Reflections Congo

WHAP/Napp

Cues: / Notes:
  1. The Congo
  1. Patrice Lumumba was the first democratically chosen leader of the vast country now known as the ______Republic of Congo
  2. The Congo had been a treasure house of natural resources as a colony of Belgium, which for decades had made no plans for ______
  3. But after clashes with nationalists, Belgians arranged first national election in 1960, and King Baudouin arrived to formally give territory ______
  4. Belgians, and European and American investors, expected to continue collecting profits from Congo’s factories, plantations and lucrative mines, which produced diamonds, gold, uranium, ______, etc.
  5. But Lumumba had given a speech independence was not enough,Africans had to also benefit from the great wealth in their soil
  6. With no experience of self-rule and an ______treasury, the newly independent Congo was soon in turmoil
  7. After failing to get aid from the United States, Lumumba declared he would turn to the Soviet Union
  8. Shortly after took office as prime minister, C.I.A., with ______House approval, ordered assassinationdispatched undercover agent with poison
  9. Poisoners could not get close enough to Lumumba, so instead U.S.A. and Belgium funneled cash and aid to rival politicians who seized power and arrested the prime ______
  10. Fearful of revolt by Lumumba’s supporters, new Congolese leaders ordered him flown to copper-rich ______region in the country’s south, whose secession Belgium had just helped orchestrate
  11. There, on Jan. 17, 1961, after being beaten and tortured, he was shot
  12. Some weeks before his death, Lumumba had briefly escaped from house arrest and, with a small group of supporters, tried to flee to the ______Congo, where a counter-government of his sympathizers had formed
  13. But by the time they returned to the other bank, government troops pursuing them had arrived
  14. The Western governments and ______arrayed against him were too powerful, and resources in his control too weak
  15. At independence,the Congo had fewer than three dozen university graduates among a black population of more than 15 million, and only three of some 5,000 senior positions in the civil service were filled by ______
  16. The Congolese politicians who planned Lumumba’s ______checked all their major moves with their Belgian and American backers

Summaries:
Cues: /
  1. The local C.I.A. station chief made no objection when the politicians told him they were going to turn Lumumba over — render him, in today’s parlance — to the breakaway government of ______, which, everyone knew, could be counted on to kill him
  1. After the Assassination
  1. Four years later, one of Lumumba’s captors, an army officer named Joseph Mobutu, again with enthusiastic ______support, staged a coup and began a disastrous, 32-year dictatorship
  2. Just as geopolitics and a thirst for oil have today brought unsavory allies like Saudi Arabia, so the cold war and a similar lust for natural ______did then
  3. Mobutu was showered with more than $1 billion in American aid and enthusiastically welcomed to the White House by a succession of presidents; George H. W. Bush called him “one of our most valued friends.”
  4. But ______bled his country dry, amassed a fortune estimated at $4 billion, jetted the world by rented Concorde and bought himself an array of grand villas in Europe and multiple palaces and a yacht at home
  5. Mobutu let public services shrivel to nothing and roads and railways be swallowed by the rain ______
  6. By 1997, when Mobutu was overthrown and died, his country was in a state of wreckage from which it has not yet ______
  7. Since that time the fatal combination of enormous ______riches and the dysfunctional government Mobutu left has ignited a long, multisided war that has killed huge numbers of Congolese or forced them from their homes
  1. More Facts on the Congo
  1. By late 1800s, with the abolition of the slave trade, ______turned to the conquest and colonization of nearly the entire African continent with a disastrous impact on Africans
  2. While most African colonies were governed either by officials of a European country or by Africans working for European governments, King ______of Belgium controlled the Belgian Congo as his own personal territory
  3. His agents in the Congo used forced labor (slaves in all but name) to extract rubber, his single most profitable ______
  4. By taking the women of Congolese villages hostage, Leopold had turned the men into forced laborers, with a monthly quota of wild ______to collect from the rain forest
  5. Many hostages starved to death and many male forced laborers were worked to death
  6. Demographers today estimate that the ______of the Congo fell roughly by half over the 40-year period beginning in around 1880
  7. Finally, by 1908, in return for £3.8 million, Leopold handed over control of the Congo to the ______state
  8. It should also be noted that one of the methods used by the king’s police enforcers for the failure of Africans to pay ______or produce sufficient rubber was the cutting off of African hands by the white colonizers

Summaries:

Questions:

