The Naked Communist (36 page)

As with the French and British, the Belgians had hoped self-government could be developed among the Africans by having the natives learn technical skills and gradually assume responsibility for a stable government. Business leaders and investors were also willing to take the risk of a political transition providing the new government was well managed. In this rather cordial setting it was agreed that Congolese independence could be granted by 1964. The Belgians promised liberal loans to the newly planned government and also promised to keep their civil service staff working alongside the natives for several years until they could safely take over.

Then Patrice Lumumba came storming back from the conference chanting the current Communist theme: "Independence now, now, now!" Lumumba, a former postal clerk from Stanleyville, had been trained in the special Communist schools in Prague and had a brother living in Moscow. He had managed to become the head of the most left-wing political contingent in the Congo and, at the moment, enjoyed a popular following. The Belgian officials began to sense a threatening tone in his demands and saw the possibility of an Algerian type of civil war. Therefore the Government suddenly agreed to go ahead with the independence of the Congo by June 30, 1960, instead of waiting until 1964.

The Belgians thought this would satisfy Lumumba and therefore the government was turned over to him on the prescribed date. But no sooner had Lumumba become Premier than he began a volcanic tirade against "the whites" in general and "the Belgians" in particular. The whole structure of "peaceful transition" went out the political window overnight.

The Congolese troops caught the spirit which Lumumba had exhibited and promptly mutinied against their white officers. Soon they became a roaring mob. They swept through the white sections of the principal cities beating, robbing and raping. As violence spread, the whites fled the Congo in terror. Some congregated temporarily in embassies, some rushed to the airports. At Leopoldville, doctors estimated that at least one out of every four women escaping to the airport had been raped, some of them a dozen times.

The evacuation of the whites left the Congo almost devoid of government, schools, hospitals, or business services. The native literacy rate was one of the highest in Africa, but in all of the Congo there was not one native engineer or doctor and only a few college graduates.

To avoid total collapse and to protect the fleeing whites, the Belgian government brought in paratroopers. Lumumba, however, treated them as enemies and demanded that U.N. troops be flown in. No sooner had the U.N. forces begun to arrive than Lumumba turned against them and invited Khrushchev to send strong Communist forces to take over the entire Congo. Soon Communist planes, trucks, equipment, technicians and propagandists were arriving. Lumumba began collectivizing the land and assembling an army to drive out both the U.N. and the Belgian troops. He also began acting like a fully disciplined Communist dictator by committing genocide against his own people. In the Kasai province, Lumumba's troops wiped out the Balubas tribe while Lumumba's cousin, Surete Chief Omonombe, personally directed the massacre of the Bakwanga tribe. Rescuers were prevented from bringing out women, children or the wounded.
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In spite of all this, the U.N. Secretariat continued to support Lumumba as the legitimate head of the government.

But this was too much for the Congolese. They felt they had been betrayed. On September 5th, President Joseph Kasavubu told the world he was ousting Lumumba as Premier. The very same day Lumumba's own troops turned bitterly against him. The Army Chief, Joseph Mobutu, clapped the blustering Lumumba in jail and told his Communist followers to get out of the Congo immediately.

All of this looked like a healthy improvement to most people, but to the amazement of both Congolese and outside observers, Dag Hammarskjold continued to use his office as U.N. Secretary General to intercede for Lumumba. Responsible Congolese like Premier Moise Tshombe of Katanga began asking whose side Dag Hammarskjold was on!

In the beginning Dag Hammarskjolds' personal representative in the Congo had been Dr. Ralph Bunche, an American Negro serving as Under Secretary of the U.N. But when Bunche failed in his attempt to get the Congolese to accept the Communist-dominated regime of Patrice Lumumba, he was replaced. The replacement turned out to be a U.N. official named Rajeshwar Dayal of India. Dayal had functioned for only a short time when President Kasavubu became equally alarmed with his policies. By January, 1961, Kasavubu had written two letters to Dag Hammarskjold begging the U.N. to remove Dayal because of his strong "partiality."

During the latter part of 1960 and the early part of 1961, the violence of Lumumba's forces continued to spread havoc in the central and northern sections of the Congo. Press dispatches told of the raping of nuns and other atrocities against whites. Then in early February, 1961, it was suddenly announced that Lumumba had escaped from Katanga and was believed to be heading back toward the central Congo to join his forces. Because Lumumba was the principal voice for both Communism and violence the Premier of the Katanga Province put a high price on Lumumba's head. A few days later it was announced that Lumumba had been caught and killed by Congolese natives.

