stuart reid is an executive

editor at foreign affairs foreign affairs magazine. he's written for many other notable publications, including the new york times, the washington post, politico and the atlantic amongst others. and he will be joining conversation by uzodinma iweala, who is ceo here at the africa center and also an acclaimed writer in his own right, actually, he is some of his works include the novel speak no evil and beasts of no nation, which is actually since been adapted into a movie starring idris elba that you can on netflix now. well, not now. you should watch this now and for the after.

but please help me welcome them to the stage. it was in stuart. morgan. all right. first of all, thank you much today. it's really good. see everybody here tonight. and i am so excited to be able to share the stage with you. stuart, we've got a lot to talk about. as they said, this is a phenomenal book and all of you, just so you know, i'm going to do this now, then i'll do it again. at the end of the talk, we copies for sale at the front. make sure you buy this book i'm support stuart the support writers get your autograph because be signing as well. it is a phenomenal book and it's a book that really does two things i think one it can textual lies is as cindy was saying the history of the congo and of the man by himself.

and at the same time also brings that particular period into the larger essence of what was happening across globe at the time. and i don't think we have enough stories that really contextualize african affairs in that way. and thank you to you for doing that. before we get into that, though, i to just welcome all of you here to the africa center, events like this. it really is wonderful to have your support supporting writers are writing about the continent of africa who are telling different stories about the continent of, africa. and we're really getting into who we are historically and who we are and where we're going. so with that said and we'll talk about socials and all that stuff where you can follow us later. but let me ask stewart the first question, which is can you give us just some context for the congo at time, the time of independence, pre-independence independence, and of course, the short run of the members. sure. thank you so much for having me. and for everyone for coming.

so congo became independent from belgium in june 1960 and it was a rush to independence that belgians agreed to only belatedly and did very little next to no preparation for. so lumumba was patrice lumumba, prime minister of congo. he had been a postal clerk in the colonial. he was arrested for embezzlement and after prison, remade as a beer promoter and then got involved in anti politics. and so he won the election to be in a parliamentary election before independence upon independence was prime minister and then everything sort of goes to hell in. a handbasket in congo very, very quickly. the army mutinies there was a all white officer corps, which

was a holdover from colonialism, all white, all belgian and black rank and file obviously was not too excited about that. so they rebelled against their officers, the belgian military, without congolese permission ostensibly to protect its citizens. but it looked to everyone like a recall this nation and, a province, mineral rich province of katanga. so within just days of independence, the country was falling apart. and that's when lumumba went to the united nations for help. so there were a lot of players in this in this narrative. there are a lot of players at this moment united nations, united states, belgium, other, you know, old powers. but before we get deeper into the story, let's talk a little bit about why this particular story and what you first and foremost to this student. i to congo in 2014 it was i was writing magazine article about something more present day

focused unrelated and i was taken with the country upon visiting it and then i started reading up its history. and the more i read, the more i realized there was this great untold story or at least had been untold to me. i barely knew anything about it. i hadn't been about the congo crisis as it was called, but it was front page news, the new york times every day in summer of 1960, basically it was the big cold crisis of the era. and so why had i not learned anything about it? why had i basically heard of this? and then the more i read, the more i realized there was also great characters at the heart of the story. lumumba himself of football above all else, but also mobutu, who would go on to rule the country for more 30 years. dog commercial the secretary-general of the u.n. so there were these sort of larger than life characters, and the story just felt like it was sitting there ready to be written and read and sent back to these characters back to the

moment. and so, you know, the mumbai you've told us a little about him, but actually tell us a little bit more who was this person? so he was a postal clerk and a tradesman. like what you describe him for us, he was very much milk curial. he was extremely charismatic. i mean, i think that was one thing. his bitterest foes and his closest allies all agreed on was that this man had a silver tongue and could really just have, you know, have the crowd wrapped around his finger and it wasn't a purely emotional appeal. also made you know convincing legal and logical arguments but he really could speak to people and campaign extremely. he was a great political organizer or to that his success. but you know as a man who also didn't really have a formal

right because at the time the belgians were not allowing congolese to actually go to school. yeah, he was an autodidact. he read furiously he joined a library to correspond courses in french. the belgian strategy was they had this phrase, no elites, no problems. and so the idea was, if you prevent a political class from by denying them educational opportunities, by denying them professional, then they won't start agitating for independence. the way that seemed to be happening, other colonies and that strategy i mean they were right until a point when there they were totally wrong and it blew up in their face right. and so he educated he's really a self-made man. and then he gets into politics. how is he so after he's arrested for embezzlement, he moves to the congo. he was in this city called stanleyville, now kisangani. he moves to the capital of

congo. leopold ville and remakes himself as a beer promoter, you know, going from bar to bar his brewery's beer over another brewery's beer. and in that environment, that's 1957, 1958, there started to be the first glimmers of independence in congo, which strikingly late compared to other colonies in africa and he co-founded a political party, the congolese national movement, he becomes friends with a journalist named joseph mobutu. and it's really in leopold ville in the very late fifties that he finally becomes sort of a political actor right. and now, in terms of the larger independence movement, both across continent, but then specifically in the congo can you speak a little bit about that and something you touch on in the book? yeah. so was striking was how late it

happened in congo and the reason for that is that the belgians had a very different colonial strategy from the french and the british the french and the british. and my theory about it is that because belgium was a second rate european power, it also had a sort of less colonial policy in a way. i mean, colonialism is inherent, repressive, unjust activity. but the way the belgians pursued it was the didn't allow opportunities. they had no proto. so in french africa, which became senegal, you had you had a legislature which had certain limited powers you had a representative from french west africa sitting in the national assembly in paris. you had none of sort of proto democratic infrastructure in congo. and so as a result when it became independent, there were fewer institutions for them to use and turn into own.

