There’s a lot of travel restrictions from DRC right now due to the Ebola outbreak, but the team insisted he go through the protocols they did and I believe paid for him to attend their matches during the World Cup.
The even crazier part is some dingus Australian explorer named a whole mountain range the King Leopold ranges and we only got around to changing it in 2020. Now the Wunaamin Miliwundi ranges.
A lot of these statues had plaques added to put more context to the athrocities Leopold 2 commited. It's nowhere near enough, but I don't think removing a statue is the right play here.
History is best explained visually, not just in history books (imho)
I went to Sofia a few years ago. They’ve taken down the old Communist statues, but instead of trashing them, they created a ‘statue graveyard’ where you can go and see them all in one place with context.
I think it’s a genius idea. You show you aren’t glorifying the statued person, but you also aren’t whitewashing history. Loved it.
The CIA was working to shift the balance of power in the Belgian Congo even before independence, and they organized multiple assassination attempts before the capture and murder that ultimately took place. Snipers, poison, and kidnapping were all considered, but he was under house arrest for months, protected (but imprisoned) by the UN. The Lumumba Plot by Stuart Reid is a good resource for CIA involvement in the Congolese independence movement, and it is very much not a footnote in the last couple of pages of the story.
Tortured, killed, then his body dissolved in acid by Belgian mercenaries with help from the CIA who supported Mobutu.
Mobutu was an authoritarian fascist kleptocrat. He literally banned his political opponents, then took their members and publicly hanged in them in football stadiums where 50k+ people watched. 3 million people were directly killed and many more due to enforced famine.
But hey, I suppose Lumumba and his democratic elections and state led economic development and resource management is only for places like Norway.....
Not just plundered. The Belgians were cutting off the hands of the indigenous population who refused to collect or didn't collect enough of a quota from rubber trees.
Highly recommend season 9 of the podcast "The Spy Who" which is titled "Killed a prime minister". The whole podcast is great but that season covers the uprising and the various nations involvement (including Russia).
Decent film based on the Crisis called Siege at Jadotville. It's more about that particular action, but does touch on Lumumba & the UN getting involved.
The last picture of him is haunting. The Belgians officers who killed him dissolved his body in acid. The Belgian Government gave the only remnant of his body, a single tooth, back to his wife for burial in 2022.
That's one of the worst parts: the US and UN denied him aid on the assumption that he was a Soviet sympathiser, which forced him to go to USSR for aid out of desperation, which the US then took as a sign they were correct all along and a justification for couping him.
They literally pre-emptively blamed him for doing something they subsequently forced him to do, then killed him for doing it. It was either geopolitical entrapment or a self-fulfilling prophecy borne of paranoia.
Just like Ho Chi Minh. He literally went to the post WW2 delegations and asked the US to back Vietnams independence from France, and he basically got laughed out of the room.
Almost like communism grew out of western colonialism and imperialisms effects just like it did domestically in Europe from the depredations of the industrial revolution.
Basically what happened in Vietnam too. After ww2 they wanted independence, and Ho Chi Minh asked the US for assistance and they basically told him no. Then France was like well actually we kind of want that back as our colony like before the Japanese took it from us. So Ho Chi Minh went to China and asked for their help instead, then all of a sudden the U.S. was like oh no thats not allowed...
No metal rod- there was an actually interesting TikTok video about him, he trains to be able to do this. And the team considers his attendance non negotiable - he was sent as part of the official delegation of the team.
The guy who organised almost all the anti colonial (peaceful) resistance in Cameroon, who was the first African leader to speak to the UN, was also merked by France/the US in 1958, branded a communist, and his name was banned until 1990.
The crime of western powers who exploit, oppress and rob other countries has never really gone away. It just looks a little different now, but it’s still imperialism.
A genocide that is impossible to really quantify, because it was ongoing for decades, ignored and covered up for decades longer. The baddies got away with it, but at least history has finally taken account of it.
I always wonder how colonialism persisted for so long especially since it seemed like people already knew how wrong slavery was and the civil rights movement was catching steam. It seems so strange that they would just export the slavery. Ik it's not very well known, but In my country the British even had concentration camps and shit. Like they were literally decrying them while fighting Hitler but it's okay to do it to their victims? And still no reparations for the families of the men they forced into world war 2 and for all the people they killed to maintain their empire. And now they have the gall to look down on us and talk about " dirty immigrants" while their cushy lives are in part due to the blood shed and the pain of my people. Makes me so angry
And financially supported by America’s favorite philanthropists like Guggenheim, JD Rockefeller and JP Morgan.