Immediately a cry of outrage came rumbling forth from Moscow and a storm of protest emanated from the U.N. President Kasavubu and Moise Tshombe could not understand why U.N. Secretary, Dag Hammarskjold, insisted on being so sentimentally concerned over Lumumba after the terrible blood bath he had inflicted on the Congo.

The Congolese were also amazed when Hammarskjold tried to force President Kasavubu to set up a Communist coalition government. This was exactly the way each of the East European nations had been trapped into becoming Soviet satellites. Tshombe was further outraged when U.N. officials tried to force him to terminate all relations with the Belgians and discharge his Belgian advisors. Tshombe accused Dag Hammarskjold of trying to drive out the Belgians so a U.N. power grab could be achieved. This actually took place in September, 1961. Dag Hammarskjold engineered an attack on Katanga with U.N. troops which temporarily forced Tshombe from the government. Tshombe was replaced by the right hand man of Communist leader, Antoine Gizenga.

However, Tshombe rallied the people under the battle cry of "Liberty or Death!" and the resistance to the U.N. conquest began. It was then that Dag Hammarskjold flew to Africa to negotiate a cease-fire before the U.N.-sponsored regime was overthrown. Enroute to Katanga, the U.N. plane crashed and Dag Hammarskjold was killed. In Washington, D.C., Senator Thomas A. Dodd told the U.S. Senate that Hammarskjold's campaign had been turning the whole Congo into a Communist camp. He charged that the State Department had made a monumental blunder in using American money to back the U.N. conquest of the Congo.
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During all of this excitement many Americans thought the U.N. was actually trying to protect the Congo from a Communist take-over. They drew this conclusion from the fact that Khrushchev had been violently criticizing Hammarskjold's program in the Congo. Now it appeared that the fight between Khrushchev and Hammarskjold was not on the issue of a Communist take-over since they had both been pushing for one. Their dispute was to determine who would control the Communist regime once it was in power.

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Chapter Eleven
The Communist Conquest of Cuba

Now we turn our attention to Cuba.

During 1960, while the world was focusing attention on events in the Congo, a far more serious development was taking place just 90 miles from the shores of the United States. For many months shocked Americans had been watching Fidel Castro completely destroy his pretended image as the "George Washington of Cuba" and triumphantly portray himself in his true role as a hard-core Communist conspirator.

Everything Lumumba would have done in the Congo, Castro actually accomplished in Cuba: drumhead justice, mass executions, confiscation of industry, collectivization of the land, suspension of civil rights, suspension of democratic processes, alliances with the Iron Curtain. All these became the trade marks of the Castro regime.

To millions of Americans this was bitterly disappointing. They had read Herbert Matthews' pro-Castro articles in the
New York Times
and watched prominent TV personalities portray Castro as the savior of Cuba.

As a matter of research, however, there was no real excuse for missing Fidel Castro's Communist connections, For years he had been clearly identified with their leaders, their insurrections, their ideology and their plans. And even if all of this evidence had been absent, the official records of the Havana and Bogota police departments should have told the most casual observer that Fidel Castro was certainly no pillar of hope for Cuba. Even before he graduated from law school his checkerboard career included such crimes as assault with a deadly weapon, arson, insurrection and murder,

Fidel Castro is one of five illegitimate children born to a servant woman on the sugar plantation of Fidel's wealthy father, Angel Castro.
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Biographers point out that his early upbringing was not particularly conducive to promoting the best qualities in a human personality.

When Fidel was sent to secondary school he turned out to be a mediocre student with an aggressive, ambitious and rebellious nature. He was not well liked at the school and to overcome his lack of popularity he decided to impress the students by mounting a bicycle and riding it full tilt into a high stone wall. This accident left him unconscious for days. Some authorities have wondered if he really ever recovered.

At 16 he obtained a gun and tried to kill a teacher because of an argument over poor grades. By the time Castro was 19, he had determined to become a lawyer. To achieve this, his father sent him to the University of Havana. Almost immediately, however, he identified himself with the most radical element on campus and joined a group of beatniks who prided themselves in being unshaven and unclean. Castro is still remembered at the University of Havana by his nickname of "Bola de Churre" -- Ball of Dirty Grease.

Castro told Diaz Balart (who later became his brother-in-law) that he intended to become studentbody president and then use his prestige to agitate the students into a revolutionary force which would ultimately make him the political leader of Cuba. But his jealous ambition did not make him studentbody president. Instead, it led him to engineer his first attempt at murder in 1947.