DID US-USSR NUCLEAR RIVALRY KILL LUMUMBA?

On the 65th anniversary of the assassination of pan-African icon Patrice Lumumba, we take a look at a powerful piece by George the Poet (@georgethepoet) which stripped back layers of the Cold War to reveal the radioactive truth behind the m*rder of the first democratically elected Congolese Prime Minister.

As the US and the USSR scrambled for atomic supremacy in the 1960s, the newly independent Congo was the guardian of the world’s richest deposit of uranium, with the Shinkolobwe mine in particular one of the most valuable pieces of land on Earth. Indeed, the uranium used in the bombs that decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War 2 was sourced from the Congo under Belgian colonial rule.

As a result, when Lumumba demanded that these minerals be used to build African schools and hospitals rather than Western bombs, he became a priority target for the CIA.

"Please believe the CIA was lurking, paying enough politicians and putting work in," George the Poet said, adding that the CIA - in their attempts to secure the uranium undetected - funnelled money into every corner of Congolese society: businessmen, journalists, student leaders, and even teachers.

This would explain why Lumumba was eliminated. He stood in the way of an empire that valued nuclear monopoly over human life. By removing Lumumba and installing the dictator Joseph Mobutu, the US secured decades of cheap, exploited resources at the cost of Congolese democracy.