G. Edward Griffin - The Fearful Master - PDF Archive

If further evidence is needed of the bond between Lumumba and his Communist masters,
one need only note that Khrushchev changed the name of the Peoples Friendship
University near Moscow to the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University in honor of this
"great African leader." 15
The Arabs were the first to introduce hashish cultivation to the Congo. It has since
become one of the chief vices throughout the entire region. Lumumba was well
acquainted with the custom. Stewart Alsop of the Saturday Evening Post summed it up
when he said: "The notion that Lumumba was worshipped by Congolese masses was a
myth. Lumumba was an accomplished demagogue, when he found the time between
bouts of gin-drinking and hashish-smoking. . . . He was also roundly hated for many
reasons, most of them good." 16
Lumumba's character and Communist loyalties will be revealed even further as the Congo
tragedy unfolds. But this is a fairly accurate description of the man for whom Washington
rolled out the red carpet.
Moise Tshombe was the second protagonist on our stage to receive world attention,
though not the same type Lumumba received. To start off with, Tshombe was an anti-
Communist--a handicap he never quite overcame in the American press. He was almost
universally depicted as "shrewd," "a Belgian puppet," "opportunistic," and the usual
journalistic innuendoes carefully designed to turn public opinion against a person about
whom nothing specifically bad can be found. The truth of the matter is that Tshombe is the
son of a successful African merchant, has earned a college degree, is a devout Christian,
and had the overwhelming support and respect of the people who elected him to the
presidency of Katanga. Not only is he a staunch anti-Communist, he is an ardent advocate
of the concepts of limited government and the free enterprise system. He is a student of
history and a great admirer of the success of the American experiment. He fully
understands the wisdom of the traditional American political system of checks and
balances with a further division of power between the Federal Government and the states.
Explaining his views, he said: "We would like something rather on the American model.
We are willing to have a federal president and to give the central government control of
the army, the customs and that sort of thing." 17
Even after the United Nations had initiated a bloody war against Katanga to force it to
abandon this position, Tshombe held firm. Returning to Katanga after the December
United Nations attack, he said, "Katanga must be unified with its brothers in the Congo but
remain sufficiently free so that its fate will not be sealed on the day the shadow of
Communism spreads over this country." 18
With this background in mind, it is not hard to see why Tshombe was anathema to the
Communists. Khrushchev ranted, "Tshombe is a turncoat, a traitor to the interests of the
Congolese people." 19 It is interesting to note that Tshombe was also anathema to U.S.
officials. While wining and dining almost every Communist dictator on the face of the earth
from Khrushchev to Tito to Castro to Lumumba, our State Department flatly refused to
grant a visa for Tshombe to enter the United States. 20
Plans for complete chaos in the Congo had been well laid. Many uneducated Africans
were told that just as soon as independence came they would automatically own all the
property of the white settlers--and the settlers too! One of the campaign promises made
by Lumumba was that the Congolese could have all of the European women they wanted
after independence. 21