Mobutu's Game (2025) s01e01 Episode Script
Lumumba's shadow
Africa is a continent
that has endured history's
most terrible humiliations.
Our ancestors weren't
even seen as humans,
or even as beings
with intelligence and feelings,
but as mere
bundles of muscle
that were expected
to perform mechanical tasks
as we demand of horses,
buffaloes, donkeys or oxen.
Mobutu Oye!
Mobutu Oye!
Mobutu was a huge figure.
He represents
both decolonisation in Congo
and neocolonialism in Congo
at the same time.
That's why I often say
that Mobutu was
a man of two worlds.
He was born of two parents
who didn't love each other.
In terms of his
political roots,
King Leopold II of Belgium
was his father
and Congo's first
Prime Minister,
Lumumba, was like
a second political father.
And Mobutu tried to
emulate both of these fathers,
both of these ideals.
Congo is 80 times
bigger than Belgium.
Leopold II wanted
all of Congo for himself,
for its greatness and riches.
Lumumba once said
to Leopold II's heir,
"You were no
better than a thief,
a liar and a plunderer.
You must
leave this country."
Freedom fighters:
we are now victorious.
We have endured
mockery and insults,
we were struck by
them day and night,
simply because
we were black.
At that time,
Mobutu was Lumumba's man,
he was his
advisor and errand boy.
They were close friends.
But Mobutu
sought real power,
which was still in the
hands of the whites.
So he helped them
to assassinate Lumumba.
Mobutu's career was
starting to take shape.
Mobutu treated
politics like a game.
Mobutu wanted Congo for himself,
for its greatness and wealth,
just like Leopold II.
He had
delusions of grandeur.
Who was this man?
He was quite a complex man
who ruled for 32 years.
He rose to the highest peak,
but he fell to the
very bottom at the end.
MOBUTU
THE MASTER OF THE GAME
PART 1: LUMUMBA'S SHADOW
There was
a conflict with Lumumba.
So I restored order, that was just
my way of reacting to the situation.
I did nothing to harm
Lumumba physically,
but I reacted
because I hate disorder.
- And then Lumumba disappeared?
- Yes, that's right.
I studied Mobutu
for a long time.
My PHD thesis
was about his reign.
I like to try
to understand things.
Someone who betrayed
a person they were so close to
He caused so much pain.
You have to try to understand
in order to move on.
So you studied the man
who killed your father?
Yes, because
I needed to understand.
I had a desire
for knowledge,
I can't say I know
everything now, but
JULIANA LUMUMBA,
DAUGHTER OF PATRICE LUMUMBA
If you don't like someone,
if you hate someone,
you should learn
more about them.
Here I am with Mobutu.
That's me when I was
governor of Katanga Province.
We knew each other well,
I knew him from school.
He was just a normal kid
at school, like the rest of us.
No one would have guessed
he would become President back then,
because back then,
for black people,
once we'd finished
our education,
we'd just go and work
as a clerk somewhere.
We never imagined that
he'd be our country's leader.
No, that idea didn't
exist back then.
COQUILHATVILLE SCHOOL
Mobutu was very intelligent,
but the Christian Brothers
thought that
he lacked discipline,
that he was
a joker, a teaser.
There was
a Flemish brother there
who didn't speak French
like the other brothers,
so Mobutu would repeat
certain things he said,
making fun of him
and making everyone laugh.
One day, drama struck.
He spilled ink
on his cassock
and then a jeep approached
with a military officer inside.
He was in the Jeep,
he stopped in front of us,
at the school.
He went over
to the headteacher
who shouted out,
"Mobutu!"
So Mobutu came over
and the headteacher handed him
over to this military officer.
He had to leave with him.
Back then, when they decided
you were going to be a soldier,
what could you say?
It was like
being put in prison.
Our soldiers train
under the guidance
of a European instructor
in various feats of balance,
running and jumping.
AFRICAMUSEUM,
TERVUREN, BELGIUM
Mobutu always had a connection
to colonial rule.
The poverty of his childhood
Mobutu grew up
in extreme poverty.
His adoptive father,
as he had no biological father,
worked as a servant
for white people.
Mobutu went to missionary
schools and other schools.
That's where they identified
him, where they chose him
to join the Public Force
and the army.
J.OMASOMBO,
POLITICAL COMMENTATOR
This was a rare opportunity for
a young man in colonial times.
Mobutu's future was
at stake back then,
because, during colonial rule,
no one could
leave their village
and go elsewhere
without a visa.
In Belgian Congo, a permit
was required to travel.
UNITED NATIONS,
NEW YORK
There's no doubt that people
were fed up of colonialism.
No one wanted it anymore,
everybody wanted change.
We didn't want to see the
situation that my father faced:
some foreign settler coming
and taking over his land.
Because he's white and he's black.
No, we don't want that.
Or you classify
jobs differently
so you can justify paying
whites 15 times more.
All Europeans had cars,
nice houses,
they had servants.
So all Europeans were
in a position where
they would live
almost a bourgeois life.
So when the independence
struggles started,
we, the young people,
joined it immediately.
We were all
supporters of Lumumba
and we thought that,
with him,
we would have a decent country
and a decent life.
When did you realise
that Congo needed
to gain its independence?
I was educated
in Christian doctrine:
you must be kind,
not mean,
if someone hits you,
don't hit back.
And I never understood
how I could reconcile,
in my mind,
what the Europeans
were teaching us at school,
their principles
of civilisation and their morals,
with how they treated
the Black population.
Mobutu wasn't anti-white,
he admired white people.
As regards life
amongst the colonialists,
Mobutu could take a lot.
He could see they were
doing wrong, but if he could,
he would also take advantage
of his involvement with them.
Life in the army
was miserable.
How did he get
out of the army?
Well, a good white man
managed to find him
a job in the press
that paid a small salary.
He became a journalist
for a colonial newspaper.
His writing wasn't great,
it was full of stylistic
and grammatical mistakes,
but Mobutu learned quickly.
It's believed that's
when Mobutu
became an informant
for the security services.
He was part of the small Congolese
elite but was paid a meagre salary.
They starved you
and turned you into a dog
to hunt game for them,
to gather information for them.
LUMUMBA OPENS THE
NEW HQ OF THE MNC
It was during this period
that he met Lumumba.
This made Mobutu
a valuable contact
person for the Belgians.
Some people introduced
Mobutu to my father.
They did everything they could
to bring him closer to Lumumba.
Lumumba saw him
as a dynamic young man.
Lumumba thought
he was a good man,
a journalist who spoke well,
he thought,
"We'll need him."
Back then, when I was 8 or 9,
Mobutu would visit our home.
He was like my brother, he'd come
here whenever he wanted to.
He knew how
to flatter people.
LUMUMBA'S SON
He knew how to greet people and
all those important little details.
60 YEARS AFTER HIS MURDER,
"I DON'T MATTER, CONGO DOES."
I remember Mobutu
used to come to this house,
from time to time
he would pick up
my brothers from school.
He'd come over.
They got to know one
another because,
at the time,
Mobutu was writing
pro-Congo articles.
He was a nationalist.
Shortly after they met
he became his protégé.
When he was shown evidence
that Mobutu was working
for Belgian Intelligence,
my father confronted him.
Mobutu simply nodded
and said, "Yes."
When he said he'd stop working
for them, he believed him.
We all believed in him.
He had great affection
for this young man,
he was like a brother to him.
To tell you about the press
in Belgian Congo,
here's Mr Mobutu, a journalist for
L'Avenir newspaper in Léopoldville.
As a journalist,
Mobutu didn't make much
of an impression on me.
It looked like he was
basically trying to
make himself loved
by the Belgians.
How do the locals react
to your articles
and to the newspaper?
