International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

In memory of Patrice Lumumba, assassinated on 17 January 1961

Éric Toussaint — 2025-01-27T21:19:11Z

On 17 January 2025, we commemorate the 64th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961).

- Features / Belgium, Historical events and figures, Debt, Congo, Imperialism

Belgium's colonial crimes in the Congo. A duty to remember

Éric Toussaint — 2020-06-23T12:44:08Z

Thanks to the Black Lives Matter mobilizations against racism in general, and racism against black people in particular, becoming an international phenomenon more and more people are seeking to know the truth about the dark past of the colonial powers and the continuation of neo-colonialism up to the present times. Statues of emblematic figures of European colonialism are being debunked or are the subject of salutary denunciations. The same is true of statues of people who in the United States symbolize slavery and racism. The CADTM welcomes all initiatives and actions that aim to denounce colonial crimes, seek to establish the truth about past atrocities, highlight the instruments of neo-colonialism and all forms of resistance from the past to the present.

- IV545 - June 2020 / Belgium, Anti-racism and Islamophobia, Congo

Why They Killed Patrice Lumumba

Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, Sa'eed Husaini — 2020-01-25T08:39:26Z

Patrice Lumumba was a radical leader of the Congolese independence movement who resisted Belgian colonialism and corporate interests. That's why he was assassinated in a US-backed coup 59 years ago today [24 January].

- IV540 - January 2020 / Historical events and figures, Congo

Social struggles and the birth of a new consciousness

Jean Nanga — 2017-09-07T11:36:08Z

The Yaoundé Summit of Central African heads of state – Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic and Chad – was held during the second half of 2016, a fairly volatile period in the sub-region. Alongside the Central African Republic, where the violence which began in 2013 has sporadically re-emerged; Equatorial Guinea where, in order to develop his “Abayak holding” and his “shares in all the economic sector” the autocrat Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (in power since 1979 when he ousted his uncle, the previous president), had himself re-elected in April with 97% of the vote with his repressive apparatus dissuading any popular mobilisation; and the Republic of the Congo, where opposition to the regime has generated a confused and murderous military situation which began in Brazzaville and has since spread to the neighbouring department of Pool; the three other countries of the sub-region entered 2017 in an atmosphere of popular mobilisation.

- IV512 - September 2017 / Africa, Equatorial Guinea , Congo, Chad, Central African Republic, Gabon, Cameroon

Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961)

Sean Jacobs — 2017-01-26T11:08:07Z

Patrice Lumumba was prime minister of a newly independent Congo for only seven months between 1960 and 1961 before he was murdered, fifty-six years ago [1]. He was thirty-six.

- IV504 - January 2017 / Obituary, Historical events and figures, Congo

What's Left in Africa?

Firoze Manji — 2015-02-05T18:28:39Z

The early 1950s witnessed an extraordinary sweep of popular mobilisations across the continent inspired by aspirations for emancipatory freedom – an end to the colonial yoke. Across the continent, nationalist parties convinced people that the path to freedom was through political independence.
Since then, many of the gains of independence, which cost the blood and lives of millions in Africa, have been reversed with the privatisation of the commons and public utilities, as well as by dispossessions of land, by unemployment and by the increasing costs of food, rent and other necessities of life. In response, discontent has been growing across the continent, with spontaneous eruptions and mass uprisings that have in some cases resulted in the overthrow of regimes nurtured and nourished by imperialism (e.g. in Tunisia, Egypt and Burkina Faso). In such circumstances, one would have thought that there would have been fertile grounds for the emergence of strong left working class movements across the continent. But why has this not happened?

- IV481 - February 2015 / Africa, South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Congo, Guinea-Bissau