I am not an anarchist, but I have always known that democracy doesn't work. First of all, democracy is not the only form of government. For some reason, the United States, armed with its so-called exceptionalism concept, have paraded the idea of democracy as the only form of government that can modernise and transform "rogue state" into one that is accountable, less corrupt and governed by the rule of law. Since the Second World War, the US has made it a national priority to ensure that corrupt leaders, especially those in Africa, are either "spanked" for misbehaving and/or "removed from power" if they did not follow the "good governance" and "rule of law" of democratic leadership par American standard. Well, until Donald J. Trump came along, the US was perceived as the epitome of democracy. I doubt whether the perception is the same after "corrupt Trump" entered the White House.
In this series, I discuss the US's participation in the destruction of a number of States across Africa in efforts to transform their leadership from a bad one to a good democratic nation. Over the next months, I will consider the removal of leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Libya, Somalia, Liberia and more. The series will close with highlights of the Trump government's efforts to derail US democracy. What are we waiting for? Let's take off with the assassination of one of Africa's promising leaders, Patrice Lumumba.
The Assassination of Patrice Lumumba
On 17 January 1961, the American and Belgian governments used Congolese accomplices and a Belgian execution squad to assassinate Patrice Lumumba. The first elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Lumumba led the DRC to independence on 30 June 1961. Although, it exploited the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for its natural resources, precisely its use of Uranium for atomic weapons to bomb Japan, the US and Belgian could not stomach the fact that Russian, a communist government, was at the brink of helping Lumumba protect DRC's sovereignty. According to Emmanuel Gerard and Bruce Kuklick, In Death in the Congo: Murdering Patrice Lumumba, "[a] coup in September, secretly aided by the UN, toppled Lumumba’s government. In January 1961, armed men drove Lumumba to a secluded corner of the Katanga bush, stood him up beside a hastily dug grave, and shot him. His rule as Africa’s first democratically elected leader had lasted ten weeks." The body of the young, vibrant, and promising leader of Africa was later dissolved in sulphuric acid (see page 208 of In the Death of Congo for details on the gruesome murder).
Sadly, since the US, Belgian, and the United Nations removed Lumumba almost seven decades ago, the DRC has never been the same again. Beginning with Mobutu Sese Seko, the DRC has struggled for peace and stability free from natural resource exploitation and plundering of the country's wealth. Between 1998 and 2008, an estimated 5.4 million people have died as a direct result of the violence in the DRC. In 2018 alone, In 2018, the United Nations documented 1,049 cases of conflict related sexual violence against 605 women, 436 girls, 4 men and 4 boys. As at July 2019, 20,044 UN peacekeepers have been deployed in the DRC. In recent times, rebel groups in the Kivu provinces have killed at least 1,900 civilians and abducted more than 3,300 others. Those responsible are yet to be brought to justice.
