No continent suffered the horrendous
effects of slavery as much as Africa; no continent was ravished by colonialism
as much as the land that is the cradle of civilization, and no continent has
been exploited and is being exploited like the world's second-largest and
second most populous continent. When we take into account the fact that the
African continent is more resources-endowed than the others; when the harsh
reality hits us that it is the least developed
of the world's main continuous expanses of land; and when we observe that it is haunted by an
unbelievable disconnect between the ruling elites and the masses, we then find
ourselves confronted by many unavoidable
questions such as:
·
Why
is Africa in such a pathetic state?
·
Is
the continent incapable of coming up with leaders that can take it out of its
current impasse and futile consensus to a future that would advance the
wellbeing of the African people?
·
Are
Pan-Africanists (Africans who are selflessly dedicated to the well-being and
development of the land and its people) capable of overhauling its few
indigenous dictators and the forces controlling the African puppets — political
leaderships and political establishments put in place by foreign powers and
foreign interest — and so bring about the long-awaited reality
of a “New Africa” that is economically united, politically integrated and that
is in control of its sovereignty?
The first paragraph, in a way,
answers the first question. The second and third questions are in the
affirmative for the obvious reasons. Pan-Africanist leaders dominated Africa’s
history in the 1950s and 1960s, and many of them were killed by the colonial
and former colonial powers or their agents. In fact, six African independence
leaders were assassinated by their ex-colonial rulers between 1961 and 1973.
Were it not that it is sadly true, the list of the killed
leaders of African independence movements and the stories behind their deaths
or assassinations would make an espionage bestseller.
The first major test of killing the leader of an African
independence movement began in Cameroon following the return to power of
General Charles De Gaulle in France in June 1958. We are talking here about the
September 13, 1958, assassination of Ruben Um Nyobè. He was the leader of the
“Union of the Populations of the Cameroons” (UPC), a civic-nationalist
political party that was advocating for the reunification and independence of
French Cameroon and British Cameroons (territories of the former German Kamerun,
which was partitioned between France and Britain following the defeat of
Germany in the First World War).
Cameroon suffered another traumatizing assassination two
years after Um Nyobè’s gruesome political murder. This was the assassination of
Ruben Um Nyobè's successor and second leader of the UPC, Dr. Felix Moumie. He
died on November 3, 1960, in Geneva, Switzerland, from thallium poisoning that
the French secret agent William Bechtel administered during dinner that they
were having together at a restaurant in the Swiss city. The Frenchman had won
the Cameroonian's trust by posing as a journalist.
Then there would be Patrice Lumumba, the prime minister of
the newly independent Congo, the cruelly ravished former Belgian Congo that
from 1885-1908 was known as “The Congo Free State” — essentially
the private possession of the Belgian King Leopold II where more than half of
the population died from the effects of exploiting the land’s resources.
Lumumba’s death involving four major Western countries and their agents in
Congo is the single biggest cause of the chronic malady of that country, which,
like Cameroon, is yet to recover from the trauma it suffered during the early
years of its so-called independence.
Sylvanus Olympio, the leader of Togo, would be killed in
1963, barely two years after the assassination of Patrice Lumumba.
Sylvanus Olympio’s death would be followed shortly after by
that of Mehdi Ben Barka, the leader of the Moroccan opposition movement, who was
kidnapped in France in 1965, was never released, and whose body has not been
found since then.
Eduardo Mondlane, the leader of Mozambique's FRELIMO (Frente
de Libertação de Moçambique) or Liberation Front of Mozambique, which was
fighting for the colony’s independence from Portuguese rule, would die from a
parcel bomb in 1969.
The 1973 assassination of Amilcar Cabral, the leader of the
African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, (Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e
Cabo Verde or PAIGC), the West African liberation movement against
Portuguese colonial rule in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde, would herald the
transition to a new phase of neocolonialism dominated by puppet dictators in
the continent who would face little or no pushback from the Pan-Africanist,
except in the case of Guinea Bissau,
Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa under Portuguese colonial rule,
and under the quasi-colonial rule of Apartheid South Africa respectively.
There have been several other traumatizing assassinations of
progressive African political figures in the last six decades. However, the
ones below have been the most reverberating, with unintended consequences as
the legacy of these felled African heroes are expanding every day to become the
basis for the rebirth of Pan-Africanism, the ideal around which the economic
union and political integration of Africa would be realized.
Excerpt from the book FALLEN HEROES: African Leaders Whose Assassinations Disarrayed the Continent and Benefitted Foreign Interests