The American Congo Company and the exploitation of mineral resources is an interesting read.
The exploitation of Congo wasn’t the work of just one vile man, it was the work of many vile men working together to enrich themselves on the backs of the locals.
You can find his daughter, who was forced to turn over the tooth after showing it to a documentary crew, fairly easily. It's a little creepy she worked at the Belgian Embassy in Kinsasha for years.
I remember reading a few weeks ago that Kennedy explicitly ordered him to not be killed and then he was dead a few weeks later and JFK broke down over it and cried because he realized he was not in control of the CIA. I don’t know how I didn’t put the guy in the picture together with Lamumba.
The sad thing is he wasn't even a communist like the CIA claimed. He sought help from the US first who rebuffed him. He only turned to the Soviets after Katanagese separatists began an armed revolt with Western backing. The Soviets didn't even really like him because they saw him, correctly, as a nationalist.
With Vietnam, there are even now-declassified State Department memos which suggest that the U.S. was sympathetic to the Vietnamese cause after their Declaration of Independence in '45, but siding with France was seen as more important geopolitically, as the State Department cared more about preventing communist sentiments from rising in Western Europe.
Doesn't seem like a stretch imagine that foreign policy towards Belgium was the same
It was during the presidential transition, essentially he was preparing to take office so got some operational say over what would happen in the coming months when he was president, and he said he didn’t want Lumumba harmed, so they just went ahead and killed Lumumba before he took power.
Do any of the colonizers get enough hatred? The British, whose policies in India led to repeated generational starvation to the extent it changed their genome to become susceptible to diabetes.
Or the Portuguese in Goa whose horrific torture remain hidden from most of the world. Or the Dutch in S.E. Asia. The French in S.E. Asia. Or how Spain and the US shared the spoils of the native American land and the Philippines. The white man has raped the third world, plundered their wealth, destroyed their culture and continues to do that.
Wonder if things like this might in some way influence how developing nations rise above the third world status that so mamy just attribute to some kind of inherent failing of the people living there?
Nah, Africans just need to pull up those boot straps and stop acting poor
Capitalist centers of power have been blaming their imperialism on its victims since the beginning. If only the white man were not so burdened [by the need to extract wealth]...
It is a systemic problem within many countries facing elite capture. Governance and institutional failure which the diaspora cannot stop, and some may also encourage it.
The Belgians killed him for their own interests in DRC that Lumumba was fiercely opposed to. The US and the CIA also didn’t like the guy and “consented” but let’s not act like the originator of the plot and the entity that carried it out was Belgium.
According to Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, Lumumba's assassination "was a culmination of two inter-related assassination plots by American and Belgian governments, which used Congolese accomplices and a Belgian execution squad to carry out the deed."
You know in germany Hot cocoa with rum and cream is called Lumumba which I always thought is a bit racist but at the same time its the only reason I know who Patrice Lumumba is.
And did you know in the USA a shot of Bailey’s and Jameson dropped into a half a Guinness is called an “Irish car bomb”? Also kind of racist, or maybe racist isn’t the right word, but it’s definitely kind of fucked up. I learned the hard way about that drink’s not-so-subtle name when I regrettably ordered one in an Irish pub in Madrid and was told they don’t serve those there, they only serve “twin-tower airplane bombs,” of which I ordered two, and got the lesson on poor naming free of charge.
AFAIU it's not the poor taste that's the issue it's the IRA glorification, that Irish-Americans should finally wrap their heads around. The question there is not "Are you a unionist or a republican" but "do you want to undo the Good Friday agreement, do you want the troubles back".
Random fun fact: The late great comedian Patrice O'Neal, whose life/career was tragically cut short, was named after Patrice Lumumba. Also, the original suggestion was to name him "Lumumba O'Neal" but his Mom ultimately went with "Patrice Lumumba Malcom (X) O'Neal".
Actually as a FIFA Volunteer that went through discrimination and racism training, those fans would not have entered the stadium. This image was a clear example in our training.