  1. The colonization of the Belgian Congo is noted for
(A)The spirited resistance of the Congolese people.
(B)The brutal treatment of the Congolese people by King Leopold II.
(C)A policy of free trade that encouraged merchants from all countries.
(D)The humane policies of the Belgian government toward the Congolese people.
(E)All of the above.
  1. The Berlin Conference in 1884–1885 established
(A)The procedures for purchasing African lands from local rulers.
(B)The rules of military engagement for European forces overseas.
(C)That the Americas were off-limits for further European colonization.
(D)That Africa would be carved into spheres of influence similar to China.
(E)That, if a European power indicated its intention to colonize and then proceeded to occupy an African territory, it could claim that colony.
  1. Colonial rule dramatically altered the environment in which of the following places?
(A)Burma, due to rubber production.
(B)Ceylon, due to tea production.
(C)The Congo, due to rubber production.
(D)Sumatra, due to rubber production.
(E)All of above. /
  1. Which of the following was not an economic motivation for imperialism?
(A)Cheap raw materials from overseas colonies were needed to sustain industrialization.
(B)Overseas colonies offered markets for manufactured goods.
(C)Overseas colonies offered a haven for the settlement of surplus populations.
(D)European and American industry needed more sources of coal.
(E)All were economic motives for imperialism.
  1. The “white man’s burden” proposed by Rudyard Kipling refers to
(A)The cost of creating and supporting an empire.
(B)The moral duty of the west to work to “civilize” the rest of the world.
(C)The cost of abolishing slavery in Africa.
(D)The need for Christian missionaries to undermine Islam in Africa and Asia.
(E)All of the above.
  1. By 1800, the Dutch Afrikaners in South Africa had established
(A)A prosperous trading center affiliated with the Dutch East India Company.
(B)A diverse economy based on both farming and mining.
(C)An independent and sovereign nation, the only European state in Africa.
(D)A settler colony based on slavery and white supremacy.
(E)All of the above.

Farewell without Tears: Letter from Patrice Lumumba

Patrice Lumumba rose from his job as a postal clerk to become the leader of thenationalist movement in the Belgian Congo during the 1950s. He was the firstelected prime minister of the independent Republic of Congo. He wrote the followingletter to his wife in January 1961, shortly before his assassination.

“Iam writing these words not knowing whetherthey will reach you, when they will reach you,and whether I shall still be alive when you readthem. All through my struggle for the independenceof my country, I have never doubted for asingle instant the final triumph of the sacred causeto which my companions and I have devoted all ourlives. But what we wished for our country, its rightto an honorable life, to unstained dignity, to independence

without restrictions, was never desiredby the Belgian imperialists and their Western allies,who found direct and indirect support, both deliberateand unintentional, amongst certain high officialsof the United Nations, that organization in whichwe placed all our trust when we called on its assistance.

They have corrupted some of our compatriotsand bribed others. They have helped to distort thetruth and bring our independence into dishonor. How could I speak otherwise? Dead or alive, freeor in prison by order of the imperialists, it is not Imyself who count. It is the Congo; it is our poorpeople for whom independence has been transformedinto a cage from beyond whose confines theoutside world looks on us, sometimes with kindlysympathy, but at other times with joy and pleasure. But my faith will remain unshakeable. I know and Ifeel in my heart that sooner or later my people willrid themselves of all their enemies, both internaland external, and that they will rise as one man tosay No to the degradation and shame of colonialism,and regain their dignity in the clear light of thesun.

We are not alone. Africa, Asia and the free liberatedpeople from all corners of the world willalways be found at the side of the millions ofCongolese who will not abandon the struggle untilthe day when there are no longer any colonialistsand their mercenaries in our country. As to my children,whom I leave and whom I may never seeagain, I should like them to be told that it is forthem, as it is for every Congolese, to accomplishthe sacred task of reconstructing our independenceand our sovereignty: for without dignity there is noliberty, without justice there is no dignity, and withoutindependence there are no free men. Neither brutality, not cruelty nor torture willever bring me to ask for mercy, for I prefer to diewith my head unbowed, my faith unshakeable andwith profound trust in the destiny of my country,rather than live under subjection and disregardingsacred principles. History will one day have its say,but it will not be the history that is taught in Brussels,Paris, Washington or in the United Nations, but thehistory which will be taught in the countries freedfrom imperialism and its puppets. Africa will writeher own history, and to the north and south of theSahara, it will be a glorious and dignified history.

Do not weep for me, my dear wife. I know thatmy country, which is suffering so much, will knowhow to defend its independence and its liberty. Long live the Congo! Long live Africa!”

Thesis Statement: Change Over Time:Congo from 1880 – 1990 ______