and so that's then led to a lot of the crisis that lumumba stepped into in for independence. yeah. and at a more practical level, after independence when there was a mutiny, there was this massive slate. belgians who were sort of running the country at technical level, all the air traffic know doctors, teachers sort of thing, because it was impossible to be any of those things and be congolese. they were all belgian and then they fled. and so that at a basic fundamental level, country just didn't work at that point. so there's really no political infrastructure. also very little hard infrastructure here at that time, right in book, you do a really good job of painting all of these different characters. it wasn't just the mumbai who was influential at the time. there were so other figures, both congolese from outside who were central characters in this whole story of essentially what made the congo of the moment and. how the congo today is affected

by that. can you tell us a little bit about some of these other folks who are in lumumba's orbit, in the political orbit, and also in the whole colonial apparatus? sure. so one obvious one is mobutu, who starts out as lumumba is errand boy. basically his private secretary. he's the junior partner in the relationship, sorts through his mail in, brussels, that sort of thing. and after the mutiny, lumumba makes a fateful decision to put mobutu charge of the army because he had, mobutu had served in the military, which would end up altering the course of congolese and world, arguably. and their relationship is this fascinating thing. i mean, it's this real betrayal because mobutu eventually turns on lumumba. spoiler alert just in case you didn't know and i mean another character that i wish i could have given more space was this woman named andre bloomer who maybe some people have heard of

maybe not. she was born in. french. equatorial, then raised in an orphanage in the french congo, across the river from the belgian congo, moved to guinea and became sort of political activist and, advisor to lumumba. eventually, in the congolese person in lumumba's permit mention is thomas kanza, his ambassador to the u.n. one of the there were fewer than 20 congolese university graduates in the entire world upon independence. that's because i we just need to pause on that. there were fewer than 20 graduates at that time. yeah. so you're talking about a set of people are trying to run a country without that that without you know having the university educations without sort of the knowledge of the political systems of congo because they were starting in this and of those 20 odd

university graduates, only two were in the government. and so that was a real deficit. i mean, the belgians basically only belatedly had this university open that allowed. and so we're talking about very few doctors that were congolese i think there was not a single congolese doctor. there was one congolese lawyer, and he slipped through the cracks because his father was italian. it was remarkable degree to which they really stand at all professional opportunities. so they were really working with very little at the time of independence. yes. so back to thomas kanza. so he he's a fascinating figure and wrote this wonderful memoir in the seventies he had studied at harvard he met eleanor roosevelt there and he was lumumba's ambassador to the u.n. and how old 26, i think all right. all these people were in 20, 30 years. lumumba at this time was 34. okay. i'm 40 now, and i have not yet run a country. you would be the grand old statesman.

exactly. it's politics and and yeah. thomas kanza was, you know, endlessly frustrated with his friend lumumba was an ally of his. but lumumba sort of rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. he was impulsive somewhat erratic, but he was also dealing with a fast moving and lots of, you know, various plots against him. right. and then talk about a couple of other figures, kasavubu, for example, tell us a little bit about him. so he was congo's. so lumumba was prime minister. kasavubu was president. he was older. he was taciturn and silent and not a man of action, but much more a wait and see and stand back and make his name by time and. he also was a of a separatist sort of he was from the congo ethnic group and sort of

advocated a form their own self-rule. he advocated this you know in different ways at different times. and he also would proved crucial because he fires lumumba as prime minister at this key moment in september 1960. okay. so got a couple of the main characters of this of this drama. but who from, for example the belgians. who are some the folks there that we need to pay attention to that were part of this mix that created this crisis that eventually both burst into mumbai and also ended him as a leader in the belgian. it's sort of the way they i think come in my book. perhaps it's like a series faceless belgians in katanga. that's the secessionist. there were these two diplomats deaths from all linden is the name of one and rothschild is the name of the other. and they, the belgians really backed this secession. it was coming after. the country is chaotic.

the mutiny katanga, the mineral rich province that was seen as the belgian toehold like, okay, the rest of the country is in chaos. well, we'll protect our mineral interests in this place. and so there were a ton of belgians on the ground there and, you know, working common cause with the locals secessionists as well. i know. i know. i mean, you've written 400 pages about this, but as best as you can, can you take us through the seeds of the crisis and how and just to set up the crisis for us so we can understand, you know, how lumumba, you know, this 34 year old man, charismatic dude. i really did just say that we're going we're to wind that back a little bit. but this, you know, 34 year old autodidact man now steps into and has to manage a crisis in, a quote unquote country. right. that is the size of all of western europe where movement is not super easy. you've got many different people, many different, you know, essentially ethnic groups that you have to manage and

build coalitions with how what exactly is going on how do we get to that point. so as i mentioned there's the mutiny and then lumumba in the united nations. right. and sends a telegram to dag hammarskjold, the secretary. before we get to the mutiny, let's talk. how does mumbai become prime minister? oh, me? yeah. so in his political party, the congolese national movement is unique in that it's actually promoting a unitary nationalist government and not this or that. ethnic groups, you know, interests. and i think that becomes reason for that, as lumumba himself was from very small ethnic group, the bata tailor. and so it wouldn't have been a winning political strategy for him to advocate on behalf of his own people. and also, he had traveled widely across congo and been sort of rootless within the borders, the colony, and therefore, i think had much more of a national

identity. so he's truly he feels truly congolese. yeah. and in in a nation that is really just forming a sense of itself. yeah. and it was, you know, it was a fiction in a way. just lines on a map drawn in europe. but for him and for his allies, it had become real. and it was sort of i think the thinking was, well, the one thing the belgians gave us was this, you know, these borders and sense of unity. let's like at least take that in spite of all the terrible things. and so but i think part of your question is, did the belgians agree to finally allow for independence to happen? and they're so in 1955, there is a belgian academic who wrote an essay called the 30 year plan for the belgian congo. so the idea was that by 1985, the country would finally be ready for independence. okay, he almost got fired