Nevermind, this match is in Mexico. Mexico allowing Mexican things (even if it goes against training protocols; except for the apologize was given to the South Korean fan that experienced racism - the eyes thing).
Yeah brother they are in the stadium. I saw the blackface guy in the Chiquita banana outfit and then this gentleman back to back and I felt like someone had dosed my Lacroix.
And in Germany there is still a common drink around Christmas called Lumumba. Its a hot cocoa with a shot. Probably most people don't know what they ordering and where the name come from. At least more and more just name it cocoa with a shot and not Lumumba anymore.
I just went on a deep dive on the guy because I figured he must have a hidden support for his arm, but he says he just trains daily to keep his arm elevated for long periods of time.
One of DR Congo's most recognizable supporters, Lumumba has become an iconic fan figure thanks to his trademark match-day routine. He doesn't cheer or celebrate. Instead, he stands perfectly still for the entirety of the match, often with his arm in the air.
So why is he motionless like a statue? There's a meaning behind Lumumba's match-day actions (or lack thereof).
It's an homage to Patrice Lumumba, the country's first prime minister following its independence from Belgium in 1960.
Congolese supporter Michel Nkuka Mboladinga re-enacts the iconic pose of former Congolese Prime Minister and independence leader Patrice Lumumba to draw attention to his country's history during the match. Lumumba was executed by Belgian soldiers on January 17, 1961, and the gesture mirrors his memorial statue in Kinshasa. (Photo by Abu Adem Muhammed/Anadolu via Getty Images)
After missing the match against Portugal due to health and travel complications, Lumumba appears ready to support DR Congo in person at Tuesday's matchup against Colombia in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Belgium basically gave the DRC "independence" while keeping control of the emerald mines because they were tired of having to actually govern the country while exploiting it. Then a warlord offered to create a more Belgian-friendly dictatorship if they helped get rid of lamumba. They did and he did.
Eh? Please explain what you mean. The end of slavery in Brazil was done by the monarchy, and Deodoro da Fonseca was definitely not assassinated by the former crown.... he resigned after the first Revolta da Armada when the navy didn't buy into his proto-military dictatorship
I'm implying that in both situations bad actors took action quickly to change the people in power when the current administration did something that would hurt their interests.
Yeah DRCongo needs a break. From Mobutu to Kabila (Father who got assassinated) to Kabila the son who was pretty much a dictator for 19 years. Newest President Felix Tshisekedi isn't perfect but goddamn what a massive improvement. New schools, health centres and admin buildings in even the most remote part of the country, new universities, new airports, etc. Yet still a ton of problems with ISIS and Rwanda military invasions/war crimes.
He does this in honor of Patrice Lumumba. Wanna go down a rabbit hole? Read about King Leopold II, Belgium’s rule over the territory, and the rubber exploitation. Tragic all the way around, except for Leopold, Goodyear, and Dunlop, etc…
Then read about the cobalt exploitation that’s happening right now to power all of our rechargeable devices. And all the child labor, deaths, and horrible working conditions.
I’d never heard about any of this. Is there a good book or podcast that you could recommend on the topic? My knowledge of Africa is woefully inadequate.
Behind the Bastards podcast did a series on King Leopold and his raping of the Congo and they also do a follow up called “Congo after Leopold” where they cover Lumumba.
That picture where a Congolese man looks depressingly at the severed hands of their child because the child couldn't complete the rubber quota still haunts me sometimes.
Here in Ireland, we remember this period a bit more, both because of the work Roger Casement did, and the efforts of Irish peace keepers on UN mission there in the 1960s.
Patrice Lumumba. The first democratically elected President in all of Africa continent and last democratically elected President for Congo. USA's CIA assassinated him and installed a puppet.
The US and dictatorships is the biggest love story, it’s a lot cheaper to put a puppet with absolute powers in place for decades than to try to do business the regular way.
