Lumumba’s Last Letter to His Wife Before Execution by his Fellow Countrymen
One of the most moving and heart rending letters I have ever read was from the great African freedom fighter Patrice Emery Lumumba to his wife. The content is so patriotic you can tell this was a man consumed by his purpose – singleminded in his bid to bring true freedom to his fellow country folk.
It’s therefore even more heartbreaking when you learn that it was his own comrades Mobutu and Kasavubu who ensured he was betrayed and then handed over to his worst enemies, Tshombe and the Katanga government who hated him with a passion and ensured his end was brutal and wicked!
Here is his letter below…
✍🏾
My beloved companion,
I write you these words not knowing whether you will receive them, when you will receive them, and whether I will still be alive when you read them. Throughout my struggle for the independence of my country, I have never doubted for a single instant that the sacred cause to which my comrades and I have dedicated our entire lives would triumph in the end. But what we wanted for our country — its right to an honorable life, to perfect dignity, to independence with no restrictions — was never wanted by Belgian colonialism and its Western allies, who found direct and indirect, intentional and unintentional support among certain high officials of the United Nations, that body in which we placed all our trust when we called on it for help.
They have corrupted some of our countrymen; they have bought others; they have done their part to distort the truth and defile our independence. What else can I say? ‘That whether dead or alive, free or in prison by order of the colonialists, it is not my person that is important. What is important is the Congo, our poor people whose independence has been turned into a cage, with people looking at us from outside the bars, sometimes with charitable compassion, sometimes with glee and delight. But my faith will remain unshakable. I know and feel in my very heart of hearts that sooner or later my people will rid themselves of all their enemies, foreign and domestic, that they will rise up as one to say no to the shame and degradation of colonialism and regain their dignity in the pure light of day.
We are not alone. Africa, Asia, and the free and liberated peoples in every corner of the globe will ever remain at the side of the millions of Congolese who will not abandon the struggle until the day when there will be no more colonizers and no more of their mercenaries in our country. I want my children, whom I leave behind and perhaps will never see again, to be told that the future of the Congo is beautiful and that their country expects them, as it expects every Congolese, to fulfill the sacred task of rebuilding our independence, our sovereignty; for without justice there is no dignity and without independence there are no free men.
Neither brutal assaults, nor cruel mistreatment, nor torture have ever led me to beg for mercy, for I prefer to die with my head held high, unshakable faith, and the greatest confidence in the destiny of my country rather than live in slavery and contempt for sacred principles. History will one day have its say; it will not be the history taught in the United Nations, Washington, Paris, or Brussels, however, but the history taught in the countries that have rid themselves of colonialism and its puppets. Africa will write its own history and both north and south of the Sahara it will be a history full of glory and dignity.
Do not weep for me, my companion; I know that my country, now suffering so much, ‘will be able to defend its independence and its freedom.
Long live the Congo! Long live Africa!
PATRICE
😭😭
The Execution
Patrice (who was just 35 years of age), along with two of his colleagues Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito, political associates who had planned to assist him in setting up a new government. When they were first apprehended trying to cross the Congo river, they were first taken back to Kinshasa and after consultation with both Kasavubu (president) and Mobitou (head of the army and then president by coup d’etat), he was put on a flight into Elizabethville (now Lubumbashi). He was tortured and beaten repeatedly until the plane landed.
The pictures shown are from Universal Press and other foreign press agencies that captured those final depressing hours.
He was then taken to the cabinet of Tshombe and his colleagues, sworn enemies of Lumumba where he and his colleagues were beaten very badly and insulted by the entire cabinet and special forces.
After these gruelling hours, they were then taken by a combined group of Force Publique and Belgian mercenaries to a spot between Lubumbashi and Likasi where they were executed by firing squad.
After two days, word was that many were making inquiries of where they were, so the Tshombe regime fearing reprisals, asked the mercenaries to go back and “get rid of the body”. It was then that the mercenaries went back, exhumed the bodies, chopped them to pieces and dissolved the body in sulphuric acid!
One of the mercenaries retained Lumumba’s tooth which he showed to journalists on a documentary around 1999. Many years later the grand daughter to this mercenary returned the gruesome souvenir to the Belgian government who in turn facilitated an official apology and return of the tooth, which was received by Lumumba’s daughter and the Congolese government to a full guard of honor and service and is now buried at the Lumumba memorial in Kinshasa.
What a painful end to such a gallant son of the soil!!!😭😭😭
Extract from my book as per link
https://5majorreasonsafricaispoor.com