The elements of power, p.42
The Elements of Power, page 42
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The party’s leaders cherry-picked: Kennes and Larmer, Katangese Gendarmes and War in Central Africa, 35.
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“When the first white explorers”: Godefroid Munongo, “Comment est né le nationalisme katangais,” Elisabethville, June 16, 1962, as cited in Kennes and Larmer, Katangese Gendarmes and War in Central Africa, 36–37. Munongo was also a Belgian territorial secretary and the first president of Conakat until the colonial authorities urged him to step down.
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invited Lumumba and African activists: “ ‘Hands Off Africa!!’ The 1958 All African People’s Conference: Its Impact Then and Now—All Parts,” Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study: University of London, archived March 23, 2023, at web.archive.org/web/20230323075328/https://commonwealth.sas.ac.uk/podcasts/hands-africa-1958-all-african-peoples-conference-its-impact-then-and-now-all-parts.
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He inveighed against “colonialism”: “Discours prononcé par Patrice Lumumba, président du Mouvement National Congolais à la Conférence d’Accra, 11 Décembre 1958,” in La pensée politique de Patrice Lumumba, ed. Jan Van Lierde (Présence Africaine, 2003), 17.
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Kufi looked up to: Gaylord Kilanga, interview with the author, February 2024.
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Chapter 5: The Prime Minister’s Tooth
“The basic idea was to”: Albert Kalonji Ditunga Mulopwe, Congo 1960: La sécession du Sud-Kasaï (L’Harmattan, 2005), 80.
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South Kasai would be: Bill Berkeley, “Zaire: An African Horror Story,” Atlantic, August 1993.
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Eisenhower became the first: Ben Quinn, “MI6 ‘Arranged Cold War Killing’ of Congo Prime Minister,” Guardian, April 1, 2013. The CIA sent an agent carrying vials of poison to use on Lumumba. Britain’s intelligence service reportedly also planned to assassinate him. Neither plot was carried out.
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A Belgian adviser suggested: Stuart A. Reid, The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination (Alfred A. Knopf, 2023), 383.
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Devlin did not protest: Reid, Lumumba Plot, 385.
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It had been yanked: Reid, 399. It was from Gerard Soete’s collection of grisly memorabilia that the tooth was recovered in 2016. Another tooth and a finger had also been removed by the brothers, but they were said to have been thrown into the North Sea long before.
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the tooth was retrieved: At the ceremony, a group of women carrying Lunda Empire banners were present to celebrate the man that Tshombe, a Lunda royal, had seen fit to murder. See “RDC: Le cercueil de Patrice Lumumba à Shilatembo, le lieu du crime,” posted June 27, 2022, by AfricaNews, YouTube, youtube.com/watch?v=82Wtah8laFY.
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Chapter 6: A Patriot with a Cause
funneled mining revenue: Économie katangaise et économie congolaise à la veille de l’indépendance, SD No. 61/5, 1 July 1961, box 4, folder 854, Union Minière Collection: Archives sur l’Exploitation des Mines de Cuivre Katangaises, Premier Série, Quatrième Partie, Archives de l’État en Belgique, Dépôt Joseph Cuvelier, Brussels, Belgium. The mines were “the departure point of the stimulation of the economic development of Katanga,” trumpeted an internal note about the breakaway province that circulated at Union Minière’s headquarters in July 1961.
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He also purged: Thomas Bakajika Banjikila, Épuration ethnique en Afrique: “Les Kasaïens” (Katanga 1961–Shaba 1992) (L’Harmattan, Études Africaines, 1997).
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A UN envoy decried: Rajeshwar Dayal, Report of Recent Developments in Northern Katanga from the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, No. S/4691/Add.2 (United Nations Security Council, February 1961), digitallibrary.un.org/record/630681?v=pdf.
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studying in Elisabethville: Kufi was lucky not to be arrested and imprisoned for his activism. His ethnicity helped elevate him above suspicion: Lots of other Hemba had joined Tshombe’s secessionists. The Hemba lived close to the Balubakat, and Gaylord Kilanga, Kufi’s son, told me that many of them had “petty rivalries” with the Luba, causing them to join Tshombe and the secessionists. Kufi, the student from a minority ethnic group down in Lubumbashi, had managed to place himself once more in a minority: Only a sliver of a percentage of Hemba supported a larger unitary project in Congo. “He was an exception among the Bahemba.”
