We remember young African revolutionary leaders who were assassinated

From the turmoil in DR Congo which many trace to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba to the spirit of uprightness in Burkina Faso, which many say still has the spirit of Sankara hovering over it, most colonial powers have been responsible for these assassinations. We take a look and reflect on these young African revolutionary leaders who died for their cause to see a free and liberated Africa.

Tom Mboya

Thomas Joseph Adhiambo Mboya was a former Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, a trade unionist, Pan Africanist and one of Kenya’s founding fathers. He served as a sanitary inspector for the Nairobi City Council and faced racism many times. In his book Freedom and After he said, “A number of times I was physically thrown out of premises which I had gone to inspect by Europeans who insisted they wanted a European, not an African, to do the job. The City Council had to prosecute a number of them for obstructing African inspectors in the course of their duties” At the age of 28, he was elected the chairman of the All-African People’s Conference convened by Kwame Nkrumah.

Mboya played a crucial role in establishing the trade unions in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and also in creating the ‘students’ air-lift’ which helped many Kenyan students go to the United States for studies. Described as erudite and intelligent, Mboya designed the flag of Kenya and organised various labour union platforms across the continent. While serving as the Minister for Economic Planning and Development, Mboya was assassinated on July 5, 1969 at the age of 38.

Amilcar Cabral

Amilcar Lopes da Costa Cabral, is considered one of the greatest revolutionaries and anti-colonialist in the continent. Born in Guinea-Bissau to Cape Verdean parents, Cabral led a guerrilla movement against the Portuguese colonial government. With support from Kwame Nkrumah, he set up training camps in Ghana and as an agronomist, taught his troops to teach local farmers better farming techniques in order to increase food productivity both for the larger populace and the troops.

In one of his speeches he 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, to guarantee the future of their children.”

Amílcar Cabral, Photo: Wiki Commons

Though not a Marxist, he was heavily influenced by Marxist ideologies. He founded the Portuguese for African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) in 1956 but launched its first military attack in 1963, claiming lands from the Portuguese and gaining support from the masses.

Fidel Castro said of him, “one of the most lucid and brilliant leaders in Africa, who instilled in us tremendous confidence in the future and the success of his struggle for liberation.”

Patrick Chabal, a professor of Lusophone studies in his book Amilcar Cabral: Revolutionary Leadership and People’s War said, “In less than twenty years of active political life, Cabral led Guinea-Bissau’s nationalists to the most complete political and military success ever achieved by an African political movement against a colonial power. At the time of his death in 1973, months before Guinea-Bissau became independent, his influence extended well beyond the Lusophone world and Africa. Friends and foes alike admired his political acumen and skills and saw in him a potential leader of the non-aligned movement. His writings have shown him to be a sophisticated analyst of the social, economic and political factors which have affected and continue to affect the developing world.”

On January 20, 1973 Amilcar Cabral was assassinated. His famous quote “Tell no lies, claim no easy victories, tell it to the people the way it is,” is often reiterated by student union leaders.

Read: Remembering Amilcar Cabral

Patrice Lumumba

Patrice Lumumba’s assassination was described by Luddo De Witte, as “the most important assassination of the 20th century.” According to a Guardian article written by Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, he said, “In Congo, Lumumba’s assassination is rightly viewed as the country’s original sin. Coming less than seven months after independence (on 30 June, 1960), it was a stumbling block to the ideals of national unity, economic independence and pan-African solidarity that Lumumba had championed, as well as a shattering blow to the hopes of millions of Congolese for freedom and material prosperity”.

A picture dated November 1960 shows Patrice Lumumba (R), Congolese Prime Minister, and Okito (L), Senate President, under the survey of Moise Tschombe’ s army guards, upon their arrest in Leopoldville. Belgium has a ‘moral responsibility’ for the death in 1961 of Patrice Lumumba, a parliamentary commission of inquiry concluded in a report published 16 November 2001. Photo: ANP/AFP/EPA

The assassination took place at a time when the country had fallen under four separate governments: the central government in Kinshasa (then Léopoldville); a rival central government by Lumumba’s followers in Kisangani (then Stanleyville); and the secessionist regimes in the mineral-rich provinces of Katanga and South Kasai. Since Lumumba’s physical elimination had removed what the west saw as the major threat to their interests in the Congo, internationally-led efforts were undertaken to restore the authority of the moderate and pro-western regime in Kinshasa over the entire country. These resulted in ending the Lumumbist regime in Kisangani in August 1961, the secession of South Kasai in September 1962, and the Katanga secession in January 1963.”