because that was seen as a heretical, radical idea. it was way too soon it would take 50, 60 years. i mean, so that was in 1955. things changed quickly. the belgians look at what's happening in algeria with the anti colonial war against the french there, and they realize they don't to have a have war to hold on to their colony. there's a riot in the capital of congo in 1959. so belgium decides, okay, we've got to offload this colony finally, even though just ago we had to imagine that it would stay on for for decades and decades so they hold this roundtable conference in brussels with the congolese leaders. me meeting the belgian politics organize and sort of hash out arrangement where this was in january 1960. in june the country would be independent at the very beginning of 1960, most people didn't become independent. and hold on. i just want people to take care

of this. so in january, decision is made that power be transferred into a place where there are no real structures of government reign at this point in time, where you don't have a political class necessarily. and this country, right in quotes, is the size of, the entirety of western europe and six months later, they're to be elections and a functioning government right. so i feel like this is kind of setup. i'm just saying. yeah, i mean the there is this sort of perverse dynamic where all the congolese politicians competing with each other to have more aggressive demands for independence, which was also understandable because, you know, they had been living under colonial rule for so long. and so why not, you know, today. not tomorrow. and then the belgian government is also just paranoid, you know, and things the administration was sort of starting to unravel in congo. they were more protests. there were, you know, people weren't paying their taxes.

there were signs they were losing control. and therefore they had to rid themselves of the colony quickly as possible. so that's why that's what explains the extraordinary speed. and so they go into election and what happens and lumumba campaigns across the country with his message of a united congo and nationalism and his party wins the most votes. and so that's in may 60. and elections are widely seen as fair, fairly representative. you know, there's one argument i'm not sure if it's entirely true that they were the fairest elections congo has ever had. and lumumba is, you know, wins the most and is there for asked to form the government and become minister. right. and now we get into the crisis that happened. right. so forms the government. he has essentially enter into a power sharing agreement with kasab in some way and what happens then so he wins the most

votes but he doesn't win it outright majority and election really one observer calls it an ethnic because it really just revealed how divided congo was. so lumumba has 23 ministers in his government. the goal was inclusion, not they had to divide colonial era administrative to make more ministries. and so he and his his 23 ministers are in charge on june 30th. and so now what sense of the congo crisis? what sense thing that eventually you end up fighting to the congo some 50 or 60 years later to to research the mutiny. so the black and file have long been underpaid, underfed having to take orders from their white

officers and upon independence it becomes especially jarring that they're still saluting belgians. you know, now they're raising the congolese flag. every morning instead of the belgian flag, but they're still taking orders from belgian officers. so they rebelled against them. and that's the spark that that ignites everything inside going right. okay. so that's just to give you guys a little context in history for what lumumba actually has to deal with there are so many other players because this is happening, you know, in the wake of war two reign of these colonial powers are now divesting either because they can't afford to keep them or, you know, financially or because of, you know, strong movements of these colonies in belgium. no different, but this is not in a vacuum. this has been the within the context of cold war politics is within the context of a essentially a newly formed united nations or a united nations. that's maybe just about 12, 15 years old.

and you start to see the world mobilize or start to take sides. and so who are some of the international players that now get involved in this in this escapade? yeah. so in 19 6017, an african became independent and joined the u.n. that year was known as the year of africa. and there was this real sense that this was now a part of the world was newly up for grabs in the cold war for both soviets and the americans. so there was not a sense that these countries could just go their own way and it didn't matter which side they picked and they could be neutral really in the american view had to pick a side and so there was a lot of alarmism about, you know, which way will this country go, you know, in 1958, guinea had voted to not remain part of france and the soviets in advisors there.

and it was seen as this know, dangerous cold war event. and so from the american. a lot of africa is for grabs. and so america of feels torn between do we be good allies our european friends or do we take the side of african nationalism so we can have as much influence as possible in part of the world that's now coming to international life? so dag hammarskjold, the secretary of the u.n., is a sees sort of managing the de colonialization decolonization process as one of his main tasks, the american are very wary of which these countries would go. the cia has a station chief in congo a man named larry devlin, who's a pretty big figure in the book. so all eyes are kind of on on africa. in 1960.

let's talk a little bit about both dag hammarskjold, larry devlin, larry devlin, is this is this an enigmatic character that you do such a good job of describing in the book. but tell us a little bit about him so the cia station chief in congo and he's 37, 38 years old, had no experience in africa. and what that showed was how the cia didn't think was going to be happening in the former belgian congo. this was a sleepy colony where there was not much news being produced there. and so there was not reason to think that it would be a big cold crisis when the crisis erupts, finds himself at the most important cia station in the world, arguably at that time. and. he's very much a man of action. he does not ask for permission. he asks you acts first and begs for forgiveness and really at that time in 1960, also communications were so bad that you could get away freelancing

and sort of had to, in a way. so yeah, he's this and he ends up playing a pivotal role in the events that lead to lumumba's death. so at that time and i'm just interested because you do a lot of deep research into this you know what is the u.s. perception because you're also you're also at this time, you know that lumumba is coming to power switching on the united states side, eisenhower to kennedy. so you've got this transition of, you know, an american general now turned president who has certain ideas about, america's role in the world to kennedy, who's coming in, who a lot of people is, think of as a neophyte in many ways right now in dealing with the continent. and as you said, sort of folks in the cia who are maybe not so well versed, what is america's understanding of of lumumba himself and of the congo and what's what are the the aims the congo. so america, i argue, sort of

