CIA activities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The CIA has been involved in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for several decades, especially in relation to the CIA's considerations and plans to assassinate former Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and accusations of CIA involvement in his eventual assassination. The CIA is also notably involved in a campaign against Lumumba's successor, which led to his eventual imprisonment and long exile from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.^[1] The CIA was also a vital part of the United States efforts to aid Joseph Mobutu who would take control of the Congo in 1965, renaming it Zaire. The CIA would work heavily with Mobutu, particularly in relation to American support for the National Liberation Front of Angola and Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the second largest country by area on the African continent and is one of the most mineral rich countries in the world. Though it is located in the Central African UN subregion, the nation is also economically and regionally affiliated with Southern Africa as a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It borders the Central African Republic and South Sudan to the north; Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi in the east; Zambia and Angola to the south; the Republic of the Congo, the Angolan exclave of Cabinda, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west; and is separated from Tanzania by Lake Tanganyika in the east.

1960

The independent Republic of the Congo was declared on 30 June 1960, with Joseph Kasa-Vubu as President and Patrice Lumumba as Prime Minister. The Democratic Republic of the Congo was originally a Belgian colony that was established in 1908, It shared a name with the neighboring Republic of the Congo to the west, a French colony that also gained independence in 1960, and the two were normally differentiated by also stating the name of the relevant capital city, so Congo (Léopoldville) versus Congo (Brazzaville).

Patrice Lumumba was seen by the United States as a potential Communist, as he turned to the Soviet Union for aid in keeping Congo independent of Belgian rule after he had been denied this aid by the United Nations and the United States. Though Lumumba himself said he was not a communist, or had communist tendencies. He reached out for help from the Soviets, who provided him with troop transportation because he had no other options. SO, in terms of the Cold War, Lumumba was neutral, which marked him an enemy of the CIA (to them anyone who did not openly hate communism and denounce it was a communist sympathizer and was their enemy). ^[2] Based off classified CIA cables from Leopoldville to the head of the CIA report the view of the CIA that Lumumba was involved with Communists:

EMBASSY AND STATION BELIEVE CONGO EXPERIENCING CLASSIC COMMUNIST EFFORT TAKEOVER GOVERNMENT. MANY FORCES AT WORK HERE: SOVIETS COMMUNIST PARTY, ETC. ALTHOUGH DIFFICULT DETERMINE MAJOR INFLUENCING FACTORS TO PREDICT OUTCOME STRUGGLE FOR POWER, DECISIVE PERIOD NOT FAR OFF. WHETHER OR NOT LUMUMBA ACTUALLY COMMIE OR JUST PLAYING COMMIE GAME TO ASSIST HIS SOLIDIFYING POWER, ANTI-WEST FORCES RAPIDLY INCREASING POWER CONGO AND THERE MANY BE LITTLE TIME LEFT IN WHICH TO TAKE ACTION TO AVOID ANOTHER CUBA.^[3]

Later in his term, which lasted only 10 weeks, the CIA began to orchestrate plans for Lumumba's assassination.

Larry Devlin became Chief of Station in Congo in July 1960, a mere 10 days after the country's independence from Belgium and shortly before Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba's two-month term in office, dismissal from power and eventually his bloody execution.^[4] In his memoir, Devlin reveals that late in 1960, he received instructions from an agent ("Joe from Paris") who was relaying instructions from CIA headquarters that he (Devlin) was to effect the assassination of Lumumba.^[5] Various poisons, including one secreted in a tube of toothpaste, were proffered along with plans to poison his food. The directive had come from the CIA Deputy Chief of Plans Dick Bissell, but Devlin wanted to know if it had originated at a higher level and if so, how high. "Joe" had been given to understand that it had come from President Dwight D. Eisenhower, but Devlin to this day does not know for sure. Devlin writes (and has recently said in public speaking engagements) that he felt an assassination would have been "morally wrong" and likely to backfire and work against U.S. interests. In the event, he decided not to act until the day Lumumba was moved to Katanga (the power hold of one of his many enemies in the country and a man who publicly called for his scalp). Lumumba was ultimately murdered by his enemies in Katanga, with Belgian government participation. U.S. intelligence was kept apprised.

The United Nations Security Council was called into session on December 7, 1960 to consider Soviet demands that the U.N. seek Lumumba's immediate release, the immediate restoration of Lumumba as head of the Congo government, the disarming of the forces of Mobutu, and the immediate evacuation of Belgians from the Congo. Soviet Representative Valerian Zorin refused U.S. demands that he disqualify himself as Security Council President during the debate. Hammarskjöld, answering Soviet attacks against his Congo operations, said that if the U.N. forces were withdrawn from the Congo "I fear everything will crumble."^[6]

Following a U.N. report that Lumumba had been mistreated by his captors, his followers threatened (on December 9, 1960) to seize all Belgians and "start cutting off the heads of some of them" unless Lumumba was released within 48 hours.

