Western powers have always claimed to be the biggest supporters of human rights and the watchdogs of other countries, but their actions over time have proven that they are the biggest violators of human rights and will not stop interfering in other countries to protect their interests. It is not news that they have attempted to meddle in African affairs, and their interference has resulted in the assassination of key African leaders who, if left to rule, would have taken Africa to a greater height.
According to the BBC, one American intelligence agency with a long history of participation in African events is the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Many of the agency’s covert operations, as well as their complicity in the assassination of various leaders, have come to light. The CIA established an Africa division in November 1959 and according to NPR, the CIA’s mandate in Africa was to secure American power across the continent. by any means necessary – to undermine not just Pan-African unity but also the stability of several African countries.
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton confirmed this when he defended US interference in a conversation with Eric Bolling, the host of Newsmax, saying that the coups in Africa that he helped plan were necessary to protect America’s “best interests.” The sad thing about all this is that even African leaders who once cooperated with the U.S. were not spared that fate. A good example was Muammar Gaddafi, the deposed President of Libya who was killed in October 2011. He had previously collaborated closely with the CIA, as had Egypt’s third president, Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, who was assassinated by fundamentalist army officials in October 1981.
The US is not the only Western power that is involved in this outrageous act, several other US allies including France and Portuguese have been involved. For example, Outel Bono, a Chadian politician, was imprisoned for plotting against regime. He was later killed in Paris in August 1973. The deaths of these African leaders who simply wanted to fight for their country’s freedom from imperialism and neocolonialism all point to the hypocrisy of the West, who does not hesitate to destroy and destabilise countries that stand in their way in order to protect their own interests.
Today’s video pays tribute to 10 African leaders who were assassinated by Western Powers because they dared to fight for their country’s independence and stability.
Thomas Sankara: Burkina Faso
“While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas, “You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future”.
All these are the words of Thomas Sankara, one of the most revolutionary African leaders who inspired the Burkina Faso Revolution. His words continue to strike in the heart of every African. Sankara was an exceptional leader who exemplified what a true leader should be. He was the opposite of today’s African presidents who live lavishly in their big mansions, drive exotic cars, and enjoy the good things of life while the people they are leading live in poverty and penury. Sankara rode a bicycle to work as Prime Minister and later as President before upgrading to a Renault 5 – one of the cheapest automobiles available in Burkina Faso at the time – at the demand of his Cabinet. He lived in a small brick house and exclusively wore cotton that was grown, woven, and sewed in Burkina Faso.
His mindset was different from every other leader. When he came to power, Sankara reasoned that Burkina Faso was the way it was because of the political leaders so he decided to change the status quo of things. He put an end to politicians living extravagant lives funded by taxpayers’ money and cut down the salaries of every politician including himself. The Mercedes Benz fleet for high-ranking officials was phased out, and the cars were replaced by Renault 5s. The wealth from land and oil was nationalized.
His reign brought about a change in the health, education, and the environmental sector of Burkina Faso. Mass vaccination efforts were launched with a speed and success that was unusual for an African country at the time. Infant mortality rates fell, school attendance rates doubled, and millions of trees were planted as part of a long-term effort to combat deforestation. Feminism was also a fundamental component of political philosophy, manifesting itself in increased access to education for girls and the involvement of women in positions of leadership. Sankara even went further to institute a day of solidarity in which men swapped typical gender responsibilities – such as going to the market and running the family – in order to better understand what women face on a daily basis. It was the biggest success story in African history until it was interrupted in blood in 1987.
Sankara was 37 when he was gunned down on October 15, 1987, along with 12 other men. His life was cut short by a gunshot, which, according to witnesses, was ordered by former Liberian president Charles Taylor with the cooperation of the French and American governments and delivered by Blaise Compaoré, Sankara’s long-time friend and colleague. Sankara remains one of the continent’s admired leaders and his vision of pan-African flourishing and an end to colonialism have long remained his legacy.
Amilcar Cabral: Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.
Amilcar Cabral famously said, “Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, and to guarantee the future of their children.” This man fought for the freedom of two Portuguese colonies: Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. For ten years, Cabral was at the forefront of the guerrilla movement of the PAIGC in Guinea against the Portuguese government. His fight grew into one of the most successful wars of independence in African history. Cabral knew that his life was in continuous danger and even told a visitor at a hotel room in New York about his fear for his life. True to his fears he was assassinated at his home in Conakry on January 20th, 1973 by Inocencio Kani, a disgruntled member of Cabral’s party. Although Portugal denied any hand in his death, Kani after he was arrested alleged that he was working for the Portuguese government. According to HistoryVille, his assassination was one of several “African leaders by the West in order to maintain its political and economic control in the continents.”
