybe people should honor Lumumba's memory rather than competing...
with a rhetorical device.

This isn't really a thread to debate which assassination was the most important.

It's to remind people of Lumumba.
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Blue_Tires Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 11:01 AM
Response to Original message
67. As a side issue, I'll never understand the people who have more rage
against Wikileaks than against the more shameful episodes of U.S. foreign policy...
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TBF Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 11:02 AM
Response to Original message
68. Highly recommended reading - thank you Catherina. nt
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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 03:35 PM
Response to Original message
74. Sorry I'm too late to recommend. Great thread!
:kick:
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BobbyBoring Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 08:27 PM
Response to Original message
75. Another example of American Exceptionalism
Makes me sick! It's just like we couldn't let those red skinned savages have all the great stuff in the new world. What were they doing with it anyway?

Our finger prints are at about every crime scene in the past century. If there's something to exploit, we'll clear the way.

It's kind of ironic though. Just a Baby Doc and his daddy sucked all the money from Haiti, a few greedy, corrupt, capitalist fucks have sucked all the money and resources out of our country. OH, WAIT!, That's the poor and the dirty 40 million illegal immigrants~
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-18-11 09:29 PM
Response to Reply #75
81. Welcome America to third world status. The monster we created
is devouring us all now.
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-19-11 02:31 PM
Response to Reply #81
82. next-day kick
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