Considered a brilliant and fearless man, Belgium and America are said to have been involved in his assassination after his involvement with Russia. When asked in an interview if he was a communist, he said “This is a propagandist trick aimed at me. I am not a Communist. The colonialists have campaigned against me throughout the country because I am a revolutionary and demand the abolition of the colonial regime, which ignored our human dignity. They look upon me as a Communist because I refused to be bribed by the imperialists.”

Lumumba is said to have had an ‘uncanny gift of instantaneously exposing the plots of the enemies of a United Congo.’ His Independence Day speech was contrary to the patronising speech President Joseph Kasa-Vubu had delivered. Lumumba’s speech highlighted the atrocities of Belgium. Part of his speech read,

“Although this independence of the Congo is being proclaimed today by agreement with Belgium, an amicable country, with which we are on equal terms, no Congolese will ever forget that independence was won in struggle, a persevering and inspired struggle carried on from day to day, a struggle, in which we were undaunted by privation or suffering and stinted neither strength nor blood.

It was filled with tears, fire and blood. We are deeply proud of our struggle, because it was just and noble and indispensable in putting an end to the humiliating bondage forced upon us.

That was our lot for the eighty years of colonial rule and our wounds are too fresh and much too painful to be forgotten.

We have experienced forced labour in exchange for pay that did not allow us to satisfy our hunger, to clothe ourselves, to have decent lodgings or to bring up our children as dearly loved ones.

Morning, noon and night we were subjected to jeers, insults and blows because we were “Negroes”. Who will ever forget that the black was addressed as “tu”, not because he was a friend, but because the polite “vous” was reserved for the white man?”

Read: 10 quotes from Patrice Lumumba

Thomas Sankara

Thomas Sankara was ousted in coup d’état led by Blaise Compaoré. Photo: ThomasSankara.net

Burkina Faso, land of the upright man owes its name to Thomas Isidore Sankara, a revolutionary army Captain who took over power in a coup d’etat in 1983. Sankara took radical steps in changing his country’s outlook, both in the foreign policies and domestic policies.

His international policies bore anti-imperialist stances, shunning foreign aid and nationalizing all land and mineral wealth. In the domestic front, he led nationwide literacy programs, promoted public health vaccinations of meningitis, measles and yellow fever, banned female genital mutilation (FGM) and appointed women to top positions in the government. His image was a source of inspiration to many. On October 15th, 1987 at the age of 37, he was assassinated by his best friend Blaise Compaore. A week before his assassination he had declared that, “While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas.”

Steve Biko

Black Consciousness Movement founder, Steve Biko died in 1977, in South African police custody. Photo: Mark Peters/Getty Images

Stephen Bantu Biko was one of the greatest young leaders of South Africa who fought against the apartheid regime in South Africa. In July 1969, Biko was elected as the first president of the South African Students Association (SASO) and in 1970 he was elected as the Chair of SASO Publication and he started publishing articles under the pseudonym Frank Talk, under the heading, I Write What I Like, which eventually became a book. Biko later on quit his medical studies and became fully involved in the Black Community Programmes (BCP) which was an arm of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). Biko was banned in 1973 but that didn’t restrict the influence of BCM in the political sphere of South Africa.

On August 27 1976 during the Soweto Uprising, Biko was arrested and put under solitary confinement for 101 days. In 1977 Biko was arrested. He was badly beaten and suffered a brain hemorrhage. The police still kept him chained despite his condition and drove him for 12 hours, naked at the back of a van, on a 700km distance to Pretoria. Biko died on 12 September 1977. Donald Woods, a close friend of Steve said, “In the three years that I grew to know him my conviction never wavered that this was the most important political leader in the entire country, and quite simply the greatest man I have ever had the privilege to know.” Biko died at the age of 30.