Patrice Lumemba assassination - "I did it" MI6 Daphne Park

[David Guyatt]

I got this story from Aangirfan, which is one of those blogs that have interesting material mixed with a bag of less interesting stuff. I always think it's best to go to the horses mouth whenever possible, so the following is the source material (or some of it):

British peer reveals MI6 role in Lumumba killing


HASAN SUROOR


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The British intelligence services may have just had one of their best-kept secrets blown: their role in the abduction and assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first democratically elected prime minister whose Pan-African nationalism and pro-Moscow leanings alarmed the West.


For more than 50 years, rumours have swirled over allegations of British involvement in Lumumba's brutal murder in 1961, but nothing has ever been proved leaving the CIA and its Belgian peers alone to take the rap for what a Belgian writer has described as "the most important assassination of the 20th century." Now, in a dramatic revelation, a senior British politician has claimed that he got it from the horse's mouth that it was MI6 that "did" it.


In a little noticed letter to the editor in the latest issue of the London Review of Books (LRB), Lord David Edward Lea responded to the claim in a new book on British intelligence, Empire of Secrets: British intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire by Calder Walton, that the jury is still out on Britain's role in Lumumba's death. "The question remains whether British plots to assassinate Lumumba … ever amounted to anything. At present, we do not know," writes Walton.


Lord Lea retorted: "Actually, in this particular case, I can report that we do. It so happens that I was having a cup of tea with Daphne Park… She had been consul and first secretary in Leopoldville, now Kinshasa, from 1959 to 1961, which in practice (this was subsequently acknowledged) meant head of MI6 there. I mentioned the uproar surrounding Lumumba's abduction and murder, and recalled the theory that MI6 might have had something to do with it. We did,' she replied, I organised it.'"


According to Lord Lea, she contended that if the West had not intervened, Lumumba would have handed over Congo's now called Democratic Republic of Congo rich mineral deposits to the Russians. When contacted by The Hindu, Lord Lea confirmed the contents of his letter to the LRB and that the conversation over tea took place a few months before Ms. Park died in 2010. "That's the conversation I had with her and that's what she told me. I have nothing more to add," he said when asked if he had any other independent confirmation of Ms. Park's claim.


Ms. Park was a career intelligence officer who served in Kinshasa (then Leopoldville) between 1959 and 1961. On retirement, she was made a Life peer as Baroness Park of Monmouth. Her fellow peers in the House of Lords referred to her as a spokesperson for the Secret Intelligence Service. She was also briefly head of Somerville College, Oxford University.


There has been no comment from MI6 on Lord Lea's revelation. "We don't comment on intelligence matters," an official said.


Lumumba, hailed as "the hero of Congolese independence" from Belgium in 1960, was shot dead on January 17, 1961 after being toppled in a US-Belgian backed military coup barely two months after being in office.


Lumumba had been sheltered by Rajeshwar Dayal the Indian diplomat who was the UN Secretary General's representative in the Congo for several days but was captured and killed soon after he chose to leave the compound. "This heinous crime was a culmination of two inter-related assassination plots by American and Belgian governments, which used Congolese accomplices and a Belgian execution squad to carry out the deed," wrote Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, a specialist on African and Afro-American studies and author of The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People's History.


Declassified American documents from the time have established Washington's role in covert assassination plots the most famous being a CIA plot to poison Lumumba's toothbrush by smuggling poisoned toothpaste into his bathroom.


"The toothpaste never made it into Lumumba's bathroom. I threw it in the Congo River," Larry Devlin, the CIA station chief in Leopoldville, later said.


Not much is publicly known about UK role. But, in 2000, the BBC reported that in the autumn of 1960 three months before Lumumba was murdered an MI5 operative in the British embassy in Leopoldville suggested "Lumumba's removal from the scene by killing him."

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Daphne Park

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Daphne Park, Baroness Park of Monmouth

London Review of Books

Letters
Vol. 35 No. 7 · 11 April 2013


From David Lea
Referring to the controversy surrounding the death of Patrice Lumumba in1960, Bernard Porter quotes Calder Walton's conclusion: The question remains whether British plots to assassinate Lumumba … ever amounted to anything. At present, we do not know' (LRB, 21 March). Actually, in this particular case, I can report that we do. It so happens that I was having a cup of tea with Daphne Park we were colleagues from opposite sides of the Lords a few months before she died in March 2010. She had been consul and first secretary in Leopoldville, now Kinshasa, from 1959 to 1961, which in practice (this was subsequently acknowledged) meant head of MI6 there. I mentioned the uproar surrounding Lumumba's abduction and murder, and recalled the theory that MI6 might have had something to do with it. We did,' she replied, I organised it.'