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Throughout the Katangese secession: Note sur les “Grandes entreprises, seul soutien actuel de l’économie congolaise,” 4 June 1962, box A4, folder 869, Union Minière Collection: Archives sur l’Exploitation des Mines de Cuivre Katangaises, Premier Série, Quatrième Partie, Archives de l’État en Belgique, Dépôt Joseph Cuvelier, Brussels, Belgium. A Union Minière report from 1962 showed that the production of copper had actually increased between 1959 and 1961. Independent Katanga and Kasai were doing quite well. See “Les causes de la situation économique et financière désastreuse au Congo,” 1962, box A4, folder 870, Union Minière Collection: Archives sur l’Exploitation des Mines de Cuivre Katangaises, Premier Série, Quatrième Partie, Archives de l’État en Belgique, Dépôt Joseph Cuvelier, Brussels, Belgium.
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the company made commercial: “NOTE concernant les contrats de raffinage Union Minière / Hoboken,” UMHK, 23 February 1960, box C4, folder 1002, Union Minière Collection: Archives sur l’Exploitation des Mines de Cuivre Katangaises, Premier Série, Quatrième Partie, Archives de l’État en Belgique, Dépôt Joseph Cuvelier, Brussels, Belgium.
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a copy of the note: P. L. Mathieu, “Résumé de l’étude ‘African Development,’ ” 1960, box A4, folder 843, Union Minière Collection: Archives sur l’Exploitation des Mines de Cuivre Katangaises, Premier Série, Quatrième Partie, Archives de l’État en Belgique, Dépôt Joseph Cuvelier, Brussels, Belgium.
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crushed the fledgling Katangese: David Van Reybrouck, Congo: The Epic History of a People, trans. Sam Garrett (HarperCollins, 2014), 315.
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After thirty-six hours: Lloyd Garrison, “Tshombe Offers to End Secession Under Amnesties,” New York Times, January 17, 1963. The negotiations were coordinated with Brussels through the Union Minière radio, allowing the company to have an up-to-the-minute understanding of what was happening.
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Tshombe’s gendarmes melted: Erik Kennes and Miles Larmer, The Katangese Gendarmes and War in Central Africa: Fighting Their Way Home (Indiana University Press, 2016), 66. The historians Erik Kennes and Miles Larmer have detailed the world of the gendarmes in this excellent book.
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The central Congolese government: Kennes and Larmer, Katangese Gendarmes and War in Central Africa, 88.
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a minister who now led: David H. Shinn and Joshua Eisenman, China and Africa: A Century of Engagement (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 471. The Chinese government quickly pledged some $2.8 million in aid (around $30 million in 2024 dollars).
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“In their concerted action”: China Secretariat of the General Political Department, “The Congo Situation and Its Development,” in The Politics of the Chinese Red Army, ed. and trans. J. Chester Cheng (Hoover Institution, 1966), 180–81. The report argued that China was “giving great support to the Congolese people.”
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another Chinese intelligence: China Secretariat of the General Political Department, “The Present Situation in the Congo and the New Schemes of American Imperialism,” in Cheng, Politics of the Chinese Red Army, 398–400.
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Mulele fled Congo: Peer Schouten, Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2022), 220. Such myths would persist well into the next century: According to one analysis, in 2022, roughly half of the 120 rebel groups in Congo were known as Mai-Mai, a concept that had evolved from, and in some cases could be traced quite clearly back to, Mulele’s strategy of mixing spiritual practice with guerrilla warfare. His guerrillas would run into battle screaming “Mai Mulele!” (Mulele’s water!), terrifying many Congolese army troops who believed in such incantations.
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He elevated the struggle: Schouten, Roadblock Politics, 217.
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“excellent revolutionary situation”: Ernest Lefever, Crisis in the Congo (Brookings Institution, 1965), 134.
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“Anything black was killed”: Michel Honorin, “Horreurs et duperies congolaises,” Historia 406 bis (1980): 41–53, as cited in Olivier Lanotte, “Chronology of the Democratic Republic of Congo/Zaire (1960–1997),” SciencesPo, April 6, 2010, sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/chronology-democratic-republic-congozaire-1960-1997.html. These mercenaries would go on to be lionized as the “Wild Geese” in a novel by Wilbur Smith and a popular action movie.
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The government troops rounded: J. Anthony Lukas, “500 Are Executed as Congo Rebels,” New York Times, January 10, 1965.
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One young man in sunglasses: “European Mercenaries Interviewed About Killing Congolese,” interview by the BBC, posted July 25, 2018, by Emma Goldman, YouTube, youtube.com/watch?v=iOBfBrvWiAc&list=PLCPp4qoEy-dnBaPmaSLhGsYkSAHPC6cuS.
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China rapidly began: Mohamed A. el-Khawas, “China’s Changing Policies in Africa,” Issue: A Journal of Opinion 3, no. 1 (1973): 25. In 1973, Mohamed A. el-Khawas argued that Beijing was “eager to set up working arrangements with moderate, conservative, and radical governments alike.”