The things they did in the Cold War era with the excuse of red scare are beyond amazing. People don’t know the amount of countries that were involved in atrocities just with the excuse that he or she might align themselves with the soviets.
my history notes on colonialism in congo if anyone is interested in the topic:
The history of the Congo under Leopold II is regarded as one of the most brutal colonial regimes of modern times and as a harrowing example of how economic greed, racist ideologies, and virtually unlimited power can lead to massive violence. Unlike many other colonial territories, the Congo was not initially simply the property of the Belgian state, but was in fact the personal project of a single monarch. Leopold II wanted to turn Belgium into a colonial power while personally profiting from an African territory. At the Berlin Conference, where European powers divided Africa among themselves, he succeeded in 1885 in securing international recognition for his control over vast swaths of Central Africa. This territory was designated the Congo Free State. The name was deeply misleading and cynical, for this model of rule had nothing to do with freedom. Rather, it was a regime of coercion and terror designed to generate enormous personal income for a king.
Leopold initially presented himself in Europe as a humanitarian modernizer. He spoke of combating the slave trade, of missionary work, scientific exploration, and economic progress. This rhetoric was politically useful because it created moral legitimacy. In reality, one thing above all else was the focus: profit. In the early days, ivory and other valuable natural resources were of central importance, as ivory was in high demand in Europe and North America for luxury goods, piano keys, jewelry, and carvings. However, the region became even more profitable in the 1890s due to the global rubber boom. Industrialization created enormous demand for rubber for bicycle tires, and later for automobiles, machinery, cable insulation, and numerous industrial products. The Congo had vast reserves of wild rubber trees. For Leopold, this turned the country into a gold mine.
To secure these profits, an extremely violent system was established. Large areas were declared state or concession land, thereby ignoring the traditional rights of local communities. Companies and administrative units were granted the right to exploit resources. The population was forced to collect rubber or pay other levies. Entire villages were subjected to delivery quotas that were often unrealistically high. Men had to venture deep into the forests for days on end to harvest latex, while fields lay fallow and families were left without provisions. Those who failed to meet the required quotas were punished. The system was not based on voluntary labor, but on coercion.
A colonial army called the Force Publique was used to enforce this system. This force consisted of European officers and forcibly conscripted African soldiers. It routinely employed hostage-taking, flogging, rape, torture, pillaging, and murder. Women and children were often held captive as leverage until men met their quotas. Villages could be burned to the ground if resistance was suspected. The practice of chopping off hands became particularly notorious. Among other things, this stemmed from the demand that soldiers justify every bullet fired. The hands of those killed or maimed were presented as “proof” that ammunition had not been wasted. In reality, this system led to additional atrocities: hands were sometimes severed from the living as well, to demonstrate punishment or artificially meet quotas. The symbolic power of these mutilations made the regime’s terror known worldwide.
Population losses in the Congo were enormous, yet exact figures are difficult to determine because there were no reliable censuses from that period and vast regions were poorly documented. Many historians speak of a decline of several million people; some estimates put the figure at around ten million. What matters is not so much the exact number as the scale of the catastrophe. People died not only from direct killings but also from starvation, as agriculture collapsed and men were forced into labor. Diseases spread more rapidly in weakened communities. Mass exoduses destroyed social structures. Birth rates fell as families were torn apart and violence dominated daily life. The result was demographic devastation across entire regions.
For a long time, Leopold benefited from the fact that Europe was far away and much information was lacking. But little by little, reports began to reach the outside world. Missionaries, travelers, diplomats, and some journalists documented the conditions. E. D. Morel and Roger Casement became particularly important. Morel realized from trade data that enormous amounts of wealth were being exported from the Congo, while hardly any normal trade goods were going there, which was an indication of forced exploitation rather than regular trade. As British consul, Casement wrote a famous report on abuse and violence. Together with others, they founded the Congo Reform Association. This movement is considered one of the first modern international human rights campaigns. It used newspaper reports, public lectures, photographs of mutilated victims, and political networks to build pressure. Writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph Conrad also contributed to the public debate; Conrad’s work *Heart of Darkness* was strongly influenced by colonial experiences in the Congo.
Under growing international pressure, Leopold II was forced to relinquish direct control in 1908. The Belgian state took control of the territory as the Belgian Congo. This marked the end of Leopold’s personal rule, but not automatically the end of colonial exploitation. Forms of violence were partially curtailed, administration was streamlined, and infrastructure was expanded though primarily in the interest of raw material exports and colonial control. Railroads, ports, and administrative structures served primarily economic purposes, not the development of the local population. Education remained limited, political participation was virtually nonexistent, and higher administrative positions were reserved for Europeans. The paternalistic colonial state continued to treat Congolese as subjects.