fundamentally lumumba. and just to add a little more plot. so after the mutiny, after the secession of katanga, lumumba asks the u.n. for help. there's this peacekeeping mission. he's with it. so he asks the americans for help and is rebuffed. and then he goes to the soviet and that was sort of the beginning of end for him. but even that if you look the cia cables and the state department traffic there's negative view of lumumba forming and i think basically american struggled to understand third world nationalism. it couldn't distinguish anti colonial anti europeans from broader anti-western sentiment. so lumumba himself for instance i would argue, was very pro-american. he flew to the united states, tried to meet eisenhower, who was out of town, went to the

state department. he even called on the united states to send troops to congo to stabilize his country. is not someone who's not something that pro-soviet politician would do. but in america's sort of warped cold war view, he was, you know, once he was playing footsie with soviets, that was it. it was unforgivable. and they viewed him as an avowed communist who would turn congo red right. and how much of this you know, we all know america at the time as well. and how much of the perception of the mumbai was also clouded by american? yeah. so that was a theme in the research. let me just give you some examples that the broader attitude that eisenhower and other officials had towards congo was paternalistic, like the belgians so the congolese were routinely referred to as children when there a white house meeting before independence someone is briefing

the president and says there are 80 different political parties in congo. and eisenhower quips, i didn't know that many congolese could read, another advisor says oh, the congolese. they've just come down the trees and eisenhower says something, agreeing with that. the us ambassador to congo that in a private letter that lumumba was a cannibal. so there was this racist ism was really imbued in a lot of the correspondence and meeting notes and think the main effect that it had was twofold. one, because congolese were political children, therefore they required supervision and constant intervention and couldn't be trusted to handle their own affairs. and i think that justified a lot of the meddling. and then the other thing is that congo was portrayed as this uncivilized place, where just bad things happened and it was, you know, concerns about the constitution and sovereignty and all that were niceties that you had to abandon in the, you know,

darwinian law of the jungle. so i think it was a constant theme throughout the material. i what's interesting though is that that's back in the sixties. you know i think you know, you were you are a magazine's person you're in the media. and i'm just wondering how much of that impression from then has stuck in terms of the way that people describe what's happening in the congo today. probably a lot. i mean, there's this sense of a place needing outside intervention and not being able to be trusted with its own politics, with its own affairs. i think that persists today, you know, back then it was the soviet union and the cold war rivalry. today it's china and russia to a certain extent. and i think there's sense on the part of u.s. foreign policy, at least, that that we need to push

them in a certain direction, can't just develop along their own political axis. and so, yeah, much of that, i think remains. yeah. and so let's go back. so got this set up again, this, you know, paternalistic attitude from westerners of all stripes and into the mix. we have the united nations, we have commerce who's, you know, secretary general, very charismatic in his own right. and he's now managed the situation from a un perspective. we've also got folks like ralph bunche, you know, who is also assigned the u.n. to help manage this perspective. what's the un's role in the congo crisis in the sixties and? where do things i mean, are they a hindrance? are they a help? you know, i think there's a lot of speculation to what they were actually doing and whose side if they were on the side they were on. but what's on with that? yeah. so the u.n. sends in this massive peacekeeping operation. ralph bunche is american diplomat high up at the un,

working for an american african-american, one of the most prominent african-american in public life at the time. he's dispatched to congo, not for the crisis. just as the representative to independence and then becomes the on the ground person running everything and so the the goal to stabilize the country and replace the replace the belgians in many way providing security but also doing some of the technical things in running the airports and that sort of stuff the big problem, however, was that the un can never get in to katanga, the secessionist province they feared a harsh old fear there'd be a war if they did lumumba. understand, i invited the un peacekeepers in. and why can't i tell them to go into this province? that's still part my country officially. so for folks who don't know, describe katanga a little bit. where is it geographically in the congo?

what's happening there at this moment? southeast. it's one of six provinces at the time and it's where all the minerals are at copper, at time. it borders what other countries, northern rhodesia, which is now which is now zambia. and what else would have border to the west of that? i'm right have a picture map but the main relevant one is is rhodesia, which was also which was white ruled and katanga had a significant belgian settler presence. so there was this fear that in breaking off it would sort of make common cause with the other white brown entity across the border also however in kentucky there was there was a man named moise because one of the sort of villains of story who fled the secessionist province and you know, he made common cause with the white belgians in sort of promoting secession.

and so lumumba's really to keep this whole country together prevent secession causing the united nations and know you've got ralph bunche there trying to run things got hammarskjold doing the diplomacy at the high level. meanwhile he's dealing with mutinous army folks who sometimes are on his side, sometimes are not on his side. how is he moving about congo? what's he doing in this time? so he's struggling to maintain control. he also makes the decision. understandable from one perspective, not from another to leave the country and go this trip to the us in late july 1960. and then he takes his time back, going through various african capitals. and so he ends up being of the country for like two weeks during the most crucial time, not as a true to not be a good thing. mean. so when he's here in the united states, his agenda so in new york, he actually went harlem

125th and seventh avenue. but his agenda in new york was to meet with thomas and try and convince the un to send in troops to that breakaway province of katanga that failed. they had three meetings. i think they talking past each other and they hated each other by the end of it, really. and then in d.c., he was hoping to get american aid again. he was rebuffed, despite much pro-american on his part, and he tried to see the president, he tried to see allen dulles as and each one of these times one basically no one picked up the phone. he tried to see eisenhower eisenhower was out of town already on a planned outing. he did meet with secretary of state christian herter. he denied a meeting with the two presidential candidates. jfk, nixon. and at the meeting, the state department that went poorly. and, you know, he asked for all

these things and then just got. no, no, no no no free and so this is a man whose trip outside has essentially been a colossal failure. he comes back to the congo and what's going on at that time, he declares that his trip has been a massive success on radio and that's another thing about him you really admire the heights of him. he's constantly spinning. he comes back to the congo and things are bad. he's there, protest against him. we later find out they were funded by the cia, arranged by larry devlin. and there's this movement to. have the president kasavubu fire lumumba, and oust him from power, which the sort of legally dubious maneuver again that was that they encouraged meant of the cia which even approved financing for the president to encourage him make this move and get rid of lumumba, because by that point, lumumba had asked the soviets for help.

