REVELATIONS ON THE MURDER OF LUMUMBA
The ghost of the martyred Patrice Lumumba continues to haunt the Congo. Mofse Tschombe, the former head of the secessionist government of Katanga, in whose hands Lumumba met death, according to previous evidence, now claims innocence. In a long interview granted in Madrid to the special correspondent of a Brussels rightist paper Pourquoi Pas?, he charged that the murder of Lumumba was arranged by Kasavubu, president of the Congo, in collusion with Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula, Justin Bomboko, minister of foreign affairs at the time, and the Belgian government,
Publication of the charges created a sensation in Brussels, The government ordered seizure of the paper and throughout the afternoon of January 30 police combed newsstands, book stores and libraries to con+ fiscate copies, The Belgian minister of justice held that Tschombe's revelations constituted defamation of the head of a government, Presi~ dent Kasavubu. Among Tschombe's charges was the accusation that Kasa~ vubu had lied to United Nations representative Berentsen who conducted an inquiry into the circumstances of Lumumba's death.
Fayat, assistant minister of foreign affairs, made official apologies on behalf of the Belgian government to the Congolese chargé dtaffaires in Brussels, The Belgian press, however, expressed outrage over the seizure of the newspaper carrying the startling interview.
The murder of Lumumba in Jenuary 1961, it will be recalled, followed the entry of the United Nations into the Congo. As head of the newly independent Congo government, Lumumba made a fatal political error, At a crucial stage of the revolution, when all his efforts should have been placed on consolidating the position of the vanguard and in constructing as rapidly as possible a revolutionary leadership, Lumumba left the country and went to New York to appeal to the United Nations for help in redressing the chaotic situation left by the massive departure of Belgian technicians and administrators. The United Nations, acting under the main inspiration of the U.S,, took.full advantage of Lumumba'ts naive confidence. Forces were dispatched: to the Congo. They rapidly strengthened the neocolonialist tendencies and one of the first consequences was the arrest of Lumumba by President Kasavubu, who up to then had lacked substantial power. .
After holding Lumumba in prison for some months, Kasavubu delivered him and several of his comrades by plane to Tschombe. They were beaten by their guards and handed over to their new custodian, Their fate remained unknown for some time, Finally it was established that they had been killed under mysterious circumstances.
Tschombe!s Version
The truth, acoording to Tschombe, was somewhat different, The Belgian government paid out at least 3,000,000 franes ($600,000) to anti~Lumumbist organizations to supplant Lumumba. Pierre Wigny, minis-~ —° ter of foreign affairs at the time in Belgium, is accused by Tschombe of giving the "green light" for expenditures made through the Belgian consulate at Brazzaville, This action led Kasavubu to dismiss his prime minister on September 5, 1960,
"Mr, Kasavubu was pushed from behind, The courage he displayed was an tinspired' courage." - -
Three months later, on: November 28, 1960, Kasavubu, Adoula and Bomboko, on the invitation of Youlou, met with Tschombe at Brazzaville. Lumumba was in prison in the Lower Congo. Adoula, who is today prime minister but at that time minister of the interior, said to Tschombe, "We will send you Patrice, and you finish him off..."
“Ts chombe claims that he refused. He was "not interested" in. what happened to Lumumba. In fact he considered that the conditions ~ created by Lumumba to the left, favored his own rise by opposition to the right. a
On January 9, 1961, Adouta: came to Elisabethville once again to ask him to take over Lumumba. Tschombe claims he again refused,
On January 17 while watching a film he was called to the tele-— phone, Kasavubu was on the other end of the line. "My dear Tschombe," Kasavubu said, according to Tschombe, "T am sending you three packages. You must accept them, They are in the airplane that's going to Land.! He refused to say anything beyond this. "Three Packages"
‘Tschombe rushed to the airport. Lumumba and two of his compan« ions, Okito and Mpolo, who had been in the cabinet of his government, were taken off the plane, They were in very bad shape,
Bauwens, the Belgian pilot of the plane, told Tschombe that ‘throughout the flight, the three prisoners, who were tied together, -had been beaten with unimaginable brutality by Kasadi, general com= missioner of the national defense, and by eight soldiers,
Kasadi, according to Tschombe, displayed “with unconscionable pride and cruelty the mustache, the beard and the glasses of Patrice Lumumba,"
The Belgian pilot was so overwhelmed that “during the trip he had no recourse but 8O isolate himself and his crew in the instrument cabin of the plane,' .. Under continued blows from their guards, the three prisoners were taken to an empty house near the airport,
They were already dying, said Tschombe, and he called Dr, Piters, a Belgian physician, who said that only a- miracle could save them, "Lumumba was bleeding internally, had a perforated stomach, broken | ribs; Okito had an apparent fracture of the eyeball, and Mpolo was in a coma which did not prevent him from going into strange convulsions,"
Tschombe panicked, he claims, He tolephoned Kasavubu in Leopold~. ville, Nit they die," said Kasavubu, "bury them and let's say no more. about it, oo
aba
Tschombe got angry. "Dead or alive, I'm returning them to you tomorrow," OO
Okito died first. And at three ofclock in the morning on January 18, 1961, Lumumba and Mpolo died in turn.
At dawn, Tschombe and his ministers. were impatient to see the . plane leave with. the "packages" which Kasavubu had sent them, But the pilot refused to take the bodies. There were special regulations, he said, governing the transport of corpses,
Tschombe claims that he became frightened. He had three bodies on his hands. What to do with them? This is where the first install~ ment of the interview ended, Pourquoi Pas? announcing that the second part would bear the title Nfniet Happened to the Bodies?"
Kasavubut s Denial
The central Congolese government issued a blanket denial of the grave charges made by Tschombe, Its expression of "indignation over the so~called revelations" was published February: 1 in the Paris papers,
"all the inquiries on this subject establish, if not the respon= sibility, at least the complicity of Mr, Tschombe* in the murder of Lumumba, the Kasavubu government said,
In order to continue in Congo polities, Tschombe has tried various maneuvers, the publicity release continued. In particular Tschombe “offered to the central government to restore state money y placed abroad, in return for an important post.'
Declaring that Cyrille Adoula had many times sought to make inquiries into the Lumumba affair, the Kasavubu government said in vconclusion that the essential task in the Congo is to continue the work of national reconstruction "in which Mr, Tschombe stood in the way for a very long time,"
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