Sylvanus Olympio: Togo
Togo’s journey to independence can never be spoken of without talking about Sylvanus Olympio, the man who helped the country reach independence from France and paid the price for it. To frustrate Olympio’s and the Togolese population’s desire for independence and self-government, France demanded a payment of 800 million francs from the tiny West African colony with meager earnings to cover the cost of the so-called benefit of France colonization. Understanding that France was trying to keep their hold on the country, Olympio immediately set to work for two years, putting Togo’s land and human resources to use in order to compensate France.
Yet after paying France this colossal amount and gaining nominal independence, General Charles de Gaulle refused to relinquish control because he considered that all French colonies, independent or not, were France’s property. To break his country free from French hold, Olympio decided to abandon the CFA franc currency, which had been imposed on France’s colonies at gunpoint in 1945. This decision however did not go well with Paris and so France decided to act. According to the African Lisbon Tour, Two days before Olympio was scheduled to sign the withdrawal agreement of Togo from the CFA francs currency at the Bank of France, France, with the assistance of the US, orchestrated his assassination. He was assassinated in a military coup in the U.S. embassy compound in Lomé in 1963 by Eyadéma, one of Africa’s worst dictators backed by the West. We can only wonder what Togo would have been under someone with such love, brilliance, and vision for his country.
Felix Moumié: Cameroon
On November 3rd, 1960, Felix Moumie, the famous independence fighter of Cameroon, also called Cameroon’s Lumumba, died in Geneva, following an official independence from France earlier that year. Felix Mounie was the leader of the political movement Union du Peuple Camerounnais (UPC), a major political force demanding the end of UN Trusteeship over Cameroon and full independence of the country. Sadly he was poisoned by thallium by an agent of the French Secret Service. The Swiss authorities knew who assassinated Moumié, but under pressure from Paris, never indicted him and dismissed proceedings, and no one has been charged since.
Cameroon was strategically important to the French government. Paris feared that if they were defeated by Moumié’s UPC, a left-wing independence movement, France would lose not only Cameroon but also other possessions in Western and Central Africa. And so, Felix Moumie had to disappear and his movement had to be eliminated at any price. Following a mission to Geneva in October 1960, Felix was invited to dinner on the eve of his return to Conakry by 66-year-old William Bechtel, who claimed to be a journalist. Unfortunately, it was at that dinner that Felix was poisoned with thallium by William who was a member of the French assassination unit called “Le Main Rouge”.
Ruben Um Nyobè: Cameroon
Many Cameroonians saw Nyobé as the George Washington of his country, and he was one of a few African nationalists deemed to be on par with Nelson Mandela. Ruben was the founder and first leader of the UPC. However on September 13, 1958, he was assassinated by French-directed counterinsurgency forces in Cameroon, who hoped to neutralise the true nationalist movement Nyobé led. Although French and French Cameroonian reports said he was killed in a combat with their forces, his death was never confirmed.
Um Nyobè travelled to New York City in 1952, 1953, and 1954 to address the United Nations General Assembly, where he consistently condemned French colonial rule in Cameroon and asked for the quick reunification of French and British Cameroon. In 1955, the French colonial authorities responded by persecuting UPC members. Many were arrested or killed, and others were exiled. Following that, Ruben Um Nyobè organised a nonviolent resistance movement in the Cameroonian equatorial forest, similar to the one Gandhi led in India, and proceeded to claim independence and seek for democratic elections.
However, on September 13, 1958, he was killed by the French Army near the village of Boumnyébel.The majority of his writing was destroyed by French officials, and Cameroonian citizens were barred from using his name publicly.
Mehdi Ben Barka: Morocco
According to Afro Legends, Ben Barka was a true hero who has been referred to by many as the Moroccan Che Guevara. His personality, charisma and boldness went behind the Moroccan border as his works inspired activists in countries which were oppressed by imperialist powers and which are still suffering from neo-colonialism and capitalism/imperialism. Barka was a Moroccan politician who opposed King Hassan II. Sentenced to death in absentia on charges of conspiracy and an assassination attempt against the king, Mehdi Ben Barka was exiled in 1964 and became known as the “salesman of the revolution.” In 1965, Barka organized a conference that aimed to bring Latin America into the framework of Afro-Asian anti-colonial symmetry, called the Tricontinental.
This did not go down well with American and European imperialists and so a few months after this, Barka was abducted from the streets of Paris, never to be seen again. He disappeared and his body was not found. The truth about his death was never revealed, until an Israeli Mossad agent confessed to be involved in his assassination.