We went on to discuss her contention that Lumumba would have handed over the whole lot to the Russians: the high-value Katangese uranium deposits as well as the diamonds and other important minerals largely located in the secessionist eastern state of Katanga. Against that, I put the point that I didn't see how suspicion of Western involvement and of our motivation for Balkanising their country would be a happy augury for the new republic's peaceful development.


David Lea
London SW1

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[Jan Klimkowski]

David - many thanks for that.

Spooks love to brag and overstate their influence. They also love to spin webs.

There's a lot of material about the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, and the involvement or not of QJ/WIN, Mozes or Moise Maschkivitzan, in the French Connection thread.

[Peter Lemkin]

Seems as if the Americans and Brits were almost in a contest to get Lumumba first - with the Belgians far behind. The Americans and the British intelligence must have know of the other's plans, generally - and the whole thing could have been coordinated and assigned to a third party to keep hands 'clean'....but this is a very interesting admission and something to consider and research further. I'd heard of the poison toothpaste and several other ideas to 'get Lumumba'....certainly couldn't let a democratically elected leader of a resource rich country [and popular, as well as populist] survive, now could they......

[Magda Hassan]

Mmmm...interesting. News to me but article is old now.

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[TD]Africa: U.S. Covert Action Exposed

by Eric Ture Muhammad, Final Call
April 25th, 2001
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Corporate greed, combined with a desire to never allow the"throne of civilization" to unite and become self-sufficient, continues tojoin at the hip the U.S. Government, the United Nations and corporatecartels in a persistent war on Africa, a recent congressional hearingconcluded.
Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) chaired the hearing, "Covert Action inAfrica: A Smoking Gun in Washington, D.C.," and led the voices ofcastigation that claimed the U.S. Government, the UN, private militias andwestern economic interests possessed complete knowledge of pending civilunrest in Africa and fed the fray between African nations. Their aim wasto use war, disease, hunger and poverty as covers while continuing thecenturies-old practice of rape and exploitation of the continent'shuman and mineral resources, testimonies charged.
Among those named as collaborators during the daylong hearing were U.N.Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, formerSecretary of State Madeline K. Albright and international diamond merchantMaurice Tempelsman.
Mr. Tempelsman, whose role in the confluence of public policy and privateprofit as a middleman for the De Beers diamond cartel, according tosubmitted evidence, helped to shape practically every major covert actionin Africa since the early 1950s. Declassified memos and cables betweenformer U.S. presidents and State Department officials over the last fourdecades named Mr. Tempelsman with direct input in the destabilization ofCongo, Sierra Leone, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Rwanda and Ghana.
He earned his stripes with western powers in the overthrow of Ghana'sfirst elected president, Kwame Nkrumah, and the CIA-backed assassinationof Congo's first-elected president, Patrice Lumumba, documents reveal.
As late as 1997, Mr. Tempelsman was named in the ongoing cover-up ofU.S.-CIA covert support of the former president of Zaire (now theDemocratic Republic of the Congo [DRC]), Mobuto Sese Seko, who died inexile in 1997 after the overthrow of his regime by recently assassinatedCongolese President Laurent Kabila. Mr. Tempelsman is named as the agentin charge of selling off the gross excess of the strategic diamondstockpile in the United States that was used to fund the deceaseddictator's exploits. According to documents entered into evidence, Mr.Tempelsman was rumored in 1998 to have engaged in a romantic relationshipwith then-Secretary of State Albright. [Bolding MH]
During the hearing, Ms. McKinney said the legacy of former Pres. Clintonand his foreign policy toward Africa is one of grave deceit. She chargedthat not only did his administration turn a deaf ear to the genocide thatoccurred in Rwanda under his watch, but that everyone who aided in thesilencing were rewarded with promotions.
"Look at Madeline Albright. At the time U.N. Ambassador, she got promotedto secretary of state," she charged. "Susan Rice, over at the NationalSecurity Council, she got promoted to assistant secretary of state forAfrica. Kofi Annan, whom The Carlsson Report [a United Nations inquiry]makes 19 observations, of which 17 blame Kofi Annan, and yet [he] gets apromotion to secretary-general and is about to be re-elected assecretary-general."
Rep. McKinney also blasted International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda(ICTR) Judge Louise Arbor, who, shortly after suspending the investigationof the April 1994 rocket attack on the presidential plane that killedPresidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira ofBurundi, was awarded a Canada Supreme Court appointment.
"America's policy toward Africa during the past decade, rather thanseeking to stabilize situations where civil war and ethnic turmoil reignsupreme, has seemingly promoted destabilization," testified Wayne Madsen,author of "Genocide and Covert Activities in Africa 1993-1999."
Ms. Albright was fond of describing as "beacons of hope" those pro-U.S.military leaders in Africa who assumed power by force, Mr. Madsen said."These leaders, who include the current presidents of Uganda, Rwanda,Ethiopia, Angola, Eritrea, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of theCongo (DRC), preside over countries where ethnic and civil turmoil permitunscrupulous international mining companies to take advantage of thestrife to fill their own coffers with conflict diamonds, gold, copper,platinum and other precious minerals including one that is a primarycomponent of computer microchips," he said.
Mr. Madsen said the United States played more of a role in the Rwandantragedy than it admits, citing the U.S.-backed Rwandan and Ugandan-ledinvasions of Congo. Speculation behind the recent assassination of Pres.Laurent Kabila and the rapid visit to the United States by his successorand son Joseph Kabila at the same time as a visit by Rwandan PresidentPaul Kagame, coupled with meetings with Corporate Council for Africa and alavish dinner-reception thrown by Maurice Tempelsman has done little toput America in a favorable light in the region, the author asserts.
"After all, the date of Kabila's assassination [Jan. 16, 2001] waspractically 40 years from the very day of the CIA-planned-and-executedassassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba," he concluded.

