Word: lumumba
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...perfumes in Arabia can do wonders, but the United States government is hardly in a position to express deep regret or shock over the death of Premier Patrice Lumumba. Presumably President Kennedy and Ambassador Stevenson have as intimate a knowledge of world affairs as the Neutralist press, (or indeed, the New York Times) which reported two weeks ago that the Congolese leader was being tortured to death...
...succeeded in creating another bogey man. When the Congolese Premier arrived in New York last summer to plead for United Nations aid, he impressed UN and State Department officials (including Secretary of State Herter) with his intelligence, sense of diplomacy, and awareness of danger on the left. But Mr. Lumumba offered only the friendship of an independent Congo, while the government seemed to demand the commitment of a dependent nation. Making a pathetic joke out of respect for "duly elected" government, the U.S. transformed the definition of "duly elected" into "pro-Western," by favoring the Katanga secessionists instead of remaining...
Subsequently ignoring the fact that Lumumba was the democratically designated spokesman for as significant a bloc of Congolese opinion as Tshombe, Mobutu, or Kasavubu, the West set out to force a one-sided stability in the Congo. As usual, the sides were chosen in the name of impartiality and the polarization of forces was peddled off as a means of creating order and stability...
Continuing the pattern, the Associated Press reported fears that "illiterate millions in the Congo may regard Lumumba as a martyr." One wonders where Western apprehensions were hidden during the years in which Belgian rule virtually forbade education in the Congo...
...Lumumba is released and regains power, who is to stop him from inviting the Russians back into the Congo, bearing arms, aid and advice? Could Hammarskjold's balky U.N. troops? From past experience, it seemed unlikely. Then the U.S. would be confronted by the very situation it sought to prevent-Soviet power firmly planted in the heart of Africa...