White Malice: The CIA and the Neocolonisation of Africa

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As a person who in later times suffered (as like many) for the failures of that time I genuinely came away more educated on the DRC and the parties that were involved. I kind of wished that it went a little bit more into the Mobutu reign but you can't have it all. I appreciated that the author chose to dive into the more personal stories of the leaders that were focused on because while time has changed and easy to rewrite history I think to disprove the perception brought through fear and propaganda is key in understand what those external powers really did. Congo’s uranium was many times richer than the US’s other sources. Although no longer reliant on Congo’s supplies, the US was determined to prevent the Soviet Union obtaining them. The book provides evidence that the assassination of Lumumba was authorised by President Eisenhower and, although it took place the day before his inauguration, it is likely Kennedy had been briefed on this and did not object. Following several failed assassination attempts of its own the CIA supported a plot to kidnap Lumumba and hand him over to his enemies and to his inevitable death. I have studied the damage of the United States policy in South and Central America relative to the cold war for a many years. I have not read as much about Africa. I have to say that the detail provided in this book clearly describes the lengths to which the CIA was willing to go to win the cold war at all costs in Africa and the price paid by those who stood in the way. My general assumption is that things I have read about Central and South America, as bad as they might have appeared to me, were probably worse.

RECENT reports from Niger demonstrate that political events in Africa are still significantly influenced by the efforts of former colonial powers and the US to control vital resources, in particular uranium, which remains crucial to the generation of electricity and the nuclear weapons industry.There’s also some good stuff about MK-ultra, and the post-WW2 politics of Uranium, which centered around the Shinkolobwe mine in the Katanga province of the Congo. I, too, traveled the pipeline from Libertarianism to the Far-right via Objectivism. Although I didn'...

Instead, the reader will be surprised to find an extremely detailed micro-history of events in the Congo (and to a lesser extent, Ghana) from the Ghanaian independence in 1957 to Nkrumah’s removal/exile in the early ‘70s, with a whole lot of Patrice Lumumba in-between. And that’s all fine and dandy, but what’s with the extremely misleading title?

A mainstream version of events might have it here that the CIA plots to assassinate Lumumba were forestalled by local Congolese action and that the U.S. therefore bore little responsibility for his actual murder. As Williams sets out here, however, there is evidence for a CIA presence at the location where Lumumba, Mpolo and Okito were killed, in the form of an expense claim for travel there. It therefore appears that there was more direct CIA involvement in the actual event than has often previously been recognised. give impetus to oppressed peoples all over the world. I think it will have worldwide implications and repercussions–not only for Asia and Africa, but also for America … At bottom, both segregation in America and colonialism in Africa are based on the same thing–white supremacy and contempt for life (p.13). Before long, Lumumba’s enemies closed in: on 5 September, Kasavubu illegally dismissed Lumumba as prime minister, citing his decision to involve the Soviets in Katanga. Gizenga, too, was dismissed. When Lumumba was later arrested, Andrew Djin, Nkrumah’s envoy to the DRC, intervened to secure his release but the damage was already done. On 14 September, Mobutu announced that the army had seized power and suspended civilian rule; Kasavubu hurriedly signed a decree to legalise Mobutu’s military dictatorship. The Soviet and Czech embassies were closed and their diplomats expelled.

What a joy to open this book and find that whatever the author’s White Pill is supposed to be, it somehow involves Ayn Rand (AR). It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand (1971, by Jerome Tuccille) was the name of an actual book that came out when I was in my teens and going through my own brief Objectivist period. The book is a funny saga about the author’s time as a militant libertarian. I’m sure it meant a lot to people who came of age in the late 1960s and were getting tired of Randianism by 1971, but you may find it dreary and overly granular today.Canadian radio feature interview: International Effort To Re-Investigate the Mysterious Circumstances of the death of Former UN Secretary General King was in Ghana for the independence celebrations in 1957, along with world leaders, freedom fighters, and others from the civil-rights struggle in the U.S.. They were also joined by the U.S. Vice President, Richard Nixon. Nixon was apparently in his element at the extended political jamboree, shaking hands with everyone, patting heads and ‘smiling, smiling all the time’ (p.13). At one point, he went up to one man, whom he took to be Ghanian, slapped him on the shoulder, and asked him how it felt to be free. ‘“I wouldn’t know, Sir” came the reply. “I’m from Alabama”’ (p.14). It is difficult to know how great an impact the CIA truly had on the Congolese civil war, as it is difficult to know whether its plot to assassinate Lumumba ultimately had any success. According to the Congressional Church Committee, which began to investigate CIA malfeasance in the 1970s, the CIA did not kill him. But Williams distrusts the committee's findings. She focuses a full chapter on justifying her belief that American intelligence had a clandestine hand in Patrice Lumumba's death. Although she cannot prove this point — her argument hinges, ultimately, on a CIA asset's gas-reimbursement paperwork, a finding too small to be conclusive — she effectively calls the Church Committee's findings into question. I knew him for years. We always had a congenial relationship, or so I’d thought. In this article (try to ignore the mangled HTML, it’s that way with all old articles on Taki’s), he was the “friend” I was going to see for dinner.

This lecture was in a series of public lectures on ‘Empire into Commonwealth, 1910-2010’, to mark the joint centenary of the Round Table journal and the Royal Over-Seas League in London. Though at first I didn't like the sort of scattergun approach.. I grew to appreciate it as it almost felt like the author was making sure I was paying attention. As a child of parents born in the middle of all that was going on I found myself tracing the many dates to where my family was, or what my parents must of been doing at whatever age they were, etc. which I enjoyed. I enjoy history and enjoyed learning more about the details of what was happening.. maybe my personal infatuation with understanding more about my home country led it but I was ready to learn more. The appreciation I have for Nkrumah and those who did what they could for the democratically elected leaders of the DRC has grown. There are always times you learn about people in high or low spaces that play a great part.. passionately defending the truth no matter what the consequence to be is admirable. Silencing and Lies: The death of Hammarskjöld, Congolese uranium, and the annexation of history', lecture given to the Dag Hammarskjöld Programme, Voksenaasen, Oslo, NorwayNkrumah possessed an acute understanding of the threat and of the people behind it. Only months after his speech, Lumumba was assassinated by a Belgian and Congolese firing squad, opening the door to decades of pro-Western tyranny in the country. Talking Head in the third episode of this BBC 2 television series, looking at documents held by the UK National Archives In November 1959, the CIA created a dedicated Africa division. According to British researcher Susan Williams, the CIA's brief in Africa was to, by any means imaginable, secure American power across the continent. Religion, Performance and Queer Artists of Colour in South Africa: Interview with Dr Megan Robertson