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A CIA report from 1972: Directorate of Intelligence, China’s Role in Africa, Special Report Weekly Review (Central Intelligence Agency, February 1972), cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP08S02113R000100080001-0.pdf. The report was declassified on August 24, 2012.
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“The Congo was utterly lacking”: U.S. intelligence officer, correspondence with author, 2023.
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New laws were: Wolf Radmann, “The Nationalization of Zaire’s Copper: From Union Minière to Gecamines,” Africa Today 25, no. 4 (1978): 38.
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The dictator still needed: P. De Vos, “Kinshasa s’oppose au rapatriement de quarante-trois femmes et enfants d’agents de l’Union Minière,” Le Monde, February 1, 1967.
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There he met Mao: Shinn and Eisenman, China and Africa, 471.
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After Mobutu’s visit: Osita G. Afoaku, “The U.S. and Mobutu Sese Seko: Waiting on Disaster,” Journal of Third World Studies 14, no. 1 (1997): 65–90.
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traveled to Kinshasa to sign: Radmann, Nationalization of Zaire’s Copper, 40–41.
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Mobutu maintained power over: Machiavelli talks about how the difficulty of attacking a country like Turkey arises from the fact that there “are no barons to invite you in, and you can’t expect anyone to make your life easier by rebelling against the king.” See Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Tim Parks (Penguin Classics, 2014), 17. For Mobutu’s fascination with Machiavelli, see Michela Wrong’s deeply reported account of his rule and the downfall of Zaire, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo (Fourth Estate, 2000), 100.
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such a rotation: V. S. Naipaul, “A New King for the Congo,” New York Review of Books, June 26, 1975.
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“Authentic” music was promoted: Kevin C. Dunn, Imagining the Congo: The International Relations of Identity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 119. In Imagining the Congo, Dunn argues that Mobutu “re-employed past discourses used to justify Belgian colonialism in order to justify his own repressive rule.”
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Even Mobutu changed: Or, as the journalist Michela Wrong has pointed out, referring to Mobutu’s sexual antics with his ministers’ wives, “the cock who covers every chicken.” See Wrong, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, 100.
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“The evidence is legion”: Edouard Nyindu, “Devoir de mémoire / Bandundu ville: Le patriarche Kufi Kilanga honoré à sa juste valeur,” Nzadi News, November 19, 2019, nzadinews.net/devoir-de-memoire-bandundu-ville-le-patriarche-kufi-kilanga-honore-a-sa-juste-valeur/.
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According to a declassified: Directorate of Intelligence, Zaire: Mobutu and the Military (Central Intelligence Agency, August 1982), cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP83S00855R000100080001-6.pdf. This intelligence assessment was declassified on July 30, 2008.
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Those who critiqued Mobutu: Glenn Frankel, “Political Repression Charged in Zaire,” Washington Post, May 23, 1985.
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“Generals had become businessmen”: George Arthur Forrest, Un siècle de rêves: Ensemble, bâtissons l’avenir (Le Cherche Midi, 2022), 59.
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Mobutu neatly acknowledged: Keith B. Richburg, “Mobutu: A Rich Man in Poor Standing,” Washington Post, October 2, 1991.
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Chapter 7: Liberty in a Wasteland
Polling data showed: Richard Reeves, President Nixon: Alone in the White House (Simon & Schuster, 2001), 163. During the run-up to the 1968 presidential election, which saw Richard M. Nixon return to power, the environment was barely mentioned by either the Republican or Democratic campaign. Nixon understood that it was a divisive issue and tried to co-opt the movement.
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“Strip mining in our steep”: Chad Montrie, “ ‘To Have, Hold, Develop, and Defend’: Natural Rights and the Movement to Abolish Strip Mining in Eastern Kentucky,” Journal of Appalachian Studies 11, no. ½ (2005): 67.
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“We have seen industrial”: United States Congress, Senate, Strip Mining and Its Impact: Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. 90th Cong., 87-95, 5855–856 (1968), (testimony of Harry M. Caudill).
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“There is still only one”: John C. Whitaker, Striking a Balance: Environment and Natural Resources Policy in the Nixon-Ford Years (AEI-Hoover Policy Studies, 1976), 27.
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the Democratic senator Edmund: John C. Nagle, “The Earth Day Pioneer Nobody Remembers,” Scientific American, April 22, 2016.
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California governor Ronald: Ronald Reagan, “Our Environment Crisis,” Nation’s Business, February 1970, 27. Reagan’s sentiment would not last: By the time he became president, a decade later, he would do more than anyone to prop up fossil-fuel businesses.
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he told his general counsel: Reeves, President Nixon, 163.