Three months ago,
I took a stand
on a wage issue.
All my readers
supported me
when I said that the wages of
Congolese workers were too low.
The next day,
when I told my readers
to be sensible
with their demands,
to be careful,
they labelled me a traitor,
saying that I was betraying
the cause of the Congolese people.
MNC PEOPLE'S RALLY
On 28 December 1958,
Lumumba organised
the first official political
rally in Belgian Congo,
where he declared,
"Independence
is not negotiable."
Mobutu was there,
covering the events.
A week later,
riots broke out.
The common people
started hunting down
anything that was
linked to colonialism:
schools,
petrol stations and so on.
The Belgians had cultivated
this myth of the happy negro,
who was
always smiling and so on.
And they didn't realise
that behind this smile
was a lot of anger.
WE WANT INDEPENDENCE
The colonial
government was shaken.
BE (UN)CLEAN,
(IM)POLITE, (DIS)HONES
Until then, all had seemed
peaceful. They used the whip
and the army to
maintain control.
Officially, they said that
whipping had been abolished,
but in Congo, they whipped
people until June 30th.
My father was
whipped in 1959.
They did it in front of
My father was quite the
polygamist, he had 8 wives.
He was given 12 lashes in 1959
in front of his wives and children.
I wasn't really aware
of what was happening,
but my father
was whipped in 1959.
During the riots, we saw
Lumumba and Mobutu side by side.
Mobutu was on his
moped. We saw him.
People even said that
Mobutu took Lumumba home
on his motorbike.
But Mobutu the journalist,
remained timid
in his articles,
"Yes, we should give
more to the Blacks,
but the Whites built this country,
we must respect them."
Mobutu believed that Blacks
needed to be raised up a bit,
to become closer to Whites.
Mobutu was fighting for something,
but he was not in favour
of a revolution like
Lumumba had in mind.
Lumumba saw him in Brussels
in April of 1959
and liked him because he took
Lumumba around the town,
showed him
all the nightclubs
and the good places,
all of that.
So they became
very good friends.
Yes, they did spend time
together and got along well.
They talked about their negative
experiences of missionary school.
They were both intelligent.
Here in Belgium,
there's a story
about Lumumba and
Mobutu sitting on a sofa
and one of them accidentally
set it on fire with a cigarette.
So Lumumba and Mobutu
threw the sofa out the window.
It was in Belgium that Mobutu
made some good contacts.
He joined a group
of university students
of about 10-20 Congolese.
It was this group
that Belgium and America would
later put in charge of Congo.
Mobutu became a member of this
group, with help from friends
like Jonas Mukamba.
This paid off for him,
especially since Mobutu
never forgot his friends.
THE RESIDENCE
OF JONAS MUKAMBA
Well
Father, I need your help,
because I have
an issue with my tooth.
What kind of issue?
They asked for $115,
but I don't have that much.
A woman you helped told me
that you might be able
to help me too.
Here you go.
- Thank you so much, Father.
- Good luck.
I see myself
as a patriarch,
I have the means
to help others now.
Some people
book appointments,
whereas others come
without an appointment.
It doesn't matter,
I'll see them all.
So Mobutu
Mobutu was my friend.
I'll be his friend
until the day I die.
We lived together
in Brussels,
we went out together,
got into mischief together.
He'd tell me everything.
Since I met Mobutu,
my life has been special.
Mobutu was a man
who kept himself informed,
he was ambitious.
He was a journalist,
so we got our
news from Mobutu.
Yes, that was his role,
he was always
at the forefront.
In Brussels, the opening session of
the Belgian-Congolese Round Table.
The conference aims to
outline the process
for Congolese independence
and the future of
Belgian-Congolese relations.
In early 1960,
the Belgian elite suddenly decided
to grant Congo its independence.
Complete independence
within six months.
It was a complete
strategic U-turn.
Congolese and Belgians
now have to outline
how the country will be
governed in the future.
The idea was to grant
independence quickly
and to organise
elections right away,
in the hope of eroding
the radicalisation
of people like Lumumba.
Their hope was that
the new Congolese parliament
would be filled with
pro-Belgian politicians.
My father was the
Prime Minister at the time.
He believed that
independence was essential,
but he wanted cooperation between
the two countries to continue.
MARK EYSKENS,
POLITICIAN
Because, of course,
Belgium had
many economic
interests in Congo.
Many large companies
were operating in Congo,
in Katanga Province.
They were working in mining:
extracting diamonds, copper, etc.
Uranium too, which,
thanks to Belgium,
was essentially given
to the Americans
to make their atomic bomb.
Congo was, therefore,
of major economic importance.
At the political roundtable Mobutu's
influence grew significantly.
Why?
Every Congolese delegation
had been provided
with a Belgian advisor.
Except Patrice
Lumumba's MNC.
At the political roundtable,
Mobutu was Lumumba's secretary.
That's when Mobutu
entered politics.
For the people of Congo,
he wasn't a factor,
really, at that time.
I don't think most people
even knew that Mobutu existed.
So who cares about
someone in Belgium
as a representative
of the party?
People never paid
much attention to that.
I know that Belgian
intelligence and the CIA
paid much attention to him.
The CIA wasn't doing
very much, if anything,
until decolonisation.
It was considered that
Africa was part of Europe.
It was only when
the pressure began
for decolonisation in Africa,
that the CIA became interested
in beginning to establish contact
with African leaders.
The American Ambassador
in Brussels gave a reception
for the Congolese that had
attended the roundtable.
He wanted to get some idea
of who were
these new leaders.
And the one name that kept coming
up was Joseph-Désiré Mobutu.
That he seemed someone with
a future, that he was competent,
that he seemed to know
what he was doing,
as some of those people
didn't have a clue.
Not a clue!
Having Belgium admit to give us
independence on June 30th
this was a great
moment of triumph.
The Congolese celebrated
that night,
we had Kallé playing
'Independence Cha Cha'
and we all loved
it in the Congo.
Because we didn't realise what kind
of trouble we were getting in.
Why were Europeans ready
to give us independence
without a fight?
It was because they knew
they were going to continue
controlling the economy.
So, it was a total
disaster for the Congo.
Because we came out and basically
handed out everything to Belgium.
That's when this small elite
was bought by
Belgium and America.
Mobutu too, he was
part of this group.
The word "corruption"
then started to take over.
That's when I met Mobutu.
We were quite surprised
to see him representing
Patrice Lumumba,
but subsequent events
clearly show us
that Mobutu's position there
was a strategic choice.
JACQUES BRASSINNE,
DIPLOMA
By staying close
to Patrice Lumumba,
his career took off rapidly.
JUNE 1960,
CONGOLESE INDEPENDENCE
Lumumba won the elections.
He became Prime Minister,
he rose to power.
And Mobutu became
Lumumba's man.
Lumumba appointed him
as Secretary of State.
On Independence Day
we felt that, you know,
this was going to
be a happy moment
when the king would
tell us about what he hoped
that what we and Belgium
would do in the future,
as friends, as countries that
share some things in common.
No, not at all.
Gentlemen
BAUDOUIN, KING OF BELGIUM
Congo's independence
is the culmination
of the work
started by King Leopold II
and guided by his genius.
We must all remember
the pioneers of
African emancipation,
for they brought you peace
and enriched your moral
and material heritage.
What he said to us was
insulting, totally insulting.
Telling us our independence
was the culmination
of the work of civilisation
begun by Leopold II.
What kind of civilisation?
Killing people?
Using people like slaves?
For us, the important
thing was that
Lumumba defended
our honour that day.
My friends, who fought
tirelessly beside us,
we will end the repression
of the freedom of thought
and ensure that all citizens
can fully exercise
their fundamental freedoms
as outlined in the
Declaration of Human Rights.