Patrice Lumumba: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Patrice Lumumba, the man Nation of Islam spokesperson Malcolm X dubbed the most influential Black man to walk the African continent, was assassinated in one of history’s most infamous political assassinations. He was the first elected Prime Minister of Congo who was immediately met with chaos. There was an army revolt while secessionist groups from the mineral-rich province of Katanga made their move and Belgian paratroopers returned, supposedly to restore security.
Lumumba sought assistance from the Soviet Union in order to restore order. This proved to be a fatal decision because it sparked worry in London and Washington that the Soviets would gain a foothold in Africa, as they had in Cuba. In the summer of 1960, President Eisenhower attended a National Security Council meeting in the White House, during which he turned to his CIA director at one point. He used the word “eliminated” to describe what he planned to do to Lumumba. So, together with some Congolese elite, the CIA and the US administration decided to eliminate Lumumba through a coup.
On December 3, 1960, Patrice Lumumba, along with other ministers who supported him, was imprisoned in Thysville military camp. The following year on January 17, Patrice Lumumba, along with two others, were murdered by firing squad. Ministers from Katanga as well as Belgian officers were present. On the orders of Katangan interior minister Godefroid Munongo and carried out by Belgian Gendarmerie Officer Gerard Soete, the bodies of the victims were dumped into a shallow grave and later dug up, dissected, ground up, and destroyed.
Pierre Mulele: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Following the assassination of Patrice Émery Lumumba, the famous Congolese politician and independence leader who served as the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pierre Mulele rose to continue the battle against imperialist plans. Mulele led a rebellion against the Congolese government in Kwilu province between 1963 and 1968. He had approximately one and a half million inhabitants at the time, with the aim of taking the Congolese state back from what they termed “Belgian neo-colonial domination. However, the rebel forces were soundly defeated at the end of the conflict. After the rebellion’s defeat, Mulele fled into exile in Congo-Brazzaville.
In 1968, Mulele was tempted out of exile when then-President Joseph-Désiré Mobutu promised him amnesty. He returned to Congo-Kinshasa, hoping for amnesty; unfortunately he was publicly tortured and executed instead. Mulele’s death was undoubtedly the most heinous. While he was still alive, the fascist Mobutu government pulled off his ears, cut off his nose, amputated his arms and legs, and then threw the rest of his body into the Congo River in a sack.
Muammar Gaddafi.
In Western media, Gaddafi was frequently characterized as a rambling, deluded despot. However, he was highly regarded throughout Africa as a key actor in the pan-African movement, which sought to strengthen linkages between Sub-Saharan Africa and the worldwide diaspora. Taking power in a 1969 revolution that deposed King Idris, he promptly set about establishing a system modeled on Egypt’s strongman, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s socialist and nationalist philosophy. His “green book” was widely distributed around the country, opposing capitalist democracy and sowing the seeds of his “Green Revolution.
While leader of the African Union, he championed the concept of African economic and political independence, constantly condemning Western efforts to exploit and split the Arab world from the African world. Many African Union heads of state praised Gaddafi, who was noted for both avuncular eccentrism and a passionate, fiery style of oratory that frequently drew audiences to their feet with ovation. He was an authoritarian leader, but like his hero, Nasser, his authoritarianism was more parental than tyrannical.
During his 42-year reign, Gaddafi transformed Libya into the most prosperous country on the continent, providing free health care, housing, and education. Under Gaddafi, a Libyan could go from kindergarten to a Ph.D. without purchasing a single book. Western nations, on the other hand, accused Gaddafi of everything from blowing up planes to sexual assault and crimes against humanity. At the time of his death, he and his son were wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, silencing political opponents, and directing attacks on people during an uprising against his government.
On October 20, 2011, Gadaffi was killed in cold blood. While the circumstances of the assassinations remain murky, images and cell phone recordings leaked by NATO-backed “rebels” show a wounded Gaddafi struggling with his captors and shouting as he is forced onto the back of a vehicle. His naked and lifeless body is soon revealed, bathed in blood. Gaddafi’s body was then taken west to the city of Misrata, where it was reportedly dragged through the streets before being deposited in a mosque.
The assassination of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and all the other African leaders on this list serves to highlight the criminal nature and hypocrisy of the US, NATO, and other Western European powers. Despite all the crimes they have committed against humanity in Africa, none of them have been brought to justice. Instead, they are the ones going about sanctioning nations that do not follow their so-called policies that only benefit their interests.
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