MI6 'organised killing' of anti-colonial Congo Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba

» Mark Moloney

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.’

A BRITISH peer has revealed that Britain's overseas intelligence service, MI6, was responsible for organising the murder and disappearance of Congo's first democratically-elected prime minister.

In a letter to the London Review of Books in response to an article on a new book titled Empire of Secrets: British Intelligence, The Cold War and the Twilight of Empire that questioned whether MI6 had any role in the killing of Patrice Lumumba in 1961, Lord David Edward Lea writes:

“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.’”

The Labour peer said Park had orchestrated the killing out of fear that Lumumba was too closely allied to the Soviet Union, which had supported his work to rid Congo of Belgian colonial rule.

Lumumba was abducted in December 1960 and shot dead in January. His body has never been found and it is claimed was dissolved in acid.

Lea added:

“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."

The exact circumstances of Lumumba's death have long been a mystery. Belgian Intelligence and the CIA are both believed to have been involved. In 2002, Belgium apologised for its “irrefutable portion of responsibility” for his death.

Following his murder, many members of Lumumba's family fled Congo. One of his sons and seven of his grandchildren currently live in Tallaght, Dublin.

• In 2002, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny described the African liberation hero as a “nigger” while telling a racist joke at a social function in September. Kenny asked journalists there not to report his comments. Kenny later apologised for the remarks.