That day was like being
in a football stadium
when your team
scores a goal.
Even if it's offside,
when everyone starts clapping,
and you clap too.
What he said was true,
but the context
was quite solemn.
The circumstances,
the choices made,
it wasn't about what we
said to one another in private.
I asked Mobutu,
who was with Lumumba
and Mobutu told me
he disagreed with him.
Not with the speech in itself,
but he said that
the timing wasn't right.
That's what he told me.
And all the
sensible people there
said the same thing as him.
He was a speaker
who could sway crowds
very effectively.
That's why
the Belgians
feared him so much
and that's why he stood out
amongst other Congolese leaders.
So, a few days went by,
and then the
first revolt began.
It started within the
Public Force itself, of course.
What role could
the Public Force
potentially play
in the new
Congolese state?
The Public Force will keep
its traditional role.
But do you see
a possibility of breaking
with the past or not?
There's no break
with the past.
"Independence is
for civilians.
As for you guys,
nothing changes.
You're going to
obey Belgian officers.
If you don't obey,
you know what happens to you."
Right after that,
mutiny of the armed forces.
In Leopoldville,
the storm centre of the crisis,
evidence of the bitterness
that has swept the new-born republic
can be seen on every hand.
Anger and chaos,
Black against White.
Congo went up in flames and the
Public Force were behind it,
with women being raped by their
officers and other such horrors.
Even children are armed,
for, in the tragedy that
has struck the heart of Africa,
these people were
taking no chances.
Lumumba understood
that they needed to Africanise
the army.
The apartheid-like idea
that all officers
had to be white Belgians
and all soldiers had to be
black needed to be broken.
9 JULY 1960
And Lumumba appointed
Mobutu as the head,
as the Chief of Staff
of the Public Force.
Like all Belgians,
we thought he was a good choice,
because we knew him,
he was someone
we could talk to,
and in our minds,
he was pro-Western,
pro-Belgian
and pro-American.
Mobutu ran the army.
He took over, right away.
But it was a big mistake.
He had spent 7 years
in the armed forces,
his highest rank was accounting
sergeant, a pay master.
So he was not qualified
to be running an armed force.
The arrival of Belgian troops brings
relief to Léopoldville's Whites.
10 JULY 1960
Clearly, the Africanisation
of the army
helped restore peace.
Before there
was even one casualty,
the Belgian government
decided to intervene.
The issue was
immediately raised,
"What is going
on here in Africa?
This country
just got independence
and now the
Belgians are back."
Belgium's military
interventions in Congo
are truly operations
solely aimed at
protecting people
and saving lives.
Then Tshombe declared
the independence
of Katanga Province,
the richest province
in all of Africa.
The big Belgian companies
that were present there
agreed with this plan.
In many places Belgians were
saying, "This is the solution.
Let the Congolese
kill each other.
Let's isolate Katanga
and make it into
a sort of
African Switzerland.
A peaceful country where
we can do business
and where everyone is
calm and cooperative."
The Katangese, Tshombe, Munongo
They never ruled Katanga.
It was the Belgians
who were running Katanga.
Moïse Tshombe
was just a puppet,
nothing else.
The plot was already made,
the plans already in place.
Belgium want to make this country
into their version of the Balkans.
The Congo will
break up tomorrow.
The United States
felt his words
were too strong.
He was stirring things up
against the Whites.
Why did you ask
Russia to send
troops to Congo?
He talked about inviting
the Russians in, the Soviet Union,
if the West didn't help
him subjugate Katanga.
That's when the United States
began to feel fairly strongly
that he was a threat.
The central Congolese government,
headed by the communist-trained
premier, Patrice Lumumba,
this red agitator
following the classic pattern
of creating ultimate chaos
and skilfully laying
the groundwork
for an eventual
communist takeover.
This was
a theatre of conflict.
For the United States,
this is a place where there could be
a collision
with the Soviet Union.
Here we've got a guy who is
increasingly upset about the West.
He's upset about Belgium,
he's upset about the UN,
which he thinks is getting
controlled by the West.
They were looking
at it as, "This guy
might be manipulated
by the communists
enough to get
the West out of the area."
But it was propaganda based,
at least in the United States' case,
on a vast misperception.
The Soviets they don't even believe
that Lumumba is a communist.
So, clearly the US,
Belgium and the UN,
what they were all focused on
was getting rid of Lumumba,
staying in power,
not getting overthrown
and for them, they all perceived
Mobutu as the top dog.
He was the guy who
was behind the power.
Mobutu controlled a certain number
of troops, that was the key,
and those troops
could be used in a coup.
In Mobutu's mind,
there was no doubt.
Lumumba was right,
Western misconduct
was clear for all to see.
But at some point,
he realised that, like it or not,
this man was corrupt
and it wouldn't work under him.
When he saw how many
people opposed Lumumba,
Mobutu played his hand.
Dear compatriots,
this is Colonel Joseph Mobutu,
Chief of Staff
of the Congolese National Army,
speaking to you
today from Léopoldville.
The Congolese national army
has decided to neutralise
the head of state.
This is not
a military coup,
but rather
a peaceful revolution.
The army is going to help
our country solve its problems.
Long live Congo!
Long live our national army!
Hello.
We thought it was
the lesser of the evils.
ETIENNE DAVIGNON, BELGIAN MINISTRY
OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS IN 1960
Lumumba took a stand
against Belgium
and its interests.
So should we have
supported Lumumba?
We whose role it was to
defend Belgium's interests?
Of course not.
When things are
all going wrong
and you can see a way out,
and there's
no other alternative,
you have to take
what you can get.
So Mobutu was the
alternative you're referring to?
Yes.
Clearly, in the
eyes of everyone.
Colonel, what led you
to make the
decisions you made?
It was to avoid bloodshed,
because Congolese blood
is precious to me.
I wanted to avoid further
chaos in our country,
because it got so bad that
when I couldn't
take it anymore.
I had even
submitted my resignation
to Mr Lumumba,
who refused it.
The UN and the Americans
gave him money
to pay the military.
He made the officers
of his military very happy,
so he controlled them.
The guy had been influenced,
had been given encouragement
and been given a lot of pride
to think he's the indispensable man.
That he's the guy
of the moment,
the guy who can
really change the country.
There were two cordons
around Lumumba's residence:
one from the UN
to protect him,
and another of Mobutu's troops
who were waiting to capture him.
Lumumba was a prisoner
in his own home.
His political career was
already over at that point.
What kind of game is
Colonel Mobutu playing?
You trusted him, didn't you?
I personally don't
understand his actions.
He'll have this
on his conscience.
What I saw,
I was only 10 at the time,
but in the PM's office, there's
a balcony overlooking the street,
and Mobutu was there,
he'd come to see his troops.
And Lumumba was on the
balcony and he called down,
"Joseph, come here,
let's talk about why you sold out.
You've betrayed our nation."
LUMUMBA'S SON
When Mobutu heard Lumumba's voice,
he immediately recognised it,
and he jumped straight
into his Jeep.
And he left.
At that time,
Mobutu was extremely weak.
The UN's
representative, Dayal,
said Mobutu drank up to
a bottle of whisky a day
and that he was the weakest
strongman he had ever seen.
He may have been a little conflicted
at first about Lumumba
and what to do about him, because he
had worked for him as his secretary.
So yes, he was
depressed, at times.
The US was very displeased with that
because he wouldn't do anything,
he'd be inactive and
they didn't want that.
You had Lumumba still staying
in his office and residence,
but he was
going out at night
lecturing people in the
beerhalls and so on.
It was a complete
Nobody knew what was
going to happen.
And I guess I expressed
my concerns
about this situation.