he had threatened to kick out the u.n.. and also, this may be the time to mention this crucial white house where eisenhower, after hearing about lumumba's latest antics, says to the effect of lumumba needs to be gotten rid physically. and so that sets off this whole thing about who ends killing lumumba. a lot of talk about the belgians, the cia. you walk us through the plot that is the center of your of your book. sure. so eisenhower has comments. he says these comments looking at allen dulles, the director of the cia dulles eventually gets to work and has the chemist a man named sidney gottlieb procure poisons and fly them to congo that devil. and the cia chief is to put in lumumba's food toothpaste poisons that will kill this man

within a matter of hours or days. what that plot actually sort of fizzles because meanwhile, has been which does fire him. lumumba says no, can't fire me if i use the fire to each other. and then mobutu, we haven't talked about in a while. he comes back and, he comes back, he's the head of the army now. and steps into the void and says, i'm charge. he says, this is not a military coup. it in fact was exactly a military coup. and so he throws lumumba house arrest and therefore devlin can't get the poisons into his house. so that plot sort of fizzles out and this time, what's kind of hoover doing? he's hiding away in his riverside mansion, basically even not doing much. so this period where mobutu, he's neutralized both

politicians. but he hasn't picked a side and. the journalists call him the hamlet of the congo because he can make up his mind. so you see the picture you paint of them. and this is of a very young, indecisive figure, very much not the, you know, leopard skin in cap wearing person that is, you know, kind of the the picture that's painted of him later on life. but this is this is a young guy. right. how old is mobutu at that? i think he's 28 or something like that 20 year old guy who's now tasked with heading the whole of the congolese mentality, which is in mutiny at this in various places. he's trying to quell this and he can't make up his mind like tell us a little bit about mobutu because i think mobutu at 28 very different from the period. i mean, no, yeah, he would become this, you know, caricature of an african dictator, you know, powerful or oppressive. but at this point he was a colonel who was quivering. he was talking to americans,

asking for advice. then he'd go talk to the u.n. and ask for different advice. there was a report that he was taking a tranquilizer pills to calm nerves. one cable i saw said that he lost 30 pounds, which is probably an exaggeration. you know, it shows how widely known his nervousness was he was drinking too much. he could not decide he sort of did this and then instantly regretted it and mused about walking it back and pretending it had never but ultimately he acts against lumumba and puts him under house arrest, which is really interesting because this is a person who really looked up to them. it's not like he he i mean, he admired lumumba. i think that's why it was such a painful decision, him and why he hemmed and hawed for so long, because lumumba had made him politically. this was his mentor, his patron. and now and the man who had just

given the job of being head of the military, which turned out to be a big mistake on lumumba's part. so yeah, there was a real personal betrayal element on and so you know, just to sort close out this thing so now he's kicked out new members under house arrest he and then he ends up escaping right and around the country right to galvanize support. and how do we get to lumumba's demise so lumumba escapes he hides under the legs of servants, the back of a car and slips through the rings of troops outside his. and he wants to go to his political home base stanleyville. he ends up being caught with cia help, which helped arrange the search party and flown back to the capital, roughed in front of news cameras. and nobody is actually watching, laughing at him. so to get to that personal

element and mobutu that house arrest won't so he decides to throw lumumba in a military prison and this is you mentioned the transition from eisenhower to jfk. this timing becomes important. in december 1960, eisenhower on the way out, kennedy's to come in in january and so people start to worry on the ground in congo because kennedy, seen as having a potentially more problem policy, he be open to releasing lumumba striking some sort of deal allowing him to come back as prime minister something eisenhower would never have countenanced. and so mobutu's worried about this and also larry devlin is worried about this. he detests lumumba. i think he's thinks he's unstable will allow congo turn communist. the worst possible thing would be lumumba to come back to power. meanwhile lumumba is so

charismatic, he's winning over some of the guards who are guarding at this military prison. and so there's an acute fear, which is real, that lumumba would be sprung free and potentially return because he's just that charismatic. yeah. mean think about the people who are with guns guarding him. he was to them and convinced some segment of them to maybe free him. and so mobutu decides he has to send he has to get rid of lumumba physically, but he doesn't want to do the dirty work himself. so he outsources. so he decides to send lumumba to province where he will certainly be as katanga. and then there's also this other secessionist province of south kasai. he tells, larry devlin. this constant conversation, all sorts of decisions. devlin's basically advisor to the government at this point. he's giving suitcases a of cash

to mobutu. the cia has approved this massive program. so what would you tell them? i'm about send away lumumba to his death and devlin does two things. one, he doesn't try and talk mobutu of that. he doesn't say, you shouldn't do this, lumumba will die and everyone knows what'll happen. and two, he keeps out of the loop. so even as he's updating headquarters about other events going on. he deliberately does not tell them about the event that's about to happen, which lumumba's transfer in death and he keeps this information to himself he knows that because there's a transition on he'll be told put the brakes on this we can't have a big political development in congo. this is a matter for the new administrator to deal with. and so lumumba sent to katanga

on january 17th, 1961, tortured for hours, brutally, and moise chimei, the leader of that province, gets blood on his suit, participate in the torture. and then lumumba driven into a remote clearing the forest where a local congolese firing squad answering to belgian officers because there are still belgian officers that province shoot him and those belgian officers assigned to the local secessionist. and so lumumba dies. three days before kennedy took office. well, and it's not just that he's shot, it's also that they're extremely in terms of the way that they dispose of him. yeah. he's buried in. he's been the next day, he's exhumed. buried again. exhumed because the secessionist leader doesn't really know what to do with his body and wants to go once all evidence to be destroyed.

