Operation Gladio: Patrice Lumumba
First known CIA assassination by written by Roxane Towner-Watkins; edited by Megan Towner
Gladio Operations in Africa
Patrice Lumumba was the Congo’s independence (from Belgium) leader and the Congo’s first prime minister. Patrice Lumumba was assassinated with two of his ministers, Joseph Okito and Maurice Mpolo. You can trace the assassination to OPERATION GLADIO by way of Belgium. As with any OPERATION GLADIO event, communism was blamed. This assassination and, in essence, coup shares the ‘hallmarks’ of OPERATION GLADIO from the perspective of the West dictating their mandated way of doing business, and if you don’t follow their ‘advice,’ they force a government to reach out to alternative sources of weapons or support as they are attacked. The attack is through financial (economy), political (barring their participation in global activities), and military (weapons) means to fight the ensuing ‘terror’ attacks of OPERATION GLADIO terror cells.
The history of the Congo is imperative to the story. Patrice Lumumba was the leader during the granting of ‘independence’ from Belgium, which officially occurred on June 30, 1960. At this point, it is important to note that the US was in the middle of a presidential election between Richard Nixon and JFK. Richard Nixon had spent eight years as President Dwight Eisenhower’s Vice President and oversaw the set up of OPERATION GLADIO throughout Europe.
King Leopold II had conquered Congo in the 1880’s and used it as his private property. He did not conquer it for the benefit of his countrymen but for himself. He enslaved an entire country for personal use. Leopold's Force Publique, his private army, terrorized locals to work as slaves to mine minerals in nearby areas, destroyed local social networks, and killed and abused locals indiscriminately. It was not until 1908 that it transferred as property (including the people) to Belgium as a colony. This was not of his own free will, but because an inquiry into the atrocities occurring, and was required. This is consistent with the British Round Table discussions during the late 1800’s where the Balfour, Rhodes, Rothschilds, and so on believed all of Africa to be slave labor markets for the UK and other European elites and not capable of running their own affairs. Patrice Lumumba begged to differ with these ideas, it would prove to be a mortal sin on his part.
Lumumba attended a very inspiring All-African Peoples’ Conference in Ghana in 1958. “A year after Ghana gained Independence from Britain under the presidency of Kwame Nkrumah the All African People Conference was held in the capital city Accra in December 1958. Nkrumah felt that Ghana independence would be meaningless if other African states are still colonised by the European powers. In April 1958, Nkrumah as the pioneer of the ideology of Pan-Africanism convened the Conference of All Independent African States (Libya, Ethiopia, Liberia, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan United Republic of Egypt and Ghana), which was followed by the historic A A P Conference.” They adopted a slogan at this meeting: “Hands off Africa.” It is interesting to note they used the Round Table’s own language of ‘pan-Africa.’ The Round Table had developed a New World Order of pan-America, pan-Europe (led by Germany), pan-British Empire, and pan-Asia led by Japan. The Round Table group was essentially fascists and would use fascist tactics to achieve their goals; I would argue it is currently still going on.
All African People Conference is held in Accra, Ghana | South African History Online
It is important to note that, above all, Lumumba was a nationalist and not a communist. He loved Congo and wanted his fellow countrymen to be free from colonial rule. Some will say, well, Belgium had already granted Congo their freedom, but that is a lie. During Belgium’s independence declaration King Baudouin said, “Don’t compromise the future with hasty reforms, and don’t replace the structures that Belgium hands over to you until you are sure you can do better. Don’t be afraid to come to us. We will remain by your side and give you advice.” In other words, you are free in name only. More importantly, Belgium did not relinquish control of the nation’s source of wealth: the minerals. Belgium refused the new Congo leaders access to their own country’s resources.
This statement infuriated Lumumba and in response gave a damning speech saying “humiliating slavery, which was imposed upon us by force.” As one might imagine, this insubordination was not well received in Europe. Belgium would find their token Congo leader in Lumumba’s political rival and president Joseph Kasavubu. It took only three months for trouble to occur. Belgium’s military had refused to leave the country and remained in the officer corps of the Congo military. The Congo soldiers mutinied. Significantly, the Belgium military refused to leave mineral-rich Katanga and South Kasai. They rebelled against the ‘independent’ government and even announced they were seceding from the country of Congo, creating a completely different country to remain under Belgium control with the backing of Belgian troops sent to protect their interests.
Lumumba as the Prime Minister would call on the UN for help. They wanted a resolution and peacekeepers. The UN passed a resolution demanding Belgium withdraw its troops. UN peacekeepers were sent to Congo to “use force in the last resort” to secure the country’s original territory and resources. Belgium refused to leave. UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld failed to provide the Congolese government with forces as demanded by Lumumba and sanctioned by the Security Council. In view of this situation of displeasing the elites, it is important to mention OPERATION GLADIO’s efforts to keep the elites in charge by mentioning UN Secretary General Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash while on his way to negotiations during the crisis in the Congo. Coincidence?
Meanwhile, Congo was in a war against Belgium, who supposedly had freed them as a colony. As a result, Lumumba received no help from any country in the West nor the United Nations. As a last resort, he called on the Soviet Union who sent weapons and “technical advisors,” which naturally would be used against him with the United States. This scenario is repeated in every instance from the invasion of the West into Korea, Vietnam, and so on. It was not that any of those countries loved or even wanted communism, their government was forced to turn to the USSR in response to aggression by the West or simply submit to being a colony of the West. It is really that simple. Unfortunately, this plays out repeatedly.
