From Publishers Weekly
In January 1961, seven months after Congo won independence from Belgium, the country's first elected head of state, Patrice Lumumba, was killed in the secessionist province of Katanga because of fears that he would ally himself with Russia and nationalize Belgian corporate interests in Congo. Using U.N. and Belgian foreign ministry archives, De Witte, a sociologist whose book, when published in Belgium, led to an official inquiry into the assassination, offers evidence that the Belgian government was directly involved in Lumumba's transfer to Katanga a copper-rich state under Belgian control and in his execution. De Witte points, for instance, to an October 1960 telegram, signed by the Belgian Minister of African Affairs, that called for the "‚limination d‚finitive" of Lumumba. The African leader was, De Witte shows, tortured and executed under Belgian supervision. Lumumba's body was exhumed twice and finally dismembered and dissolved in sulfuric acid by a Belgian police commissioner, who wrote an account of his involvement and later bragged on Belgian TV that he had kept two of Lumumba's teeth. According to De Witte, the U.N., under Dag Hammarskj”ld, which also wanted to keep the Congo under Western control, denied Lumumba the protection that would have saved his life. While the book lacks an analysis of who Lumumba was and what made the West fear his independence so much, and while it often reads like a dissertation, the revelations about Belgium's attempts (with U.N. complicity) to control its former colony offer a pointed dissection of how the Cold War was played out by proxy. (July)Forecast: A biopic, Lumumba, will open in New York on June 27 and in L.A. on July 20, with national release to follow. Publicity surrounding the film, plus a focusing of American attention on Africa by several recent books, may help generate sales.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
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Review
"One Belgian author has triumphed over decades of official obfuscation: Belgium did collude in Patrice Lumumba's assassination ... It raises questions about Western policy in Africa that will reverberate for decades to come." - Michela Wrong, Financial Times "De Witte's book, politically passionate as it is, is an unignorable effort to bring the West face to face with its culpability in this entire sad and sanguinary tale." - Richard Bernstein, New York Times ""De Witte writes without stylish frills or narrative tricks, but this is a vivid and utterly compelling account of a nation strangled at birth by the West."" - Ronan Bennett, Los Angeles Times "One should never underestimate the ruthlessness of British gentlemen cradling endangered shares." - Neal Ascherson, London Review of Books "Whilst the battle for control over the resources of the Congo (now DR Congo) continues today this important book restores Congolese history and saves it from the official version peddled by those directly implicated in the affair." - New Internationalist Thoroughly researched, passionately written, deeply disturbing."" - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) ""De Witte has assembled a staggering amount of detail to support his allegations of direct government participation in Lumumba's murder."" - Washington Post Book World "De Witte has performed an important service in establishing the facts of Lumumba's last days and Belgium's responsibility for what happened." - New York Review of Books
