Adlai E. Stevenson chides some African delegates on race issues at the Security Council meeting on the Congo,
December 14, 1964.
Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba
"On November 3, Mulroney arrived in the Congo. Eleven days later, a plan was finalized to lure Lumumba to Stanleyville. In a cable to CIA headquarters dated November 14, Devlin wrote that Lumumba's "escape" had been arranged. Addressed to Bronson Tweedy, the cable read in part:
Political followers in Stanleyville desire that he [Lumumba] break out of his confinement and proceed to that city by car to engage in political activity. . . . Decision on breakout will probably be made shortly. Station expects to be advised by [CIA agent] of decision was [sic] made. .. . Station has several possible assets to use in event of breakout and studying several plans of action.
Shortly before Thanksgiving, Lumumba was informed by a UN representative that his young daughter was on her deathbed. On the night of November 27, the Congolese revolutionary noticed that the house wasn't as heavily guarded as the night before. Desperate to see his "dying" daughter, Lumumba decided to "escape." He headed for Stanleyville, one of his strongholds before house arrest. Mobutu's forces had no trouble capturing him, since they knew he was coming, along with two of his top aides, Joseph Okito and Maurice Mpolo. On November 28, Henderson held another meeting with Tshombe, Munongo, Adoula, Kasavubu, and several other Congolese politicians in Elisabethville.
According to Tshombe, "the question of Lumumba's liquidation" was finalized at this meeting. The conference was also attended by a Belgian mercenary known as "Colonel Huyghe," His CIA code name was "QJ/WIN." A career criminal, Huyghe had joined the "ZR/RIFLE" project years earlier. Huyghe hired three more mercenaries to help him execute Lumumba: William R. Brown of Great Britain, Belgian Colonel Julien Gat (Gat's CIA code name was "WI/ROGUE," an indicator of his notorious criminal background), and one "Captain Ruys." All but Brown were serving under Guy Weber in Katanga.
On January 11, William Harvey, Mulroney's supervisor in the "dirty tricks" department, sent a memo to the CIA's accounting department requesting it to arrange payment to QJ/WIN. "QJ/WIN was sent on this trip for a specific, highly sensitive operational purpose which has been completed," Harvey's memo stated. On January 17, Lumumba and his two aides were en route by plane to a prison in Bakwanga, the capital city of one of the Congo's six provinces, when the assassination plan hit a snag.
UN forces were at the improvised airport, so the plane carrying the prisoners couldn't land without unraveling the conspiracy. The flight was redirected to Elisabethville in Katanga, the province controlled by Tshombe and Kasavubu, who were on a plane with the British and Belgian mercenaries. During the flight, Lumumba was ruthlessly beaten by the mercenaries.
Chemicals supplied by CIA scientist Gottlieb were applied to his face, making his facial hair fall off. After the plane landed in Elisabethville, Lumumba and his aides were taken to a safe house.
While Lumumba's hands were still tied behind his back, Munongo plunged a bayonet into Lumumba's chest. Lumumba begged them to spare his life, which angered Huyghe. "Pray, you bastard!" Huyghe shouted. "You had no pity on women or children or nuns of your own faith, so pray!" Huyghe put the barrel of his gun against Lumumba's head and blew his brains out. Lumumba's two aides were also shot dead.
After Lumumba was killed, Devlin placed the fallen leader's body in the trunk of his vehicle. The body was dumped into a vat of acid supplied by the CIA. Two days later, the CIA station in Katanga sent a cable to CIA headquarters in Langley which stated:
THANKS FOR PATRICE. IF WE HAD KNOWN HE WAS COMING WE WOULD HAVE BAKED A SNAKE.
In early April, Brown, one of the mercenaries, was captured by UN forces, at which time he tried to bargain for his freedom by confessing his role in the assassination of Lumumba. Based upon Brown's confession, Tshombe was placed under house arrest on April 26, pending a UN investigation. The UN commission, which issued its findings in November the same year, concluded that Lumumba's body would never be found. Three weeks after Lumumba's death, CIA agents in the Congo cabled the Langley headquarters to notify Dulles that Lumumba had been "liquidated." The February 10 cable from the CIA officer involved in the plot stated: "Lumumba's fate is best kept secret in Katanga." The assassination of Lumumba wasn't confirmed in the international press until a month later, on February 16, when the New York Times reported that Tanyug, the official Yugoslavian press agency, had run an article claiming that Belgian mercenaries played a role in Lumumba's assassination. On February 13, shortly before the story broke, Tshombe told reporters at his home in Katanga that he had notified the UN that he would refuse to deal with any commission investigating Lumumba's assassination. The reports confirming the murder evoked worldwide riots against symbols of the United States, France, Great Britain, and Belgium. Embassies were sacked in Egypt, Poland, France, Great Britain, Ghana, Iran, India, Moscow—practically everywhere. African Americans threw eggs at Belgian Embassy officials in Washington, and Nigerian students in Chicago staged a demonstration at the Belgian Consulate.
But the strongest outcry against Lumumba's brutal murder affected the United Nations, where a violent demonstration occurred on February 14 amid rumors that Lumumba was dead. During a Security Council meeting that morning, about sixty demonstrators, most of them American black nationalists, burst into the room.
Holding placards reading "Congo, Yes! Yankee, No!" the activists demanded the resignation of Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold for failing to protect Lumumba as the slain leader had requested. Among the leaders of the protest, which quickly turned violent, were James Lawson, president of the United African Nationalist Movement, Daniel Watts, president of the Liberation Committee for Africa, and Richard Gibson, president of the New York chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC). Another group of activists led a large crowd of demonstrators outside the United Nations Plaza. The group included Paul Robeson, Jr., Benjamin A. Davis of the Communist Party, USA, and Mustafa Bashir of the Muslim Brotherhood (a Harlem-based orthodox Islamic sect not, at least technically, restricted to blacks). One of the signs read "Murder Inc.: Hammarskjold, Ralph Bunche, Kasavubu, Tshombe, Mobutu."
The scene inside the Security Council turned violent when police tried to expel the demonstrators, whom U.S. representative Adlai Stevenson described as Communists. No one was killed, fortunately, although there were a number of minor injuries."
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
It is claimed that the original intention was to kill first Malcolm and then Martin King in the same week in Feburary 1965 - you cannot kill the moderate until you take out the militant....
Malcolm X. Shabbaz
