Lumumba's Death

All the perfumes in Arabia can do wonders, but the United States government is hardly in a position to express deep regret or shock over the death of Premier Patrice Lumumba. Presumably President Kennedy and Ambassador Stevenson have as intimate a knowledge of world affairs as the Neutralist press, (or indeed, the New York Times) which reported two weeks ago that the Congolese leader was being tortured to death.

The line between diplomacy and hypocrisy fades now as the turmoil in the Congo is aggravated and the political eulogizers smack their lips. Hammarskjold calls for an investigation-too late. Soviet Ambassador Zorin attempts to make Premier Khrushchev the hero of the affair. And American statesmen, witnessing the logical result of their Congo policy, hollowly express shock.

The tragedy is that the West succeeded in creating another bogey man. When the Congolese Premier arrived in New York last summer to plead for United Nations aid, he impressed UN and State Department officials (including Secretary of State Herter) with his intelligence, sense of diplomacy, and awareness of danger on the left. But Mr. Lumumba offered only the friendship of an independent Congo, while the government seemed to demand the commitment of a dependent nation. Making a pathetic joke out of respect for "duly elected" government, the U.S. transformed the definition of "duly elected" into "pro-Western," by favoring the Katanga secessionists instead of remaining neutral.

Subsequently ignoring the fact that Lumumba was the democratically designated spokesman for as significant a bloc of Congolese opinion as Tshombe, Mobutu, or Kasavubu, the West set out to force a one-sided stability in the Congo. As usual, the sides were chosen in the name of impartiality and the polarization of forces was peddled off as a means of creating order and stability.

One of the disturbing aspects of the tragedy is the condescension that has seeped to the surface in the West. A glance at the topical political cartoons will show the score: the Congolese are stereotyped as fat, thick-lipped cannibals, running around with bones through their noses and cauldrons in the background.

Continuing the pattern, the Associated Press reported fears that "illiterate millions in the Congo may regard Lumumba as a martyr." One wonders where Western apprehensions were hidden during the years in which Belgian rule virtually forbade education in the Congo.

The very fact that the Congolese find it difficult at this stage to articulate their aspirations, should have led the West to seek a solution excluding no major bloc of opinion. If the independence movement which Lumumba embodied is ignored, the pleas for stability will continue to be flimsy, self-defeating fronts.