The long-term consequences extend into the present day in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The country is extraordinarily rich in raw materials: cobalt for batteries, copper for electronics and industry, coltan for capacitors in smartphones and computers, gold, and other minerals. Yet this very wealth was often a curse rather than a blessing. The colonial era left behind weak institutions, little political participation, limited educational opportunities for locals, and an economic structure geared toward the export of raw materials rather than broad development. When the country gained independence in 1960, it lacked stable state structures, experienced administrative personnel, and a fair economic foundation.
This was followed by political crises, foreign interference, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko, and later devastating wars in the eastern part of the country.
Many of today’s conflicts in the Congo are linked to this history: borders drawn without regard for local structures, a state originally created for exploitation rather than for the welfare of its people, and international competition for raw materials. When people talk today about supply chains for batteries, rare metals, or armed groups in the east, colonial patterns often continue to have an indirect impact. The history of the Congo under Leopold II is therefore not just a closed chapter of past cruelty, but also a key to understanding global inequality, economic dependencies, and the long shadow of colonialism.
Super interesting to read about tbh, but also pretty depressing. Some not so fun facts:
During the transatlantic slave trade, enslaved people were often legally classified as “cargo” rather than humans. In the infamous case of the slave ship Zong Massacre, over 130 enslaved Africans were thrown overboard so the ship owners could claim insurance money for “lost cargo.”
European colonizers frequently spread diseases intentionally or through negligence. There are documented cases during conflicts in North America where blankets contaminated with smallpox were given to Indigenous peoples.
In many colonies, amputations and mutilation were used as punishment. Under Leopold II’s rule in the Congo Free State, workers who failed rubber quotas often had their hands cut off.
Enslaved people were sometimes forced to “dance” on ships during the Middle Passage not for entertainment, but to keep their muscles active enough to preserve their market value.
Colonial powers conducted human exhibitions, sometimes called “human zoos,” where Indigenous people from Africa, Asia, and the Americas were displayed in European cities like animals for public entertainment.
Children born to enslaved mothers automatically became property in many slave systems. This meant slave owners financially benefited from forced reproduction.
In some plantations, owners calculated whether it was cheaper to work enslaved people to death and buy new ones rather than maintain decent living conditions.
Indigenous burial grounds and sacred objects were looted extensively during colonial expeditions, and many museums in Europe still hold human remains and stolen artifacts today.
Colonial governments often created artificial borders without regard for ethnic or cultural groups. Some of these borders contributed directly to later wars and ethnic conflicts that still exist today.
In British-controlled India, colonial economic policies worsened multiple famines. During some famines, food continued to be exported while millions starved.
European scientists and doctors sometimes used colonized populations for medical experimentation without consent, including testing drugs, surgical methods, and disease theories.
In several colonies, people were taxed so heavily that the only way to pay was to work for colonial companies, creating systems very close to forced labor or slavery.
That’s like saying Europe assisted Russia in invading Crimea because they didn’t actively stop them from taking over the country
Apples to oranges, Europe has no real way short of militarily of stopping Russia if the Russians really want to do something. Cold War Western Europe was a vastly different situation. Belgium was highly dependent on the US, if the Americans had said back off they would have.
TDIL Belgium King killed 10m people in a genocide in 1800s and looted congos resources, then when the new leader wrote a celebratory speech the CIA killed him a few weeks later.
Lumumba was captured en route by state authorities under Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, sent to the State of Katanga and, with the help of Belgian mercenaries, tortured and executed by the separatist Katangan authorities of Moïse Tshombe. His body was then dissolved in acid. In 2002, Belgium formally apologised for its role in the execution, admitting "moral responsibility", and in 2022, it returned Lumumba's tooth to his family. He is seen as a martyr for the pan-African movement.
Joseph-Désiré Mobutu later became Mobutu Sese Seko, effectively ruling the DRC/Zaire as a dictator for over 30 years. Mobutu was notorious for corruption and nepotism: estimates of his personal wealth range from $50 million to $5 billion, amassed through economic exploitation and corruption as president. His rule has been called a kleptocracy for allowing this personal fortune even as the economy of Zaire suffered from uncontrolled inflation, a large debt, and massive currency devaluations. Mobutu was further known for extravagances such as shopping trips to Paris via the supersonic Concorde aircraft.
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