The Congo Crisis (1960-1966)

The pace of independence would continue to cause controversies in the Congo for years to come; with multiple coup’s and power shifting wildly from one side to another. While this is not abnormal to happen after a major change like independence, president Kasavubu was really interested in calming the situation. He would choose to dismiss Lumumba (1960), hoping that his removal might allow more stability. Lumumba chose to fight his removal instead of going quietly, and claimed that it was President Kasavubu that should be dismissed instead. The Congo Parliament made the bold choice of supporting Lumumba over Kasavubu in this fight for power, which left the country extremely divided.

Since the US and Belgium were extremely interested in removing the Soviet involvement in the Congo, they backed a plot by Lumumba’s personal aide Joseph Mobutu to put his boss on house arrest. Mobutu used the military pay controversy as a justification for this move and got help from the military to arrest Lumumba. He would put the Lumumba on trial for inciting rebellion

and a few other crimes of the state, which he was found guilty of. The Soviets would try to get the UN to intervene in this trial, which they thought was politically motivated, but they were outvoted by the other members of the UN. Lumumba would be treated horribly in prison by the military guards who watched him, being beaten and forced to eat copies of his own speeches while the media watched. While all this was happening Mobutu made moves to consolidate his power in the country by suspending the constitution and removing the members of parliament.

As Mobutu started to gain power in the country it was clear he was going to have to get rid of Lumumba in order to make sure that he couldn’t be used by his enemies against him so he had Lumumba driven out to a private spot and killed by a firing squad. The official story of the government was that he tried to escape from prison but that story was clearly wrong since they took the step of getting rid of the body. His body was dissolved in acid, but a few of them kept his teeth and the bullets as evidence. It wasn’t until 2002 that the Belgians finally admitted that they pushed Mobutu to assassinate Lumumba with the help of the US. There was a good deal of blowback from this murder though since it started riots in cities all over Europe. This reaction was due to the fact that Lumumba was such a popular leader in the pan-African movement. Many leaders would speak out around the world including Che Guevara (the pro-communist rebel leader of Cuba) who claimed that we should all learn from him and the American Civil Rights leader Malcolm X who called him “The greatest black man to ever walk the African continent.”

The UN would authorize the use of force in the Congo to make sure that it didn’t turn into a civil war, and demanded that all Belgian troops leave the country. The UN didn’t really help the situation and a bloody war would start in part because the people didn’t want European help. The UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld went to the Congo to negotiate a ceasefire, but his plane crashed. So the foreign troops would stay in the country causing problems.

A major spike in violence started when a new rebel group called Simba started executing government officials (1964). The problem, aside from the violence itself, was that this group didn’t have strong leadership, so the rebels lacked specific unified goals and they came across as out of control. This led the government to bringing back European mercenaries to help pacify the fighting, which worked and the fighting dwindled quickly. The last of the rebels took hostages to try to keep themselves alive, which caused the US and Belgium to send in their troops and kill these rebels. The fact that the US got involved in this would cause some leaders to question them, specifically Che Guevara who claimed the US had no right to invade other countries for their own reasons. Guevara was so upset that he went to the Congo to help start a new rebellion, but never really got the support (in terms of supplies) he needed to pull it off. He thought the young leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila was a genuine great leader, but that he focused too much on gambling and women to be effective.

Through this entire episode Mobutu would basically be running the country but Kasavubu was still technically the president, but this would change when the CIA helped Mobutu take the country. The US felt he was a better ally and that he had the ability to stop the fighting. More than that, they were really interested in the growing spread of communism in the country.  Mobutu changed the name of the country to Zaire, and quickly turned into one of the most corrupt leaders in African history. He would become a billionaire based on his corrupt regime.