Then I received
a very strange message,
which said that a man who will
identify himself as "Joe from Paris"
will be arriving
in Léopoldville
and "You will take
your instructions from him".
That was most unusual,
because normally instructions
came in coded cable.
When he got there,
I said, "Well, what is it?"
and he said, "Well, you have
to assassinate Lumumba."
But who would have
ordered him?
Well, that was
my next question.
And he said,
"President Eisenhower."
He knew
he was going to die,
that they were
going to kill him.
The only thing he agreed
to do about it was to make plans
to ensure his children
would be safe.
My two brothers and my
sister went to Egypt.
And I stayed, with Mum
ROLAND LUMUMBA,
PATRICE LUMUMBA'S SON
For what they call
his "Final journey".
He decided to
flee house arrest
and return to his
base in Kisangani
in order to counter-attack
those who had been
corrupted by the West.
I was with him in the convoy,
I was young, I don't know
what I can tell you about it.
But I was there, hidden
in the boot of a car.
And at the river,
the Lodi River I think it was,
Mobutu's soldiers were
there, they everywhere.
They stopped us.
When we entered
Kinshasa, a soldier,
because I was crying,
hit me in the head
with his rifle.
Yeah
It took me many years
to realise why it was
that I disliked the military,
they reminded me of all
this many years later.
When Lumumba was
returned to Kinshasa,
Mobutu witnesses soldiers
treating Lumumba like
a common criminal.
He was sitting there,
watching it like that.
That picture tells
you everything.
It was like Judas Iscariot
and Jesus Christ.
Mobutu's most
symbolic gesture
was making Lumumba eat paper
when he was brought back.
That was him taking charge,
showing he was the one
to make Lumumba kneel.
Suddenly, he was
not afraid anymore.
That's what changed.
They were all afraid
of Lumumba.
Of all the Congolese
leaders I've known,
no one had such influence
over other people
as Lumumba did.
No one.
Lumumba is unique
in Congolese history.
There weren't two Lumumbas,
and Mobutu was not Lumumba.
Suddenly, after
fearing Lumumba
and feeling that
he owed him something,
Mobutu became the victor
over a man he feared.
He stood up to the West, but he
destroyed his legacy right then,
because with this image,
he would go down in history
as Lumumba's killer.
And that begins the whole
train of events
that leads to the
transfer of Lumumba
to Katanga, to Tshombe who
was the leader of Katanga,
in which the US and
Belgium are complicit.
And in which they either know or
should know that the Katangans,
who have vowed to
execute him, will do so.
The decision to transfer Lumumba
was made by the Binza group.
The key
members were Mobutu,
Bomboko,
Nendaka and Adoula.
These same people were
on the payroll of the CIA,
but the top dog is Mobutu.
They decided, but they only
decided this in consultation
with Belgium
and the United States.
The Belgian Minister for
African Affairs, he was the one
who sent a well-written
letter to Tshombe
that Lumumba must be
transferred to Katanga,
"There's no time to waste."
A decision which was
accepted by the king.
He knew what was happening
and he didn't do
anything to stop it.
In the plane that
Lumumba was put on,
he recognised two people
from their voices.
One of them
was called Mukamba.
Mobutu decided to
put this man on the plane.
Lumumba said,
"Is that you, Mukamba?
My little brother?
You're doing this to me?
You're the one hitting me?"
And these two men,
when they arrived
in Lubumbashi,
many people don't know this,
but they wanted to show off,
to show that they were big men.
So they started
telling school kids,
"We were on the
plane with Lumumba.
We beat him up."
They told them everything
and 10 years later,
a kid from that school, who had
grown up, told me the story.
He couldn't keep it
to himself anymore.
Some people say Lumumba
recognised you on the plane.
That's completely wrong.
I only found out he was on the
plane when we landed in Lubumbashi,
that's when they told me
that our prisoner was Lumumba.
I was just on
that plane by chance.
I was tired, so I sat
in the cockpit.
I was talking with the pilot
and then I fell asleep
until I heard
Sorry, this is my
lawyer calling me.
Yes?
Hello, sir.
Okay, thank you.
I heard noises,
like someone being beaten up.
Yes, I heard that.
I didn't see it,
but I heard it.
Do you feel this story has
followed you throughout your life?
I'm not worried about this,
because my
conscience is clear.
No one has been able
to produce a single document
proving that I was
ordered to do this.
Nonsense, he's a
damed liar.
MukambaIt was because
he was Mobutu's friend.
So in Leopoldville,
he had real power.
He was protected
by real power too,
by Mobutu's power
and by his army.
Mobutu had good connections
with Tshombe.
And Mukamba ends
up on the plane.
That was no coincidence!
He claims
that he didn't know,
he's a liar.
He lies. He's a killer.
People who were loyal to
Mobutu were well treated.
He was allowed to become
rich over diamonds.
He was the head of
MIBA for many years
and lived with total impunity,
a life of total impunity.
You can do
whatever you want to do,
you can commit all kinds of
crimes and nothing will happen.
Presentarms!
Belgian justice will return
Lumumba's remains
to his three children.
This is a historic event
for all Congolese people.
Why are these remains
so important today?
All that remains of Lumumba is
a tooth seized by justice in 2016
from the daughter of the Belgian
officer who was ordered to cut up
the body and dissolve
it in sulphuric acid,
the day after Patrice Lumumba
had been killed.
When the commissioner returned
to Flanders, he was heard,
in various media
talking about this relic,
describing it almost
as if it were a hunting trophy.
And today, this tooth
has become symbolic,
because in Congolese tradition,
mourning cannot begin
until the body is
found and buried.
Seeing this Belgian
commissioner on TV,
bragging about keeping part of
my father's body as a trophy,
about cutting up
a man into pieces
What kind of hatred
could drive people
to such barbarity?
I'd like to know the whole truth
if someone knows this truth.
We don't have the full truth,
many of our
questions remain unanswered,
the roles of various
people are still unclear.
A Belgian committee
looked into it,
but the UN's role in all
this still remains unclear.
The roles of many Congolese too,
and the Americans.
We still don't have
the whole truth,
but as far as I'm concerned,
I obviously feel stronger about the
involvement of someone like Mobutu.
Of course I do, a man who
committed such a betrayal,
someone so close to him.
He was just one of the people
involved in the assassination,
but he was so close
to my father.
He had a certain ambition.
What happened
afterwards made it clear
that he wanted to become
a person of great importance.
Somebody must have convinced
him that he could have
another destiny,
a greater one,
but this destiny could only exist
if Lumumba was gone.
National hero!
National hero!
Mobutu never
took responsibility for this,
never admitted that he played
a role in the assassination.
Everyone was asking him,
"How could you be involved
in our brother's murder?"
But he'd say, "I wasn't".
So he was under pressure
from other African leaders
to prove he wasn't involved
and that's why
he declared Lumumba
as a national hero.
We will have a day of remembrance
today, on 30 June 1966.
Glory and honour to this
great Congolese statesman,
to this great African,
the first martyr
of our economic independence:
Patrice Lumumba.
Someone who never hurt you,
who taught you everything,
who guided you
Yes, I think it haunted him.
IN 2011, LUMUMBA'S CHILDREN
FILED A COMPLAIN
WITH THE BELGIAN COURTS AGAINS
12 BELGIANS WHO THEY SUSPECTED
OF BEING INVOLVED IN
PATRICE LUMUMBA'S MURDER.
DURING THE FILMING
OF THIS DOCUMENTARY,
ONLY TWO OF THEM
WERE STILL ALIVE:
COUNT ETIENNE DAVIGNON
AND SIR JACQUES BRASSINNE.
SIR JACQUES BRASSINE
PASSED AWAY IN 2023.