and so he's his body is eventually dissolved. sulfuric acid. and one of the it's a belgian police commissioner who's in charge of that job and, he actually takes two of lumumba's teeth in one of his finger bones as sort of gruesome souvenirs. so there's a real, you know, that was the result of a long process of dehumanization, right. and i think even until today. right. there's been issues about those parts of lumumba. well, last year, in 2022, and this is sort of the coda, my book, the the end of it, the truth, which the daughter of the belgian police commissioner kept it as a you know, her died. she kept this tooth. and then in 2016 the belgian police seized it from her and last year it was finally returned to the request of the lumumba family back to congo. whoa, whoa. and put in a casket is now in a

mausoleum in kinshasa, the capital. wow. and so that is the terrifying arc of a supremely charismatic. and this is the i mean, this is the substance of your book. you know, there are a few other questions. i think that that i have about what it means. write about so charismatic and so. i would say as a historical figure i mean, you know, you're almost here because know something about lumumba he is the ultimate pan-africanist he is, as i said, an inspiration to so many the kind of leader that the continent needed then and maybe we need now, but also a was very interesting and flawed person and you know you're now writing this 400 page book about this person, about the plot to kill this person. you know, about a largely mythologized figure. what was that like. yeah it's a real mythology sprung up around him.

the original mythology in the west was, as i said, he was this unreliable, totally erratic, vaguely pro-choice, soviet, you know, disaster of a leader, the more enduring mythology over time has been. he was really adopted as a hero of the left. sartre wrote this you know introduction to his collected speeches and you know, the coffee shop where i used to live in brooklyn and had a lumumba shirt. so there's he really became this symbol. my reaction to that or my strategy for dealing with all of that was to just sort of totally set aside all the mythology, focus on what do we actually know about what he said, what he did, what other his allies thought of him, what his enemies of him, and just focus on the facts and the contemporaneous history and and set aside the

mythology and it's interesting, mobutu himself, the man who sent lumumba to his death where within like you know i think six years after lumumba's death just totally pivot and reclaim lumumba's, his own ally, and claim that lumumba was, the victim of colonialist machen nations, even though mobutu himself had was --. so his legacy has been contested, sort of since the day he died. yeah. and i mean, we've seen that in different films, different planes, even embassies, air. raoul peck getting at sort of the figure of lumumba about the symbol as opposed to the the the administrator lumumba, the leader. when you when you start let me let me go to this, which is in order to be able to construct this story. i mean, this was years of research in the congo, but also archival research. i mean, you went records and records and records. what was it like trying to

access those state department cables or some of the cia, you cables like how did you get access to that and how did that help you form your understanding? you know a lot has been declassified over the years, but to my frustration a lot still remains declassified. so for instance, the cia has, an internal history written after fact of its anti lumumba operations in congo, a 54 page document. we know the title of the subtitle and how long it is, but still classified in full, you know, 60 minutes, 54 pages, you know what it's called, but nothing about it. and there's been a foia request it that's been pending, not made by me. and i mean, i just think it's ridiculous that there should be secrets about what happened. 63 years on. so there were certain things that not available to me. but one important thing was all the documents were basically written by americans or belgians or u.n. officials. and so because of the chaos in

congo there were no there very few congolese archival documents. and so my strategy for dealing with that was to bend over backwards to compensate for it and, you know, rely on oral histories from the congolese side. i interviewed lumumba's, two of his children when i went to congo there are a lot of two obscure memoirs from the sixties seventies written by congolese politicians. and so the goal was to give the full perspective because i think so often it had been written through through the eyes of western officials in lumumba's final letter to his wife even says know one day the history will be written and it won't. the history written in washington and, brussels, you know, i'm sure i'm capable of achieving given that i'm not in congo, but was the goal to really bring back the congolese side, the story and so that and so there was a real concerted effort to get those histories and to speak to people. yeah, i think you said thomas kansas biography was it was

helpful you yeah in constructing as a as a human yeah i think it's now out of print but if anyone get their hands on it it's a wonderful book this i mean he's an ally of movement is this deeply frustrated friend who sort of keeps trying to save lumumba from his own impulses but ultimately just you just can let's talk a little bit about the implications of what happened in congo for congo today and also for us foreign policy today. i mean, it's kind of been maybe an unfair question to ask, but what do you think would have happened if lumumba had been to lead the congo? i mean, that's that's the million dollar question. and there's sort of different versions of answers. i think where i come down is what did happen was so bad so you had mobutu installed by the u.s. stays in power until 1997, runs an incredibly it's up to cradock repressive dysfunctional regime that finally just the bottom falls out and.

it collapses, leading to one of the deadliest civil wars in recent history. so that what really happened was so bad that it wouldn't take many alternative futures much better than that. so, you know, lumumba's son told me he thought his father would be a social democrat. and i think there's some truth to that, that, like, he was not the leftist that his enemies or his eventual defenders would portray him as. so i think is a good chance that anyone who led congo have had an a very difficult task and maybe wouldn't have stayed in power that long and maybe would have taken the authoritarian turn. but any almost anything i'll alternative history would have been better than the history i. want to open up to folks here who i'm sure have lots and lots of questions. stewart if we ever make, let's pass that around. i'm going to ask that you ask a question though, because i know

sometimes people like to come, you know, say their piece. so i will cut you off. i'm just giving you a fair warning. but if folks have questions from the audience for stewart, let's open that up. you know. we have we have a couple from the livestream. okay. and so yeah, if you want to. sure. i wanted to know stewart, could you give us some more information about what happened when lumumba came to harlem, when he came to new york city to visit? yeah. so he. he came to 125th street and seventh avenue and i don't think he even intended to get, but he was sort of surrounded by supporters and, gave an impromptu speech, which very much a thing lumumba liked do and his advisors. there was a quote from. one of advisors looking around in harlem and saying, oh, they're all africans here is great.