When policy and profit converge

"This is a western syndicated proxy war and, like Sierra Leone, Angola andSudan, it is war-as-cover for the rapid and unrestricted extraction of rawmaterials, and war as a means to totally disenfranchise the local people,"said Keith Snow, freelance writer and journalist who suppliedinvestigative reports for the panel.
Diamonds, gold, cobalt, manganese, petroleum, natural gas, timber andpossibly uranium, he said, are just a few of the major spoils beingpillaged behind the scenes as war destroys Africa. "Some of these mineralsare almost solely found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," Mr. Snowsaid.
One of those minerals, columbium tantalite, or "Col-Tan", is a primaryexample of the role strategic minerals play in sustaining war. This scarcemineral is found almost exclusively in Eastern Congo and used by westernnations in everything from aircraft engines to computer chips.
"Economic interests are a significant factor in the fighting in the DRC,"said Bill Hartung, of the World Policy Institute in New York. In hisco-authored report "Deadly Legacy Update: U.S. Arms and Training Programsin Africa," the researcher acknowledged the significant role economicinterests play in the fighting in the DRC and throughout Africa.
"Africans need western technology, investment and cooperation to transferminerals. Africans do not process these minerals; they are processed inthe west. Africans are not dependent upon minerals used in high-techindustry, sophisticated defense projects, or materials used in spaceexploration. The west, and particularly the United States, is dependentupon the availability of strategic minerals, many of which the U.S. doesnot produce. Africa does not have a vibrant market for diamonds, which arecut and distributed in the west," he said.
Western corporations are aware that revenues from mineral exploitationreceived by African countries involved in war are used to purchasemilitary equipment. Considering the history of a strong U.S.-led corporatepresence in Africa, it is quite likely that U.S. mining interests havebenefited from the war, concluded the panel.
This may also explain the interest of American Mineral FieldsInternational (AMF), which, according to Mr. Snow, is a classic case ofcronyism. The company secured a $1 billion mining deal for cobalt andcopper before Laurent Kabila came into power. According to Mr. Snow, thedeal was secured through a shared interest; namely Pres. Clinton. AMF'schairman at the time of the deal was Mike McMurrough, a native of Mr.Clinton's hometown of Hope, Arkansas. Mr. Snow also alleged that Mr.Clinton has financial interest in AMF. Former Pres. George Bush Sr. wasalso cited at the hearing for his advisory board membership at BarrickGold, Ltd., for which he used his connections with the CIA, having oncebeen director of the spy agency.