NO TRIAL HAS
YET TAKEN PLACE.
that has endured history's
most terrible humiliations.
Our ancestors weren't
even seen as humans,
or even as beings
with intelligence and feelings,
but as mere
bundles of muscle
that were expected
to perform mechanical tasks
as we demand of horses,
buffaloes, donkeys or oxen.
Mobutu Oye!
Mobutu Oye!
Mobutu was a huge figure.
He represents
both decolonisation in Congo
and neocolonialism in Congo
at the same time.
That's why I often say
that Mobutu was
a man of two worlds.
He was born of two parents
who didn't love each other.
In terms of his
political roots,
King Leopold II of Belgium
was his father
and Congo's first
Prime Minister,
Lumumba, was like
a second political father.
And Mobutu tried to
emulate both of these fathers,
both of these ideals.
Congo is 80 times
bigger than Belgium.
Leopold II wanted
all of Congo for himself,
for its greatness and riches.
Lumumba once said
to Leopold II's heir,
"You were no
better than a thief,
a liar and a plunderer.
You must
leave this country."
Freedom fighters:
we are now victorious.
We have endured
mockery and insults,
we were struck by
them day and night,
simply because
we were black.
At that time,
Mobutu was Lumumba's man,
he was his
advisor and errand boy.
They were close friends.
But Mobutu
sought real power,
which was still in the
hands of the whites.
So he helped them
to assassinate Lumumba.
Mobutu's career was
starting to take shape.
Mobutu treated
politics like a game.
Mobutu wanted Congo for himself,
for its greatness and wealth,
just like Leopold II.
He had
delusions of grandeur.
Who was this man?
He was quite a complex man
who ruled for 32 years.
He rose to the highest peak,
but he fell to the
very bottom at the end.
MOBUTU
THE MASTER OF THE GAME
PART 1: LUMUMBA'S SHADOW
There was
a conflict with Lumumba.
So I restored order, that was just
my way of reacting to the situation.
I did nothing to harm
Lumumba physically,
but I reacted
because I hate disorder.
- And then Lumumba disappeared?
- Yes, that's right.
I studied Mobutu
for a long time.
My PHD thesis
was about his reign.
I like to try
to understand things.
Someone who betrayed
a person they were so close to
He caused so much pain.
You have to try to understand
in order to move on.
So you studied the man
who killed your father?
Yes, because
I needed to understand.
I had a desire
for knowledge,
I can't say I know
everything now, but
JULIANA LUMUMBA,
DAUGHTER OF PATRICE LUMUMBA
If you don't like someone,
if you hate someone,
you should learn
more about them.
Here I am with Mobutu.
That's me when I was
governor of Katanga Province.
We knew each other well,
I knew him from school.
He was just a normal kid
at school, like the rest of us.
No one would have guessed
he would become President back then,
because back then,
for black people,
once we'd finished
our education,
we'd just go and work
as a clerk somewhere.
We never imagined that
he'd be our country's leader.
No, that idea didn't
exist back then.
COQUILHATVILLE SCHOOL
Mobutu was very intelligent,
but the Christian Brothers
thought that
he lacked discipline,
that he was
a joker, a teaser.
There was
a Flemish brother there
who didn't speak French
like the other brothers,
so Mobutu would repeat
certain things he said,
making fun of him
and making everyone laugh.
One day, drama struck.
He spilled ink
on his cassock
and then a jeep approached
with a military officer inside.
He was in the Jeep,
he stopped in front of us,
at the school.
He went over
to the headteacher
who shouted out,
"Mobutu!"
So Mobutu came over
and the headteacher handed him
over to this military officer.
He had to leave with him.
Back then, when they decided
you were going to be a soldier,
what could you say?
It was like
being put in prison.
Our soldiers train
under the guidance
of a European instructor
in various feats of balance,
running and jumping.
AFRICAMUSEUM,
TERVUREN, BELGIUM
Mobutu always had a connection
to colonial rule.
The poverty of his childhood
Mobutu grew up
in extreme poverty.
His adoptive father,
as he had no biological father,
worked as a servant
for white people.
Mobutu went to missionary
schools and other schools.
That's where they identified
him, where they chose him
to join the Public Force
and the army.
J.OMASOMBO,
POLITICAL COMMENTATOR
This was a rare opportunity for
a young man in colonial times.
Mobutu's future was
at stake back then,
because, during colonial rule,
no one could
leave their village
and go elsewhere
without a visa.
In Belgian Congo, a permit
was required to travel.
UNITED NATIONS,
NEW YORK
There's no doubt that people
were fed up of colonialism.
No one wanted it anymore,
everybody wanted change.
We didn't want to see the
situation that my father faced:
some foreign settler coming
and taking over his land.
Because he's white and he's black.
No, we don't want that.
Or you classify
jobs differently
so you can justify paying
whites 15 times more.
All Europeans had cars,
nice houses,
they had servants.
So all Europeans were
in a position where
they would live
almost a bourgeois life.
So when the independence
struggles started,
we, the young people,
joined it immediately.
We were all
supporters of Lumumba
and we thought that,
with him,
we would have a decent country
and a decent life.
When did you realise
that Congo needed
to gain its independence?
I was educated
in Christian doctrine:
you must be kind,
not mean,
if someone hits you,
don't hit back.
And I never understood
how I could reconcile,
in my mind,
what the Europeans
were teaching us at school,
their principles
of civilisation and their morals,
with how they treated
the Black population.
Mobutu wasn't anti-white,
he admired white people.
As regards life
amongst the colonialists,
Mobutu could take a lot.
He could see they were
doing wrong, but if he could,
he would also take advantage
of his involvement with them.
Life in the army
was miserable.
How did he get
out of the army?
Well, a good white man
managed to find him
a job in the press
that paid a small salary.
He became a journalist
for a colonial newspaper.
His writing wasn't great,
it was full of stylistic
and grammatical mistakes,
but Mobutu learned quickly.
It's believed that's
when Mobutu
became an informant
for the security services.
He was part of the small Congolese
elite but was paid a meagre salary.
They starved you
and turned you into a dog
to hunt game for them,
to gather information for them.
LUMUMBA OPENS THE
NEW HQ OF THE MNC
It was during this period
that he met Lumumba.
This made Mobutu
a valuable contact
person for the Belgians.
Some people introduced
Mobutu to my father.
They did everything they could
to bring him closer to Lumumba.
Lumumba saw him
as a dynamic young man.
Lumumba thought
he was a good man,
a journalist who spoke well,
he thought,
"We'll need him."
Back then, when I was 8 or 9,
Mobutu would visit our home.
He was like my brother, he'd come
here whenever he wanted to.
He knew how
to flatter people.
LUMUMBA'S SON
He knew how to greet people and
all those important little details.
60 YEARS AFTER HIS MURDER,
"I DON'T MATTER, CONGO DOES."
I remember Mobutu
used to come to this house,
from time to time
he would pick up
my brothers from school.
He'd come over.
They got to know one
another because,
at the time,
Mobutu was writing
pro-Congo articles.
He was a nationalist.
Shortly after they met
he became his protégé.
When he was shown evidence
that Mobutu was working
for Belgian Intelligence,
my father confronted him.
Mobutu simply nodded
and said, "Yes."
When he said he'd stop working
for them, he believed him.
We all believed in him.
He had great affection
for this young man,
he was like a brother to him.
To tell you about the press
in Belgian Congo,
here's Mr Mobutu, a journalist for
L'Avenir newspaper in Léopoldville.
As a journalist,
Mobutu didn't make much
of an impression on me.
It looked like he was
basically trying to
make himself loved
by the Belgians.
How do the locals react
to your articles
and to the newspaper?
Three months ago,
I took a stand
on a wage issue.