Death in the Congo: Murdering Patrice Lumumba

In recent years, new evidence has emerged about this grisly event and those responsible for it. Of particular importance have been the gradually declassified files of the 1975–76 US Senate Church Committee’s investigation of CIA assassination plots against Lumumba, the report of a Belgian parliamentary inquiry in 2001, Congo Station Chief Larry Devlin’s 2007 memoir, and the long-awaited appearance in 2013 of a “retrospective” Congo volume in the State Department’s Foreign Relations of the United States series, which contains extensive CIA operational documents from the 1960s.

Like other scholars, Gerard and Kuklick dismiss the anti-communist rationale for Western interventionagainst Lumumba. They cite CIA and State Department intelligence analyses that portrayed Lumumba as a proud nationalist and Pan-Africanist who strove to be neutral in the Cold War. Unfortunately, agency heads and President Eisenhower thought they knew better and disregarded this intelligence. The authors maintain that the governments of Belgium and the United States—including their covert operators— were largely responsible for “this traveling carnival of death.” (215) They insist that the West cannot escape accountability for the consequences of its actions by arguing that it was “the locals” who pulled the trigger: Along with their own attempts to deliver the coup de grace, US and Belgian officials more and more turned to Lumumba’s opponents...The Europeans and Americans goaded the Africans to imprison Lumumba and to secure a capital sentence. The politicians in Leopoldville proved willing to jail him, but were afraid either to bring him to trial or put him to death. Those in Katanga [a Belgian-supported secessionist province] were not afraid, and the Belgians and Americans and the Leopoldville Group knew that. With Western urging, [President Joseph] Kasavubu and his cohorts sent Lumumba to Elizabethville and his doom. (216) Regarding the US role at the end, they present a very strong circumstantial case. The United States, through the CIA, was demonstrably trying to do Lumumba in—directly and through its cooperating Congolese leaders—from August through November 1960. In January 1961, these same clients gave the station chief advance notice of their plan to ship Lumumba to his bitterest enemies and he did nothing to discourage them. ^[7]

The CIA and Joseph Mobutu

The United States backed Joseph Mobutu for over three decades. Support for Mobutu started when Lumumba was in power (Mobutu was Lumumba's chief of staff and head of the army), and continued to grow as he became a more influential leader in the Congo.^[8]

Regarding Lumumba, Devlin would later state, "Lumumba was a danger for both the Congo and the rest of the world." (because of his perceived anti western attitudes) ^[9] When asked if he was happy following the death of the leader, Devlin responded that although happy wasn’t his specific word of choice, he was certainly glad to be moving onto another project.

Others provided mixed thoughts on why Lumumba posed the threat that ultimately made Mobutu a US-sponsored leader in the Congo. Jacques Brassin, a Belgian diplomat at the time of Lumumba and chronicler of his death, acknowledged that part of the reason the Congo's leader was resisted by outward forces was due to his disregard for supposed Belgian leadership in the region. "He was dangerous for us," Brassin later said, "In the sense that he wasn’t open to the kind of solutions we wanted to apply." ^[9] Another Belgian and personal friend of Lumumba, Jean Van Lierde, contested that Lumumba was killed because he represented an unpredictable political nature that neither the United States nor the Belgium national government could truly identify and control. Still, others including Belgian Colonel Louis Marliere, accused Lumumba of favoring the Soviet side of the political spectrum.^[9]

Many scholars, including Emmanuel Gerard and Bruce Kuklick, have rejected the idea that was initially presented by the United States, one which depicted Lumumba as a dictator preoccupied with aligning himself with the Soviets. He was, as later cited by the CIA and State Department, a proud nationalist who valued his nation's welfare over playing a role in either the Soviet or U.S. foreign policy. In reality, Lumumba was neutral in the scope of the Cold War.^[10]

With Lumumba painted as a pro-Soviet radical, Mobutu would lead the September 14th coup against him and President Joseph Kasavubu, hoping to neutralize them and impose a ban on politics for the rest of the year.^[8] The coup was sponsored by the CIA, and would receive continued support by the CIA, including an October 27 decision by the 5412 group to release an additional 250,000 to support Mobutu.^[8] The coup resulted in Lumumba being placed under de facto house arrest, protected by U.N. forces. When Lumumbu grew tired of the situation, he escaped U.N. protection with his family on his way to Stanleyville in the Orientale province of the Congo, though he made frequent stops to help rally the people to his cause (and this allowed his captors to catch up to him quickly). (Today Kisangani). Lumumba never made it; as he was captured by Mobutu's forces, he was savagely beaten and was executed on January 17, 1961.^[11]