The UN's failure

The Carlsson Report, released one year ago, is an independent inquiry intothe UN's actions during the 1994 Rwanda genocide presented to the UNSecurity Council by the report's chairman Ingvar Carlsson. The reportcondemns the Security Council for not preventing the systematic slaughterof over 800,000 men, women and children in Rwanda, which occurred within a100-day period between the months of April and July of 1994. The UN'sdecision to reduce the strength of the mandated United Nations AssistanceMission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) after the genocide started, despite itsknowledge of the atrocities was the cause of much bitterness stated hisreport.
"The failure by the United Nations to prevent and, subsequently, to stopthe genocide in Rwanda was a failure by the United Nations system as awhole," said the report. "There was a persistent lack of political will byMember States to act, or to act with enough assertiveness. This lack ofpolitical will affected the response by the Secretariat anddecision-making by the Security Council, but was also evident in therecurrent difficulties to get the necessary troops for the UNAMIR.Finally, although UNAMIR suffered from a chronic lack of resources andpolitical priority, it must also be said that serious mistakes were madewith those resources which were at the disposal of the United Nations,"Mr. Carlsson said.
A similar report released by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) lastJuly also singled out France, Belgium, the Roman Catholic and Anglicanchurches along with the United States and UN as those most guilty anddemanded "a significant level of reparations" be paid.
According to Mr. Carlsson, Mr. Annan as Under Secretary General was madeprivy to a Jan. 11, 1994 cable which leaked information concerning a plothatched by the Interahamwe militia to kill Belgian soldiers, force thewithdrawal of Belgian troops and dispatch Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)soldiers, who were Tutsi by ethnicity, to Kigali camps "for theirextermination." The informant said that his personnel were able to kill upto 1,000 Tutsi soldiers in 20-minute intervals and that a cache of weaponswith at least 135 G3 and AK 47 assault rifles were at their disposal.
"He was prepared to show UNAMIR where these weapons were located inexchange for his family's protection," said the report.
The report said Mr. Annan wrote a letter to then-UN Secretary-GeneralBoutros Boutrous-Ghali's special representative in Rwanda, stating thatthe information contained in the cable was cause for concern, but insistedthe information be handled with caution. The original cable was filed intoarchives and Mr. Boutrous-Ghali said that he was not shown a copy of thecable until much later. Several such communications, the report alleges,were similarly ignored.
"The Secretary-General responded to the Carlsson Report by saying that hereceived it with deep regret and agreed with the report's findings," saidFahran Haqq, a spokesman for Mr. Annan at UN headquarters in New York.
On Apr. 6, 1994 Presidents Habyarimana and Ntaryamira flew back togetherfrom a reportedly successful sub-regional peace summit where, according toTanzanian officials present, Pres. Habyarimana had committed his countryto implement the Arusha Agreement, a UN peace accord. At approximately8:30 p.m., the plane was destroyed by rocket fire as it approached itslanding at Kigali's airport. Everybody onboard died, thus officiallyunleashing the civil war that engulfs the Great Lakes Region today.
Mr. Haqq denied comment on Ms. McKinney's allegation of UN collusion andtold The Final Call that, since Mr. Carlsson's report, Mr. Annan has beenthe greatest voice behind the UN's Brahimi Report, a wide-ranging,seven-part resolution containing recommendations and decisions onpeacekeeping missions, which must be the responsibility of theSecretary-General. Further, it urges prospective parties to peaceagreements, including regional and sub-regional organizations, tocooperate fully with the United Nations from an early stage innegotiations. It mandates the Secretariat to continue comprehensivepolitical briefings on relevant issues before the Security Council andrequests regular military briefings from the Secretariat, including by themilitary adviser, the force commander or designate, before theestablishment of a peacekeeping operation.

What should Africa expect from Mr. Bush?

No one during the hearing expressed any optimism that things will farebetter under a Bush Administration. Mr. Bush did state during his campaignthat Africa was not a major area of national security interest to theUnited States; his key advisors have suggested otherwise.
Secretary of State Colin Powell has expressed interest in Africa but hasnot defined in any detail what those interests are outside of resolvingthe conflict in the Sudan.
The new threat to development in Africa has become recent decisions byPres. Bush to appoint Walter H. Kansteiner III as assistant secretary ofstate for Africa. He has expressed desire to draw new territorialboundaries on the continent. Also still in the works are the enactment ofthe Africa Growth and Opportunity Act that was passed into law before theexpiration of Pres. Clinton's term and the Zimbabwe Democracy Act 2000, asanction measure against the rights of Black Zimbabweans' claims to landownership in their own country. That bill is currently engrossed in Senatedebate.

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