All my readers
supported me
when I said that the wages of
Congolese workers were too low.
The next day,
when I told my readers
to be sensible
with their demands,
to be careful,
they labelled me a traitor,
saying that I was betraying
the cause of the Congolese people.
MNC PEOPLE'S RALLY
On 28 December 1958,
Lumumba organised
the first official political
rally in Belgian Congo,
where he declared,
"Independence
is not negotiable."
Mobutu was there,
covering the events.
A week later,
riots broke out.
The common people
started hunting down
anything that was
linked to colonialism:
schools,
petrol stations and so on.
The Belgians had cultivated
this myth of the happy negro,
who was
always smiling and so on.
And they didn't realise
that behind this smile
was a lot of anger.
WE WANT INDEPENDENCE
The colonial
government was shaken.
BE (UN)CLEAN,
(IM)POLITE, (DIS)HONES
Until then, all had seemed
peaceful. They used the whip
and the army to
maintain control.
Officially, they said that
whipping had been abolished,
but in Congo, they whipped
people until June 30th.
My father was
whipped in 1959.
They did it in front of
My father was quite the
polygamist, he had 8 wives.
He was given 12 lashes in 1959
in front of his wives and children.
I wasn't really aware
of what was happening,
but my father
was whipped in 1959.
During the riots, we saw
Lumumba and Mobutu side by side.
Mobutu was on his
moped. We saw him.
People even said that
Mobutu took Lumumba home
on his motorbike.
But Mobutu the journalist,
remained timid
in his articles,
"Yes, we should give
more to the Blacks,
but the Whites built this country,
we must respect them."
Mobutu believed that Blacks
needed to be raised up a bit,
to become closer to Whites.
Mobutu was fighting for something,
but he was not in favour
of a revolution like
Lumumba had in mind.
Lumumba saw him in Brussels
in April of 1959
and liked him because he took
Lumumba around the town,
showed him
all the nightclubs
and the good places,
all of that.
So they became
very good friends.
Yes, they did spend time
together and got along well.
They talked about their negative
experiences of missionary school.
They were both intelligent.
Here in Belgium,
there's a story
about Lumumba and
Mobutu sitting on a sofa
and one of them accidentally
set it on fire with a cigarette.
So Lumumba and Mobutu
threw the sofa out the window.
It was in Belgium that Mobutu
made some good contacts.
He joined a group
of university students
of about 10-20 Congolese.
It was this group
that Belgium and America would
later put in charge of Congo.
Mobutu became a member of this
group, with help from friends
like Jonas Mukamba.
This paid off for him,
especially since Mobutu
never forgot his friends.
THE RESIDENCE
OF JONAS MUKAMBA
Well
Father, I need your help,
because I have
an issue with my tooth.
What kind of issue?
They asked for $115,
but I don't have that much.
A woman you helped told me
that you might be able
to help me too.
Here you go.
- Thank you so much, Father.
- Good luck.
I see myself
as a patriarch,
I have the means
to help others now.
Some people
book appointments,
whereas others come
without an appointment.
It doesn't matter,
I'll see them all.
So Mobutu
Mobutu was my friend.
I'll be his friend
until the day I die.
We lived together
in Brussels,
we went out together,
got into mischief together.
He'd tell me everything.
Since I met Mobutu,
my life has been special.
Mobutu was a man
who kept himself informed,
he was ambitious.
He was a journalist,
so we got our
news from Mobutu.
Yes, that was his role,
he was always
at the forefront.
In Brussels, the opening session of
the Belgian-Congolese Round Table.
The conference aims to
outline the process
for Congolese independence
and the future of
Belgian-Congolese relations.
In early 1960,
the Belgian elite suddenly decided
to grant Congo its independence.
Complete independence
within six months.
It was a complete
strategic U-turn.
Congolese and Belgians
now have to outline
how the country will be
governed in the future.
The idea was to grant
independence quickly
and to organise
elections right away,
in the hope of eroding
the radicalisation
of people like Lumumba.
Their hope was that
the new Congolese parliament
would be filled with
pro-Belgian politicians.
My father was the
Prime Minister at the time.
He believed that
independence was essential,
but he wanted cooperation between
the two countries to continue.
MARK EYSKENS,
POLITICIAN
Because, of course,
Belgium had
many economic
interests in Congo.
Many large companies
were operating in Congo,
in Katanga Province.
They were working in mining:
extracting diamonds, copper, etc.
Uranium too, which,
thanks to Belgium,
was essentially given
to the Americans
to make their atomic bomb.
Congo was, therefore,
of major economic importance.
At the political roundtable Mobutu's
influence grew significantly.
Why?
Every Congolese delegation
had been provided
with a Belgian advisor.
Except Patrice
Lumumba's MNC.
At the political roundtable,
Mobutu was Lumumba's secretary.
That's when Mobutu
entered politics.
For the people of Congo,
he wasn't a factor,
really, at that time.
I don't think most people
even knew that Mobutu existed.
So who cares about
someone in Belgium
as a representative
of the party?
People never paid
much attention to that.
I know that Belgian
intelligence and the CIA
paid much attention to him.
The CIA wasn't doing
very much, if anything,
until decolonisation.
It was considered that
Africa was part of Europe.
It was only when
the pressure began
for decolonisation in Africa,
that the CIA became interested
in beginning to establish contact
with African leaders.
The American Ambassador
in Brussels gave a reception
for the Congolese that had
attended the roundtable.
He wanted to get some idea
of who were
these new leaders.
And the one name that kept coming
up was Joseph-Désiré Mobutu.
That he seemed someone with
a future, that he was competent,
that he seemed to know
what he was doing,
as some of those people
didn't have a clue.
Not a clue!
Having Belgium admit to give us
independence on June 30th
this was a great
moment of triumph.
The Congolese celebrated
that night,
we had Kallé playing
'Independence Cha Cha'
and we all loved
it in the Congo.
Because we didn't realise what kind
of trouble we were getting in.
Why were Europeans ready
to give us independence
without a fight?
It was because they knew
they were going to continue
controlling the economy.
So, it was a total
disaster for the Congo.
Because we came out and basically
handed out everything to Belgium.
That's when this small elite
was bought by
Belgium and America.
Mobutu too, he was
part of this group.
The word "corruption"
then started to take over.
That's when I met Mobutu.
We were quite surprised
to see him representing
Patrice Lumumba,
but subsequent events
clearly show us
that Mobutu's position there
was a strategic choice.
JACQUES BRASSINNE,
DIPLOMA
By staying close
to Patrice Lumumba,
his career took off rapidly.
JUNE 1960,
CONGOLESE INDEPENDENCE
Lumumba won the elections.
He became Prime Minister,
he rose to power.
And Mobutu became
Lumumba's man.
Lumumba appointed him
as Secretary of State.
On Independence Day
we felt that, you know,
this was going to
be a happy moment
when the king would
tell us about what he hoped
that what we and Belgium
would do in the future,
as friends, as countries that
share some things in common.
No, not at all.
Gentlemen
BAUDOUIN, KING OF BELGIUM
Congo's independence
is the culmination
of the work
started by King Leopold II
and guided by his genius.
We must all remember
the pioneers of
African emancipation,
for they brought you peace
and enriched your moral
and material heritage.
What he said to us was
insulting, totally insulting.
Telling us our independence
was the culmination
of the work of civilisation
begun by Leopold II.
What kind of civilisation?
Killing people?
Using people like slaves?
For us, the important
thing was that
Lumumba defended
our honour that day.
My friends, who fought
tirelessly beside us,
we will end the repression
of the freedom of thought
and ensure that all citizens
can fully exercise
their fundamental freedoms
as outlined in the
Declaration of Human Rights.