Why wouldn’t the ‘freedom loving’ America help Congo? Well, Congo had a precious mineral called uranium. President Eisenhower gave the CIA Station Chief in Congo approval to poison Lumumba. The chosen method was toothpaste that had poison added to it, but the CIA was unable to carry out that particular method of assassination. Meanwhile, Congo’s President, who was not opposed to the West and their demands, fires Lumumba as the Prime Minister after receiving a cable/telegram from Belgian Prime Minister Gaston Eyskens. Lumumba hears about the cable and demands President Kasavubu be deposed under oath for questioning. This results in Army Chief Colonel Mobutu Sese Seko arresting Lumumba. Lumumba and his wife and child manages to escape and heads to a friendly area of Congo. He is captured and the UN ignores all attempts for assistance. He is imprisoned without charges. The Belgium government is calling the shots at this point.
Lumumba and his two former ministers were flown to Katanga, the area Belgium had declared was no longer part of Congo; during the flight the torture/beating was so violent that the pilot warned it was threatening the flight. He was delivered to Katangese police/military under Belgium control. He was taken to a wealthy Belgian’s villa. It must also be noted that this was not the first time the Belgium government had unjustly imprisoned Lumumba. Prior to the granting of ‘freedom,’ Lumumba was imprisoned and was released to participate in a meeting in Belgium discussing the upcoming ‘freedom.’
Only this time, it would be the last time. Lumumba fought to free his country, initially, from a king that enslaved the nation to extract its own wealth to personally enrich himself and then from a nation, who despite granting Congo its ‘freedom,’ continued to monopolize Congo’s resources for their own benefit and not Congo itself. In order to understand what he was fighting against, a missionary in 1904 recorded a father looking at his daughter’s hand and foot being cut off, because he failed to harvest the correct amount of rubber for the king. Now, Lumumba would paid the ultimate price in an equally gruesome manner.
Initially, Lumumba was executed by way of a firing squad. The execution was commanded by Belgian Captain Julien Gat and Belgian Police Commissioner Frans Verschurre. However, that was not the end of it. A Belgian police officer was ordered to exhume the hastily buried body of Lumumba, hack it into pieces and dissolve it into acid because Belgium and the others involved in the execution did not want a body to avoid having a martyr. The officer kept a gold capped tooth as his trophy. Lumumba’s children were never told what happened to their father. It was not until 2020 that the tooth was returned to the family.
Shortly after Lumumba’s assassination, Army Chief Colonel Mobutu Sese Seko, the one that arrested Lumumba for his Western partners, seized power in a coup d'état. Mobutu renamed the Congo as the republic of Zaire. Changing names of things is a favorite of fascists. However, in 1997, Mobutu was overthrown by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who declared himself president and renamed Zaïre as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He would get assassinated in 2001, because the same Western string pullers that funded and supported his coup were controlling his every move. He attempts to evade their control by ordering foreign troops from the country following the Kasika massacre to prevent his coup, which leads to another war. His former Rwandan and Ugandan allies began the same process that brought him to power by funding and arming rebel groups to coup him. Meanwhile, all the Western countries are harvesting all the resources. That is how all of this works. Generate chaos to maintain control. They simply do not care how many dead bodies this process creates, because they do not view these people as equals. Union Miniere (now Umicore) harvest minerals and diamonds and live happily ever after.
Of note, Allen Dulles had approved an assassination plot against Fidel Castro around this same time and set up ZRRIFLE, the CIA’s assassination program. CIA Station Chief Larry Devlin hired Mobutu, the one that arrested Lumumba, on his payroll a week before Lumumba was fired by the President and after Mobutu makes it clear with anti-Lumumba, anti-Soviet rhetoric that he is available. After hiring Mobutu, Devlin discusses with him “the beginning of the plan for Mobutu to take over the government.” He waited six days—until the eve of the coup—before filing a report with CIA leadership. Since his preferred course of action ran counter to the US policy of pursuing a “semi-constitutional” solution, it is not surprising that his cable was vague about his and Mobutu’s intentions. This is important because it allows for plausible deniability. It is also important to note they were within days of a new administration they already knew would not be amiable to this type of operation. The rendering of Lumumba to an area of Congo, that were considered separarists and under Belgium control, would prove to be a preferred method of assassination for the CIA in the future.
Unsurprisingly, you find Ambassador Wilton Blancke in Congo placed there by President Eisenhower. He served in Hanoi North Vietnam during the set up of the operation in Vietnam that would include massive psychological operations in the North, generating a million Vietnamese relocated to the south that would be later used as an ‘invasion’ ploy to justify the reign of terror in South Vietnam, known as the Phoenix program. He would then move over to Laos, where the CIA set up their poppy, heroin production program. He then arrives in Congo just in time to oversee the Lumumba operation.
The bottomline: The CIA used COMMUNISM to turn anything and everything into a target even when there was zero threat from communism. It created the pretense or predicate. The same is true today with RUSSIAN, TERRORISM, and so on. The labels are a conditioning or psychological framework to open doors for covert activity for the #InternationalSyndicate.