and so i think it was a you know, most of their business was down the u.n. but there was this brief trip to where he was. i think he was even carried on the shoulders of his supporters. this actually comes from thomas book, where we learn what happened when they he came to harlem just. before we go to the next question, speaking of the speeches, you do a good job of going through some of them here mean i think of this incident at the where the king of belgium is there or and he gives a speech and then gets up and gives the speech. i don't know if you want to read little bit of this speech. it's on page 120 after after mean. and it just shows the discussion acts a between the belgians and their understand what was going on in the congo versus what the members of i'll read just a little bit of the the belgian

king's words for 80 years belgium sent to your soil the best of its sons first to deliver the congo basin, the odious slave train that was decimating population, then to bring together various ethnic groups that were once enemies. and then veteran, and eulogize the pioneers of belgian colonialism as selfless do gooders, singling out leopold's who for having ruled not as a conqueror but a civilized their. he reminded the audience of the cities, the railroads, the highways, the shipping routes, airports, factories, farms, hospitals and schools that the belgians had built. along with the remarkable progress they had achieved with respect to living conditions and hygiene with belgium having agreed to place all this in jeopardy, he continued, it is now up to, you gentlemen, to show that we were right to. trust you, this is really hard to read. independence, he explained, not

achieved through the immediate satisfaction of simple pleasures, but through work and. he even though the keys were being handed over, warned the congolese do not jeopardize the future with hasty reforms and not replace the structures that belgium has given. until you are sure you can do better. i mean, those are some strong words. and then responds with this intense. do you want to go ahead? sure as hell. just read an excerpt from it. and lumumba had not been on the program was a sort of impromptu speech. he got wind of what, kingly king borderland was going to say and then wrote his own of rejoinder to it. and so he says, we have suffered contempt, insults and blows morning, noon and evening because we were -- who can forget that a black was addressed by the familiar to certainly not as a friend because the formal view was reserved. whites alone. we have known that our lands were seized the name of

supposedly legal texts that recognized only the rights of the strongest. we have known that the law was never same for whites and blacks accommodating for one cruel and inhumane and for another. and he on. but i mean think it really spoke to the king but was representing the belgian view which was we this great thing we created wonderful land for you and and you should be grateful for it and lumumba saw that and just you know could not sit silent had this parting shot which caused the to consider leaving and abandoning in protest lumumba supporters loved it was broadcast across radios the country and it was you know both a heartfelt expression of truth and a savvy political move him to have another question from the audience or send if we have for most of the livestream but i think up here.

hello thank you very much for being here my question would be so consider during the policy of belgium in rwanda which was really, really different congo, i was just wondering like for instance in rome there were like collaborate with the tutsi in congo it was like quite the opposite as you were saying. so it was just wondering why is there it is like big difference is it because it's larger or ethnical or like different? yeah. so congo inherited rwanda and you ruined from germany perceived them after world war one i think. and so you're right, the colonial strategy that was different there, it relied on allying with the local i don't

know all the reasons for that because i was so focused the belgian congo, but they're the jewel in their crown. main thing they cared about was certainly the belgian congo. and i think rwanda and burundi. i mean, in addition to being much smaller and having fewer resources were not really the the focus of their their efforts and sort of i think they were also administered technically by the u.n., although largely by belgium, i believe. so that's difference there. and the reason folks cared about the congo so much back then is a similar reason to why the congo is so important to date. right. which its natural resources. you know, i began the book expecting to find that that would be a huge motivation in fact. it wasn't particularly salient at that point. so congo made the uranium that was one of the bombs that was dropped over japan at the end of world war two, but by 1960, it was no longer exporting uranium

to the u.s. and i think maybe to anywhere. in fact, and all the minerals that congo had could be found in greater quantities elsewhere. it certainly explained a lot of the belgian behavior and interest, but from an american perspective, it was all cold war domino theory. you know, the economic stuff really didn't explain much, i think interesting. and then it turned into a live stream of questions if you want to. okay. okay. good evening. i have a question regarding the pan-african these. do you think every when a leader, an african tried to exteriorize the pan-african the case of lumumba is repeated. especially in the french speaking countries africa.

what do you think it yeah so lumumba very much saw him as a himself as a pan-africanist and this really developed in 1958 when he went to the pan-african in accra and it was there, it was like he had this awakening that, oh, there are other people in other african colonies that are part of the same struggle that i am. so he brought that back to congo and his rhetoric changed completely, and he started speaking in much more pan-african terms, making reference to the the struggle. he held a conference one of his sort of bad decisions was in the height of the crisis. he decided call a conference and have a pan-african conference in congo, which was a disaster because, you know nobody came and it was too chaotic. yeah that that part of lumumba's legacy is real. he was pan-africanist and believed deeply in it. and the part about, you know, the i think it was essentially

about the kind of pan-africanism next leader some survive or will the invariably meet the members. feeds? what's your thought? i don't. it was lumumba's pan-africanism so offended the americans so much his outreach to the soviets so we're agreeing that the americans are responsible lumumba's death i think a lot of people are responsible but i think there's this key link in the chain where the cia station chief, you know, gives a green light to mobutu to send the members, to his. just wanted to get you on saying happily it's in the book to go to the i think we have a question from the livestream because this on air we have a couple the livestream first one is about sort of the legacy of the belgian colonial in the congo and sort what remains of it today. how do congolese people remember think of belgium and that period in their history? you know, i wouldn't the best

