Page 175 - Volume 1_Go home mzungu Go Home_merged with links

Decades of post-colonial chaos

"Veni, Vidi, Vici, numquam reliquit - ego adduxit inimici mei !"

Coups, Mercenaries & Interventions

Africa: a continent drenched in the blood of revolutionary heroes
" Between 1961 and 1973, six African independence leaders were assassinated by their

ex-colonial rulers, including Patrice Lumumba of Congo, who was killed 50 years ago
today

***
Patrice Lumumba, prime minister of newly independent Congo, was the second of five

leaders of independence movements in African countries to be assassinated in the
1960s by their former colonial masters or their agents.

A sixth, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, was ousted in a western-backed coup in 1966, and a

seventh, Amilcar Cabral, leader of the west African liberation movement against Portugal
of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, (Partido Africano
da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde or PAIGC) in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde,

was assassinated in 1973.

Lumumba's death in 1961 followed on from that of the opposition leader of Cameroon,
Felix Moumie, poisoned in 1960. Sylvanus Olympio, leader of Togo, was killed in 1963.

Mehdi Ben Barka, leader of the Moroccan opposition movement, was kidnapped in
France in 1965 and his body never found. Eduardo Mondlane, leader of Mozambique's

Frelimo, fighting for independence from the Portuguese, died from a parcel bomb in
1969.

The loss 50 years ago of this group of leaders, who all knew each other, and had a

common political project based on national dignity, crippled each of their countries and
the African continent. The effects are still evident today. "

"Africa: A Continent Drenched in the Blood of Revolutionary Heroes" 161
Victoria Brittain, The Guardian, (January 2011)

*****
“ Of the 107 African leaders overthrown between 1960 and 2003, two-thirds were
murdered, jailed or slung into exile. Up until 1979 59 African leaders were toppled or

assassinated. Only three retired peacefully and not one was voted out of office. No
incumbent African leader ever lost an election until 1982.”

"Conflicts in Africa-Introduction." 162
Anup Shah, Global Issues, (Updated May 2010)