The murder of Laurent Kabila

by Ludo Martens President of the Workers' Party of Belgium

The assassination of President Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Republic of 
Congo on January 16 was the result of a carefully prepared plot. That is 
the conviction of most of Kinshasa's inhabitants that we have asked.

As a friend told me, it certainly can't be coincidental that this murder 
happened at the very moment when the Congo's people had a serious hope of 
victory against the aggressors, who have wreaked such havoc in the country.

Indeed, after two and half years of occupation, the US and its allies are 
in a deadlock of barbarities and plundering. The US had given the green 
light to Rwanda and Uganda for a short war — it was supposed to last only 
one month.

Instead, the Congolese people have strengthened their determination to 
drive out the aggressors and to never again allow imperialism to rule 
Congo.

The UN Security Council has stated several times since April 9, 2000, that 
Congo has been the victim of aggression from Rwanda and Uganda.

According to official figures, there have already been more than three 
million deaths in Eastern Congo as a result of the aggression and its 
consequences. The US cannot continue such genocide forever.

Moreover, Kabila had started a dialogue with various sections of the 
Congolese opposition, who have some patriotic feelings. US attempts to take 
advantage of this inter-Congolese dialogue to bring about a parliamentary 
coup against Kabila failed.

The Americans then played their last card by resorting to their agents, who 
were infiltrated into the immediate circle around Kabila. On January 16, at 
1.45pm, a bodyguard of Kabila fired three deadly bullets.

I arrived in Kinshasa late on the night preceding the murder. The day 
after, in the evening of January 16, the leadership of the Workers' Party 
of Belgium, fearing the worst, asked me to return immediately to Belgium. 
The same fears were rife in the city: "there will be internal fighting in 
the army, there will be a bloodbath".

In these conditions the declarations made by opposition leader Tshisekedi 
in Brussels were widely regarded as criminal provocations.

The body of Kabila was not yet cold when Tshishekedi called upon his troops 
to resume their political activities and to organise marches because 
"freedom is not given, one must wring it out".

On January 17, some students, influenced by the demagogy of Tshishekedi's 
UDPS party and the MPR (the party of the late dictator Mobutu), tried to 
provoke trouble, which could have degenerated. The direct complicity 
between the so-called "democratic opposition" and the US and its Rwandan-
Ugandan allies was once again obvious.

Since August 2, 1998, this complicity has been a characteristic of the war 
waged by the pro-imperialist forces against the Congolese national 
movement.

The overwhelming majority of the population, however, congratulates the new 
authorities for having succeeded in maintaining calm and, even better, in 
preventing any incident.

In Kinshasa, some people immediately claimed that the murder was an 
individual act, an unfortunate and dramatic incident. This is not very 
credible.

According to the details published in the press, the bodyguard who 
committed the crime was not on duty that day. In spite of this, he went to 
the Marble Palace in military uniform and stayed there for a long time.

A woman from the Presidential Guard gave him a gun with a silencer. To get 
such a weapon into the presidential palace already supposes a high degree 
of organisation.

The murderer could enter the office where Kabila was sitting with his 
adviser, Mota, without being searched by the guard, without going through a 
metal detector. After he had committed his crime, the murderer was shot 
dead; they could have shot him in the legs. The chief of security was also 
killed in obscure circumstances.

The people believe there was a vast plot. Along the road to the airport, 
the people of Kinshasa who had watched the funeral procession attacked the 
Whites: "it is the Whites who ordered the shooting".

I saw a white journalist in the People's Palace, with blood on his face, 
who had to be protected by a dozen police to prevent his being lynched by 
the crowd. I had to face several verbal aggressions like "You, Whites, are 
responsible!".

But there was always someone nearby who knew me because of my interviews on 
TV and who could explain that not all the whites are against Kabila.

Well-informed observers also wondered about an announcement, on the day of 
the crime, claiming that General Kayembe, Deputy Minister of Defence, had 
shot Kabila. People who know Kayembe say that he is one of the best-trained 
officers, a true nationalist who completely supports the ideas of the late 
President.