person to answer this question, but my is that it's complicated because there's still a lot of ties with belgium a lot of congolese have family in belgium and vice versa. i know that it's not unheard of for congolese to name their children after the belgian. so i think there's a recognition of the cruelties of colonialism, but also you occasionally hear a sort of strange nostalgia for it too. so it's complicated. and this and this one might be outside the scope of the book, but someone wondered sort of what are more contemporary? we perspectives or perceptions of lumumba in the drc today, sort of how was he remembered by people who maybe didn't live his life and death, but remember him as a political icon? yeah. i mean, he's still largely popular and you his face on t-shirts and in the congo today.

but it also varies a little bit region so there are many in katanga who still despise lumumba but but i think he is you know become a myth everywhere but and a legend and that sort of larger than life figure but especially in congo he's hanging out one more for you if that's okay from online, they have gone to take the time you wanted to. this is going to be about me. know, the last question was sort of also about this idea of. the current conflict, the region and sort of to what is that reflective of historical of the things for first versus not. yeah. so to me the root cause of much that ails congo and it's still a country that's very poor that has over 120 armed groups active

in the east, there's still a un peacekeeping operation there. the parallels are sort of eerie. the government is repressive and representative. i think a lot of that can be traced to the mobutu era, that sort of if you had to one main cause it's having 30 plus years of dictatorship and, theft and repression and and that all began in 1960. let me challenge you on that a little bit. is it really just mobutu i mean, because you and i, i mean, we worked on this piece that was published in your in your publication about nigeria and. and i was arguing that some of this repression is actually chased chased back further to the way that the the structures or lack of structures put in place before. so, i mean, before mobutu, you had an extremely repressive state as well. so would that not also be contributing to and and we talk about a state right but we're talking about again just really important to think about the

geographic size of this thing western europe. right. how many countries are in that whole time, you know, like what, 14, 15 countries in western europe probably, more 20 something. and the congo is the size of that. so is it is it a place that maybe i'm wading into murky territory, but it a place that should be a country? i mean, that is murky territory and there's a whole. i'm just pretty clear on fact. the whole fear among today that the west wants to it up. and, you know, people there have been you know, americans have made argument that congress should be split up into four or five countries or whatever. i mean, my reaction is, is too late to change. you know, to break up country. i think that would be a drastic move. you could make arguments about the degree of federalism or not. but back to your other point, i think, yes, of course, the the 75 years of belgian colonial rule also had an effect.

and there's been work by academics showing that, you know, belgium's institutions in congo as a pair as compared the french and british institutions. other colonies were much more at extracting resources rather than building up local capacity or, sort of a more real economy. so that has had effect, too. i mean, there are, you know, multiple sources, obviously, that you can point to. all right. will take one or two more questions and then i do over here. hi, my name is pop. and my question to my sense conclude for the rubber trade now and whatever when cornerback up to now has any country any government or any company try to fix the wrong goes, you can't go on any ship for cause i figured at one point somebody's going to

say, well, you know what? let's do something over here. but any kind, any joint company, any company. i'm thinking about apple or anyone. it's people. has there been any in past? so i guess that question about accountability, just companies, but also, you know, perhaps even for for countries, for the united states, for belgium, for the u.n. has anyone taken any responsibility? and if so, how? and. yeah, i basically know is the answer to your question. and today i had an op ed in the washington post arguing that it's time for the u.s. to finally take responsibility for what the cia did in congo, open up the files, make a formal apology to congo, and begin that process of sort of honesty. what happened? but no, i mean, it's a place that's been exploited and victimized repeatedly. and one are the ones that you think what happened that someone

will read my op ed and decide to focus low. but there have been in terms of the just the declassification of it, there have been some encouraging projects. so the obama administration even had this effort to declassify documents about the u.s. role in the argentine dirty war of the seventies. and that was seen as this diplomatic peace to argentina and sort of coming to terms with the past. so there's no reason it can't be replicated the congo. okay. if we have any more questions, will take them now in just a moment. movies of over two. it. is a journalist like and actually offered to take a position the scene only goes the line that's understandable. yeah so mobutu was a journalist

and that's how lumumba first met him in the sort of intellectual circles in the capital. and but he had also had this background of six or seven years serving in the military. so lumumba sort of looking around, who do i know that has military experience? mobutu. you were in the military. you're now in charge of the army. mobutu himself. in an interview in the said that lumumba him the worst job this thankless task of being in charge of the army of course the irony is that it was through that job his entire rest of his political career began. so. i want to thank you tremendously for spending time with us here to about the lumumba plant. and thank you for writing this this book. and that really gets into the core of not who mumbai was, but also the surrounding his time in office. it's a brilliant book. it's you, as i said before, got copies in the if you want to

pick one up. stewart is here stewart will be signing for everybody. you should get these books. and you know again i just i really want to thank you for for the that you've done and for spending time in discussing your with us here today. it's an honor. thank for having me. thank you. so before i release you all and to grab books and get them signed, just so you know, you can follow us here at the africa center ads at africa center on all of the socials in the channels. this talk will also be posted for those of you who aren't c-span, it will be on c-span as well. we've got our c-span people over there and really it will. what the africa center about is about, is these kinds of dialogs and bringing who've done really interesting research that helps to transform or reshape narratives about the content of africa and its peoples. i'm to the fore so you know

again follow us on social media and get on our newsletter. there'll be many many more interesting talks again stuart thank you very much for your