That day was like being
in a football stadium
when your team
scores a goal.
Even if it's offside,
when everyone starts clapping,
and you clap too.
What he said was true,
but the context
was quite solemn.
The circumstances,
the choices made,
it wasn't about what we
said to one another in private.
I asked Mobutu,
who was with Lumumba
and Mobutu told me
he disagreed with him.
Not with the speech in itself,
but he said that
the timing wasn't right.
That's what he told me.
And all the
sensible people there
said the same thing as him.
He was a speaker
who could sway crowds
very effectively.
That's why
the Belgians
feared him so much
and that's why he stood out
amongst other Congolese leaders.
So, a few days went by,
and then the
first revolt began.
It started within the
Public Force itself, of course.
What role could
the Public Force
potentially play
in the new
Congolese state?
The Public Force will keep
its traditional role.
But do you see
a possibility of breaking
with the past or not?
There's no break
with the past.
"Independence is
for civilians.
As for you guys,
nothing changes.
You're going to
obey Belgian officers.
If you don't obey,
you know what happens to you."
Right after that,
mutiny of the armed forces.
In Leopoldville,
the storm centre of the crisis,
evidence of the bitterness
that has swept the new-born republic
can be seen on every hand.
Anger and chaos,
Black against White.
Congo went up in flames and the
Public Force were behind it,
with women being raped by their
officers and other such horrors.
Even children are armed,
for, in the tragedy that
has struck the heart of Africa,
these people were
taking no chances.
Lumumba understood
that they needed to Africanise
the army.
The apartheid-like idea
that all officers
had to be white Belgians
and all soldiers had to be
black needed to be broken.
9 JULY 1960
And Lumumba appointed
Mobutu as the head,
as the Chief of Staff
of the Public Force.
Like all Belgians,
we thought he was a good choice,
because we knew him,
he was someone
we could talk to,
and in our minds,
he was pro-Western,
pro-Belgian
and pro-American.
Mobutu ran the army.
He took over, right away.
But it was a big mistake.
He had spent 7 years
in the armed forces,
his highest rank was accounting
sergeant, a pay master.
So he was not qualified
to be running an armed force.
The arrival of Belgian troops brings
relief to Léopoldville's Whites.
10 JULY 1960
Clearly, the Africanisation
of the army
helped restore peace.
Before there
was even one casualty,
the Belgian government
decided to intervene.
The issue was
immediately raised,
"What is going
on here in Africa?
This country
just got independence
and now the
Belgians are back."
Belgium's military
interventions in Congo
are truly operations
solely aimed at
protecting people
and saving lives.
Then Tshombe declared
the independence
of Katanga Province,
the richest province
in all of Africa.
The big Belgian companies
that were present there
agreed with this plan.
In many places Belgians were
saying, "This is the solution.
Let the Congolese
kill each other.
Let's isolate Katanga
and make it into
a sort of
African Switzerland.
A peaceful country where
we can do business
and where everyone is
calm and cooperative."
The Katangese, Tshombe, Munongo
They never ruled Katanga.
It was the Belgians
who were running Katanga.
Moïse Tshombe
was just a puppet,
nothing else.
The plot was already made,
the plans already in place.
Belgium want to make this country
into their version of the Balkans.
The Congo will
break up tomorrow.
The United States
felt his words
were too strong.
He was stirring things up
against the Whites.
Why did you ask
Russia to send
troops to Congo?
He talked about inviting
the Russians in, the Soviet Union,
if the West didn't help
him subjugate Katanga.
That's when the United States
began to feel fairly strongly
that he was a threat.
The central Congolese government,
headed by the communist-trained
premier, Patrice Lumumba,
this red agitator
following the classic pattern
of creating ultimate chaos
and skilfully laying
the groundwork
for an eventual
communist takeover.
This was
a theatre of conflict.
For the United States,
this is a place where there could be
a collision
with the Soviet Union.
Here we've got a guy who is
increasingly upset about the West.
He's upset about Belgium,
he's upset about the UN,
which he thinks is getting
controlled by the West.
They were looking
at it as, "This guy
might be manipulated
by the communists
enough to get
the West out of the area."
But it was propaganda based,
at least in the United States' case,
on a vast misperception.
The Soviets they don't even believe
that Lumumba is a communist.
So, clearly the US,
Belgium and the UN,
what they were all focused on
was getting rid of Lumumba,
staying in power,
not getting overthrown
and for them, they all perceived
Mobutu as the top dog.
He was the guy who
was behind the power.
Mobutu controlled a certain number
of troops, that was the key,
and those troops
could be used in a coup.
In Mobutu's mind,
there was no doubt.
Lumumba was right,
Western misconduct
was clear for all to see.
But at some point,
he realised that, like it or not,
this man was corrupt
and it wouldn't work under him.
When he saw how many
people opposed Lumumba,
Mobutu played his hand.
Dear compatriots,
this is Colonel Joseph Mobutu,
Chief of Staff
of the Congolese National Army,
speaking to you
today from Léopoldville.
The Congolese national army
has decided to neutralise
the head of state.
This is not
a military coup,
but rather
a peaceful revolution.
The army is going to help
our country solve its problems.
Long live Congo!
Long live our national army!
Hello.
We thought it was
the lesser of the evils.
ETIENNE DAVIGNON, BELGIAN MINISTRY
OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS IN 1960
Lumumba took a stand
against Belgium
and its interests.
So should we have
supported Lumumba?
We whose role it was to
defend Belgium's interests?
Of course not.
When things are
all going wrong
and you can see a way out,
and there's
no other alternative,
you have to take
what you can get.
So Mobutu was the
alternative you're referring to?
Yes.
Clearly, in the
eyes of everyone.
Colonel, what led you
to make the
decisions you made?
It was to avoid bloodshed,
because Congolese blood
is precious to me.
I wanted to avoid further
chaos in our country,
because it got so bad that
when I couldn't
take it anymore.
I had even
submitted my resignation
to Mr Lumumba,
who refused it.
The UN and the Americans
gave him money
to pay the military.
He made the officers
of his military very happy,
so he controlled them.
The guy had been influenced,
had been given encouragement
and been given a lot of pride
to think he's the indispensable man.
That he's the guy
of the moment,
the guy who can
really change the country.
There were two cordons
around Lumumba's residence:
one from the UN
to protect him,
and another of Mobutu's troops
who were waiting to capture him.
Lumumba was a prisoner
in his own home.
His political career was
already over at that point.
What kind of game is
Colonel Mobutu playing?
You trusted him, didn't you?
I personally don't
understand his actions.
He'll have this
on his conscience.
What I saw,
I was only 10 at the time,
but in the PM's office, there's
a balcony overlooking the street,
and Mobutu was there,
he'd come to see his troops.
And Lumumba was on the
balcony and he called down,
"Joseph, come here,
let's talk about why you sold out.
You've betrayed our nation."
LUMUMBA'S SON
When Mobutu heard Lumumba's voice,
he immediately recognised it,
and he jumped straight
into his Jeep.
And he left.
At that time,
Mobutu was extremely weak.
The UN's
representative, Dayal,
said Mobutu drank up to
a bottle of whisky a day
and that he was the weakest
strongman he had ever seen.
He may have been a little conflicted
at first about Lumumba
and what to do about him, because he
had worked for him as his secretary.
So yes, he was
depressed, at times.
The US was very displeased with that
because he wouldn't do anything,
he'd be inactive and
they didn't want that.
You had Lumumba still staying
in his office and residence,
but he was
going out at night
lecturing people in the
beerhalls and so on.
It was a complete
Nobody knew what was
going to happen.
And I guess I expressed
my concerns
about this situation.