The exact involvement of the CIA in Lumumba's assassination is still debated by scholars and Journalists. According to Scholar John Prados, who is also a senior fellow of the National Security Archive, the CIA was involved in several indirect ways. First the CIA had the Congolese official that issued Lumumba's arrest warrant on their payroll. The CIA had also been providing Mobutu and his forces with large amounts of money and supplies, as he was going to be their pro-western puppet leading the nation instead of Lumumba. CIA officials were also aware of much of the situation as it developed, and failed to stop the actions against Lumumba. CIA officer Delvin in fact knew about the plan to move Lumumba to an area controlled by his sworn enemy and decided not to alert either the Agency or the US government until he was already being moved. (he did this because the Kennedy Administration as about to come into power and Eisenhower would have wanted Kennedy to decide what to do since his term was so close to ending. So delving waited to ensure that Lumumba would die at the hands of Motubu and the Belgians)^[12]

After the death of Lumumba, the CIA's relationship with Mobutu would continue to develop. Frustrated with the assent to power of Antione Gizenga, the CIA would continue to support Mobutu. Mobutu worked behind the scenes of then President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Ministers Moise Tshombe and Cyril Adoula, helping to secure the nation's new regime with the help of the CIA. This included subsidizing and advising (bribing and buying) tribal and political leaders, relationship with labor unions and student associations, paying off parliament members and military officers, and efforts to convince UN delegates of the legitimacy of the Congo's government.^[13] This support continued to grow after Mobutu visited President John F. Kennedy in the Rose Garden in 1963. This led to Mobutu receiving American financial and military support that allowed him to be in a position to assume total control of the Congo. After his 1963 visit to the White House, Mobutu was regarded as a CIA asset, and a relationship that lasted over thirty years was solidified.^[14]

Although U.S. policymakers wanted to move "away from slush funds and towards genuine development aid", when Motubo asked for more funds in late 1968, he got it with few strings attached, because according to the State Department, Motubo was the ultimate source of power in Congo. They also stated how vital ready access is in order for the State Department to continue their long-standing policy of helping the Congo with unity, stability and economic progress, as their hopes were to see a stable, western-oriented government in the heart of Africa.^[13] They did not want to risk the impairment of access to Motubo and that if it were to occur, it would be carried over to the contacts throughout the Congolese Government.^[13] The CIA Board of National Estimates echoed that view soon after Motubo's departure: "If it is sudden, it will probably result in a prolonged turmoil and a sharp decline in internal security." This would also likely cause a significant loss of CIA access, and influence, in the Congolese government.^[13]

Motubo remained a beneficiary of U.S. support throughout the Cold War despite the corruption and profligacy that were evident near the end of the Agency's covert operations. he was a reliable anticommunist ally of Washington's until his overthrow in 1997.^[13]

Covert operations 1960–1968

The CIA conducted series of fast-paced covert action operations in the Republic of the Congo. their operations was to stabilize the government and to minimize the communist influence within the country. The CIA also launched a massive PR campaign to denounce Lumumba and to promote Motubu. The overall program was the largest in CIA history and it comprised activities dealing with regime change (promoting Motubu and others), political action, propaganda (denouncing Lumumba as a communist and staging mobs/riots/protests against him), air and marine operations, and arms interdiction. By the end of the operation, the CIA had spent almost $12 million to accomplish the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson's administrations' objectives to establish a pro-Western leadership in the Congo that they backed for over three decades. The Democratic Republic of the Congo became one of the US and the West's greatest allies in the west as a result of the large investment made by the CIA.^[13]

Early CIA perceptions of Joseph Mobutu

Several released CIA documents shed light on how the CIA perceived Mobutu during his rise to power and the early years of his time in power. From these documents it can be seen that many in the CIA were unsure of the long term capability of Mobutu, viewing him in an "optimistically pessimistic manner". This is demonstrated in a 1966 intelligence memorandum, opening with a quote from the Belgian Foreign Minister Spaak stating that "The Coup was the best thing that could possibly have happened; it remains to be seen whether it is also a good thing." (The coup was done in a very efficient manner and for the short term benefited the US and Belgium but the long-term effects of the coup remained to be seen)^[15] The CIA cautiously approached Mobutu, unsure if he could maintain a dual role as both a political and military leader. The CIA also states in a 1966 Intelligence Memorandum that this duality is likely to cause Mobutu to move toward authoritarian rule (which he did). They also spoke favorably of his numerous civilian programs, but doubted their ability to achieve long term effectiveness.^[16]

The CIA's early doubts were proven to be merited. Mobuto became one of the world's most vicious and corrupt dictators. He embezzled billions of the nations revenue from diamonds and other precious metals/stones, and received generous gifts from the CIA and other agencies. Mobuto, like many other dictators before him, killed his own people in order to maintain his power. In 1997, Mobuto would be driven out of the country by Laurent Kabila's rebel forces, and three months later, pass away from prostate cancer in Morocco.

References

See also

• Congo in CIA regime change actions
• Congo Political Crises (1960–1965)
• Arrest of Patrice Lumumba.

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