Shedding light on Belgium's heart of darkness

By Ian Black, Friday 27 April 2001

The colonial past of Belgium still haunts the country, says Ian Black, as the ghost of Patrice Lumumba returns once more

Not many Belgians can tell you much about the short life and times of Patrice Lumumba. But the 40-year-old mystery of who murdered Africa's most promising post-colonial leader came back to haunt them this week—and shows no signs of going away.

On a rainy morning, police and court officials raided the homes of a former high-ranking army officer and royal aide and an ex-chief of security from Zaire, the giant central African country that used to be the Belgian Congo.

Suitcases of documents and a computer were deposited with a special parliamentary commission that began investigating the killing of Lumumba exactly a year ago.

Its findings, which are due out in the autumn, are likely to cause deep embarrassment. But at least they will finally set the record straight.

Belgium has a long and dark history in Africa. Earlier this month, four Rwandans, including two nuns, went on trial in the Brussels Palais de Justice for their part in the 1994 genocide.

That case is an uncomfortable reminder of how the hasty withdrawal of Belgium's UN troop contingent paved the way for an orgy of ethnic slaughter in a region where Belgium has played a key role since King Leopold II sought his place in the colonial sun.

But the Lumumba affair goes back much further, to the dangerous days of 1960 when the Congo, the size of western Europe, finally won its freedom after 80 rapacious years of Belgian rule—serving as the model for Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness.

The commission of enquiry was set up after the publication of a book by Lugo De Witte, an Africa expert, which claimed that there was clear evidence of Belgian state responsibility for the murder.

Lumumba, a charismatic and highly articulate nationalist, was freed from prison when the Belgians scuttled out. He was just 36 when he became independent Congo's first prime minister.

But within a month, a bloody civil war erupted, provoked by the attempted secession of the copper-rich province of Katanga led by Moise Tshombe, who recruited Belgian, French and South African mercenaries to fight the elected government.

UN forces intervened but did little more than maintain the status quo. Lumumba was deposed and an unknown colonel called Joseph-Desire Mobutu took control of the country, which he renamed Zaire, and remained a faithful friend of the west until his own overthrow.

Locked in its long cold war struggle against the Soviet Union, the US saw the militant nationalist Lumumba as a communist sympathiser. CIA involvement in plans to kill him has been long established by senate hearings and declassified documents.

New evidence that emerged last year proved that President Dwight Eisenhower directly ordered his elimination.

Crucially however, de Witte's research showed that, by the time Lumumba was killed, Washington had little ability to operate on the ground in the Congo, and had given way to Brussels. 'Belgian officers had direct responsibility for his assassination, the author insisted.

De Witte's discoveries included a document signed by the then Belgian minister for Africa, Harold Aspremont Lynden, in October 1960, which stated baldly: The main objective to pursue, in the interests of the Congo, Katanga and Belgium, is clearly the final elimination of Lumumba.

On January 17 1961, Lumumba, under arrest by Mobutu's forces, was transferred to Katanga on a Sabena plane on the orders of Aspremont Lynden and Belgian foreign minister Pierre Wigny.

The Congolese leader was assaulted in the presence of Belgian officers and tortured in a villa guarded by Belgian troops before being shot, along with two companions, by an execution squad supervised by a Belgian captain.

In a macabre aftermath, his body was exhumed by a Belgian police commissioner and then dismembered and dissolved in acid.

In death, Lumumba became a powerful icon of the anti-colonial struggle. A university named after him was set up in Moscow and became a magnet for students from the Third World. Ronan Bennett's novel The Catastrophist, is based on his story. Last year, a highly-praised film of his life won plaudits at the Cannes Film Festival.

In his political testament, written shortly before his murder, the young Congolese reflected: One day, history will have its say, but it will not be the history they teach at the UN, in Washington, Paris or Brussels, but the history they teach in countries freed from colonialism and its puppets.

Africa will write its own history, and it will be one of glory and dignity.

Africa's history is still far from glorious, but now Belgians of a different generation are doing their best to establish the truth. A self-respecting nation should not fear the past and must have the courage to investigate possible errors, the commission's chairman, Geert Versnick, declared when work began last year.

Hearings were suspended in January after the assassination of Mobutu's successor, Laurent Kabila, with its troubling echoes of past violence. But this week's high-profile raids in Brussels were a clear signal that it is business as usual—and that there could be real embarrassment to come.

The former army officer whose documents were seized, a Colonel Weber, still works for Princess Lilian, widow of King Leopold III. Close attention will be paid to the witnesses who are scheduled to appear in open session before a final report is issued in October.

And it is widely expected that the Belgian state will then issue a solemn—if belated—official apology for its role in the killing of Patrice Lumumba. The Congolese leader was assaulted in the presence of Belgian officers and tortured in a villa guarded by Belgian troops before being shot, along with two companions, by an execution squad supervised by a Belgian captain.

In a macabre aftermath, his body was exhumed by a Belgian police commissioner and then dismembered and dissolved in acid.

In death, Lumumba became a powerful icon of the anti-colonial struggle. A university named after him was set up in Moscow and became a magnet for students from the Third World. Ronan Bennett's novel The Catastrophist, is based on his story. Last year, a highly-praised film of his life won plaudits at the Cannes Film Festival.

In his political testament, written shortly before his murder, the young Congolese reflected: One day, history will have its say, but it will not be the history they teach at the UN, in Washington, Paris or Brussels, but the history they teach in countries freed from colonialism and its puppets.

Africa will write its own history, and it will be one of glory and dignity.

Africa's history is still far from glorious, but now Belgians of a different generation are doing their best to establish the truth. A self-respecting nation should not fear the past and must have the courage to investigate possible errors, the commission's chairman, Geert Versnick, declared when work began last year.

Hearings were suspended in January after the assassination of Mobutu's successor, Laurent Kabila, with its troubling echoes of past violence. But this week's high-profile raids in Brussels were a clear signal that it is business as usual - and that there could be real embarrassment to come.

The former army officer whose documents were seized, a Colonel Weber, still works for Princess Lilian, widow of King Leopold III. Close attention will be paid to the witnesses who are scheduled to appear in open session before a final report is issued in October.

And it is widely expected that the Belgian state will then issue a solemn—if belated—official apology for its role in the killing of Patrice Lumumba.