Then I received
a very strange message,
which said that a man who will
identify himself as "Joe from Paris"
will be arriving
in Léopoldville
and "You will take
your instructions from him".
That was most unusual,
because normally instructions
came in coded cable.
When he got there,
I said, "Well, what is it?"
and he said, "Well, you have
to assassinate Lumumba."
But who would have
ordered him?
Well, that was
my next question.
And he said,
"President Eisenhower."
He knew
he was going to die,
that they were
going to kill him.
The only thing he agreed
to do about it was to make plans
to ensure his children
would be safe.
My two brothers and my
sister went to Egypt.
And I stayed, with Mum
ROLAND LUMUMBA,
PATRICE LUMUMBA'S SON
For what they call
his "Final journey".
He decided to
flee house arrest
and return to his
base in Kisangani
in order to counter-attack
those who had been
corrupted by the West.
I was with him in the convoy,
I was young, I don't know
what I can tell you about it.
But I was there, hidden
in the boot of a car.
And at the river,
the Lodi River I think it was,
Mobutu's soldiers were
there, they everywhere.
They stopped us.
When we entered
Kinshasa, a soldier,
because I was crying,
hit me in the head
with his rifle.
Yeah
It took me many years
to realise why it was
that I disliked the military,
they reminded me of all
this many years later.
When Lumumba was
returned to Kinshasa,
Mobutu witnesses soldiers
treating Lumumba like
a common criminal.
He was sitting there,
watching it like that.
That picture tells
you everything.
It was like Judas Iscariot
and Jesus Christ.
Mobutu's most
symbolic gesture
was making Lumumba eat paper
when he was brought back.
That was him taking charge,
showing he was the one
to make Lumumba kneel.
Suddenly, he was
not afraid anymore.
That's what changed.
They were all afraid
of Lumumba.
Of all the Congolese
leaders I've known,
no one had such influence
over other people
as Lumumba did.
No one.
Lumumba is unique
in Congolese history.
There weren't two Lumumbas,
and Mobutu was not Lumumba.
Suddenly, after
fearing Lumumba
and feeling that
he owed him something,
Mobutu became the victor
over a man he feared.
He stood up to the West, but he
destroyed his legacy right then,
because with this image,
he would go down in history
as Lumumba's killer.
And that begins the whole
train of events
that leads to the
transfer of Lumumba
to Katanga, to Tshombe who
was the leader of Katanga,
in which the US and
Belgium are complicit.
And in which they either know or
should know that the Katangans,
who have vowed to
execute him, will do so.
The decision to transfer Lumumba
was made by the Binza group.
The key
members were Mobutu,
Bomboko,
Nendaka and Adoula.
These same people were
on the payroll of the CIA,
but the top dog is Mobutu.
They decided, but they only
decided this in consultation
with Belgium
and the United States.
The Belgian Minister for
African Affairs, he was the one
who sent a well-written
letter to Tshombe
that Lumumba must be
transferred to Katanga,
"There's no time to waste."
A decision which was
accepted by the king.
He knew what was happening
and he didn't do
anything to stop it.
In the plane that
Lumumba was put on,
he recognised two people
from their voices.
One of them
was called Mukamba.
Mobutu decided to
put this man on the plane.
Lumumba said,
"Is that you, Mukamba?
My little brother?
You're doing this to me?
You're the one hitting me?"
And these two men,
when they arrived
in Lubumbashi,
many people don't know this,
but they wanted to show off,
to show that they were big men.
So they started
telling school kids,
"We were on the
plane with Lumumba.
We beat him up."
They told them everything
and 10 years later,
a kid from that school, who had
grown up, told me the story.
He couldn't keep it
to himself anymore.
Some people say Lumumba
recognised you on the plane.
That's completely wrong.
I only found out he was on the
plane when we landed in Lubumbashi,
that's when they told me
that our prisoner was Lumumba.
I was just on
that plane by chance.
I was tired, so I sat
in the cockpit.
I was talking with the pilot
and then I fell asleep
until I heard
Sorry, this is my
lawyer calling me.
Yes?
Hello, sir.
Okay, thank you.
I heard noises,
like someone being beaten up.
Yes, I heard that.
I didn't see it,
but I heard it.
Do you feel this story has
followed you throughout your life?
I'm not worried about this,
because my
conscience is clear.
No one has been able
to produce a single document
proving that I was
ordered to do this.
Nonsense, he's a
damed liar.
MukambaIt was because
he was Mobutu's friend.
So in Leopoldville,
he had real power.
He was protected
by real power too,
by Mobutu's power
and by his army.
Mobutu had good connections
with Tshombe.
And Mukamba ends
up on the plane.
That was no coincidence!
He claims
that he didn't know,
he's a liar.
He lies. He's a killer.
People who were loyal to
Mobutu were well treated.
He was allowed to become
rich over diamonds.
He was the head of
MIBA for many years
and lived with total impunity,
a life of total impunity.
You can do
whatever you want to do,
you can commit all kinds of
crimes and nothing will happen.
Presentarms!
Belgian justice will return
Lumumba's remains
to his three children.
This is a historic event
for all Congolese people.
Why are these remains
so important today?
All that remains of Lumumba is
a tooth seized by justice in 2016
from the daughter of the Belgian
officer who was ordered to cut up
the body and dissolve
it in sulphuric acid,
the day after Patrice Lumumba
had been killed.
When the commissioner returned
to Flanders, he was heard,
in various media
talking about this relic,
describing it almost
as if it were a hunting trophy.
And today, this tooth
has become symbolic,
because in Congolese tradition,
mourning cannot begin
until the body is
found and buried.
Seeing this Belgian
commissioner on TV,
bragging about keeping part of
my father's body as a trophy,
about cutting up
a man into pieces
What kind of hatred
could drive people
to such barbarity?
I'd like to know the whole truth
if someone knows this truth.
We don't have the full truth,
many of our
questions remain unanswered,
the roles of various
people are still unclear.
A Belgian committee
looked into it,
but the UN's role in all
this still remains unclear.
The roles of many Congolese too,
and the Americans.
We still don't have
the whole truth,
but as far as I'm concerned,
I obviously feel stronger about the
involvement of someone like Mobutu.
Of course I do, a man who
committed such a betrayal,
someone so close to him.
He was just one of the people
involved in the assassination,
but he was so close
to my father.
He had a certain ambition.
What happened
afterwards made it clear
that he wanted to become
a person of great importance.
Somebody must have convinced
him that he could have
another destiny,
a greater one,
but this destiny could only exist
if Lumumba was gone.
National hero!
National hero!
Mobutu never
took responsibility for this,
never admitted that he played
a role in the assassination.
Everyone was asking him,
"How could you be involved
in our brother's murder?"
But he'd say, "I wasn't".
So he was under pressure
from other African leaders
to prove he wasn't involved
and that's why
he declared Lumumba
as a national hero.
We will have a day of remembrance
today, on 30 June 1966.
Glory and honour to this
great Congolese statesman,
to this great African,
the first martyr
of our economic independence:
Patrice Lumumba.
Someone who never hurt you,
who taught you everything,
who guided you
Yes, I think it haunted him.
IN 2011, LUMUMBA'S CHILDREN
FILED A COMPLAIN
WITH THE BELGIAN COURTS AGAINS
12 BELGIANS WHO THEY SUSPECTED
OF BEING INVOLVED IN
PATRICE LUMUMBA'S MURDER.
DURING THE FILMING
OF THIS DOCUMENTARY,
ONLY TWO OF THEM
WERE STILL ALIVE:
COUNT ETIENNE DAVIGNON
AND SIR JACQUES BRASSINNE.
SIR JACQUES BRASSINE
PASSED AWAY IN 2023.
NO TRIAL HAS
YET TAKEN PLACE.