Shouldn't ICC Indict Those Who Killed Lumumba?

Murder has no statute of limitation. Everyone knows the atrocities against Africa perpetrated by the Europeans especially in Congo by Belgium. It is no secret that Mr. Patrice Lumumba was assassinated. I have myself watched on TV as former CIA senior official, Ray Cline, say that CIA sent people to Congo to kill Mr. Lumumba but they were called back after they got there. I just read of a Gerard Soete, a former Belgium gendarme who claims that he and his brother cut up Mr. Lumumba and dissolved his body in sulfuric acid. I don't know if he is alive today. I know he was in 1999. Certainly there will be others who will know all those involved and at the very least it should be investigated.

Now that the International Criminal Court is on the march to prosecute Africans for war crimes, should we not demand that they prosecute those who murdered Patrice Lumumba? Of course in Africa, we do not have leaders who will make such demands on the court. We will be quick to demand it for other Africans but not for Europeans and others. If the world has any decency, no one will wait to bring those people to justice.

I read the following on US News website:

Does that mean the CIA didn't play a role? Declassified U.S. cables from the year preceding the assassination bristle with paranoia about a Lumumba-led Soviet Communist takeover. The CIA was hatching plots against Cuban leader Fidel Castro and was accused of fomenting coups and planning assassinations worldwide. And Lumumba clearly scared the daylights out of the Eisenhower administration. "In high quarters here, it is the clear-cut conclusion that if [Lumumba] continues to hold high office, the inevitable result will [have] disastrous consequences . . . for the interests of the free world generally," CIA Director Allen Dulles wrote. "Consequently, we conclude that his removal must be an urgent and prime objective."

After they killed Patrice Lumumba, they replaced him with Joseph Mobutu who took 30 years to run Congo to the ground. They kill our good leaders, replace them with mediocre leaders and then turn around and ask if Africa is capable of self government.

Isn't what is going on in The Congo today worth us asking where the revenge is for Congo? If the ICC is prosecuting people in that part of the world for a lot less atrocity than what the Belgians did and the effect that it has had on Congo and Africa, should we not ask for parity?

Tony Pobee-Mensah