It was apparently the Belga news agency that spread this false information, 
which was seen as an incitement to kill Kayembe. The Zimbabweans, who 
understood it that way, immediately took him under their protection.

Kayembe comes from Kasai. Some observers speculate that the hidden forces 
which were behind the murder, by calling for the physical elimination of 
Kayembe, hoped to make the army split into different factions and to 
provoke violent confrontations between Katangans and Kasaians, as in 1992.

That would have provided the necessary pretext for a US-French-Belgian 
military intervention.

President Kabila was the brain and the heart of the resistance against the 
US-Rwandan-Ugandan aggression. He led the army, the government, the 
diplomacy and the Committees of Popular Power.

His murder was supposed to destabilise the edifice of the new Congo and 
cause complete chaos. In this regard, the declaration by Belgian Foreign 
Minister Louis Michel, on the evening of January 16, stating that he had 
reliable information that Kabila was dead, is now considered in Kinshasa as 
an attempt to incite the people and create chaos.

The Congolese authorities, taken completely by surprise, needed time to 
take appropriate measures and to avoid troubles. The main fear amongst 
people was that the army might split into various factions, which would 
have fought each other.

The Belgian Foreign Minister had to know that if Kabila was dead and the 
Congolese government didn't immediately announce it, there was good reason 
for it: the Congolese Government had to avoid an explosion of troubles of 
all kinds.

In the view of some observers, Belgium acted as if it wanted precisely to 
create troubles.

A kernel of Congolese leaders comprising Mpoyo, Kazadi, Olenga and some 
others, after having evaluated the situation, proposed that General Joseph 
Kabila, Chief of Staff of the land forces, succeed his father as President. 
The Angolans and Zimbabweans, who had reinforced significantly their 
military presence in Kinshasa, supported this proposition.

Comrade Lwetsha, the Chief of the General Staff, is also a very reliable 
person but his age probably didn't allow him to assume the supreme 
authority.

When the first news about the possible death of Kabila came to us, I was 
with a few Congolese friends. One of them said immediately: "If he is dead, 
the military has to take power; otherwise we risk a catastrophe."

Lumumba was murdered and there was never an investigation in the Congo into 
the vast plot involving the Congo, Belgium and the US. The Congolese people 
will never accept the same thing happening with Kabila.

The people in the street are highly critical that, in the first official 
communication of the new government, the spokesman Sakombi didn't say 
anything about the investigations needed to discover the real murderers, 
who stayed in the shadow.

A student told me: "If some American is killed by a terrorist anywhere in 
the world, the US claims that they will have no rest until they have 
identified and arrested the culprit. But here, the President is 
assassinated and one doesn't feel a will to really solve the crime."

You hear it everywhere: "We must know who is involved, who is behind it, 
otherwise the same network will commit other crimes."

For three years, the imperialist powers have poured out so many lies and 
fanciful statements about Kabila and the Congolese national movement that 
they are no longer able to understand the psychological transformation 
which has taken place here.

Lumumba was murdered, his body was dissolved in acid and the population was 
not able to express its feelings of anger. Mulele was killed in a barbarous 
way; nobody could see his body or express in public support for his 
revolutionary struggle.

Like Lumumba and Mulele, Kabila was slandered as "guilty of genocide", as a 
"dictator", as a "thug". But these lies, which were believed in the West, 
have provoked here in Kinshasa an opposite effect.

The agents of the imperialist powers — the chiefs of the MPR, the UDPS, 
etc — thought that their day would come soon. But on January 21 the 
Congolese people showed their nationalist spirit in an unprecedented 
display that all Congolese will remember forever.

Two million of Kinshasa's inhabitants came on to the streets to show their 
anger and outrage at all these lies and all the crimes committed by the US-
Rwanda-Uganda against Congo.

I was at the airport to welcome the mortal remains of Kabila. We followed 
the casket by car for more than 20 kilometres through the city, from Njili 
to Mont Ngaliema and on to Kinshasa. And everywhere was a huge crowd of 
crying men, women and children.