Ideologically an
African nationalist and Pan-Africanist, he led the Mouvement National Congolais
(MNC) party from 1958 until his assassination in 1960. ... In 2002, Belgium
formally apologised for its role overseeing the assassination of Lumumba.
France's ambassador in Léopoldville
maintained a certain bemused distance when Belgian King Baudouin handed over
power to Lumumba at a solemn ceremony on 30 June 1960. Text of the French
embassador:
Baudouin's speech was "the polar opposite of
self-criticism", ambassador Pierre-Albert Charpentier commented in a cable to
the French foreign affairs ministry.
The king lauded the "genius of King Léopold
II", whose rule of the colony had achieved such international notoriety that it
had been satirised in a pamphlet by American author Mark Twain, he reported.
Lumumba, on the other hand, delivered a
"violent diatribe against the regime of exploiters, executioners and
colonialists" and the "humiliating slavery that was forced upon us", addressing
the Congolese people and not the king, who, visibly embarrassed, "talked to his
neighbours". In other cables Charpentier expressed his admiration for the
35-year-old former leader of the independence struggle, whom he described as
"skilful, agressive and courageous", very different from the "bland politicians
around him".
Lumumba personified the Congolese nation, he
commented, unlike the "uncouth clan chiefs" bogged down in their "self-interest
[and] their traditional hatreds".
But the ambassador also warned that Lumumba
could become "the strong man of Congo within a few months", which he judged to
be both good and bad news - on the one hand he had the qualities of a statesman
but on the other it was "worrying when one thinks of his admiration for [Kwame]
Nkrumah and [Gamal Abdel] Nasser".
