THIS IS PAULINE LUMUMBA. SHE WATCHED THEM KILL HER HUSBAND, THEN WALKED HALF-N@KED IN PROTEST.
I know you haven’t seen the photo. A Congolese woman, bare chest, hair shaved, walking in the street crying, with a child on her back.
That is Pauline Opangu Lumumba. Patrice Lumumba’s wife. 1961.
Patrice was 35 years old. Prime Minister of Congo for only 67 days
His crime? He said: “Congo is not Belgium’s property. Our gold, our copper, our diamonds will feed our children.”
Belgium, America and his own army chief Mobutu decided he must die.
On January 17th, 1961, they took Patrice, plus Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito, to Katanga.
Pauline recounts:
“They beat him for hours. They pulled his teeth. They forced him to eat his own speech papers. Then a Belgian officer, Gerard Soete, shot him. Then they cut his body into pieces with a saw. Then they poured acid to dissolve him so no grave would exist.”
No body. No grave. Only acid.
When they told Pauline, she didn’t scream.
She shaved her hair – in Congolese tradition, mourning for a husband. She removed her top – showing the world “You have stripped me of my husband, I have nothing left.”
And she walked barefoot from Leopoldville to where they killed him, 1000km, with her baby on her back, singing his name.
Mobutu, who killed her husband, became President for 32 years with US support.
Belgium kept the gold tooth of Lumumba as a souvenir in a police station until 2020.
Patrice Lumumba died because he wanted a United Africa, like Gaddafi.
Pauline died in 2014, still waiting for his body to be buried.
She never remarried.
That is the price of saying “Africa for Africans.”
And you still think Africa’s poverty is because we are lazy?