- Congolese soldiers pressured Lumuba to get rid of the Belgian officers which led to military chaos
- President Lumumba wanted to reconquer Katanga, which was being held by Tshombe
- He asked Soviet Union for help, and because of this, Americans saw Lumuba as a client of the Soviet Union
- American President Dwight Eisenhower wanted the Congolese president dead
- Turned the struggle for the country into a Cold War conflict
- He asked Soviet Union for help, and because of this, Americans saw Lumuba as a client of the Soviet Union
- Kasavubu was pressured to dismiss Lumumba because of infleunces from Belgium and America, which led the nation to even deeper chaos
- When Mobutu seized power, he ejected the Soviets, restored relations with the US and the UN, and restored Kasavubu as president.
- The U.S. played a major role in converting the newly independent Congo into a cold war battleground.
- In 1961, the Eisenhower administration authorized the murder of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, who had been voted into office just months earlier in the territory’s first-ever democratic election.
- Washington, which then installed Mobutu in power and kept him there for more than 30 years, bears heavy responsibility for the disastrous economic conditions, massive corruption, and suppression of human rights in Zaire.
- The U.S. prolonged Mobutu’s rule by providing more than $300 million in weapons and $100 million in military training.
- With the end of the cold war, the U.S., France, and Belgium formed a “troika” designed to pressure Mobutu to move toward democracy.
- This effort might have produced more positive results if France had not defected to support Mobutu and the Hutu military dictator in Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, in defense of French language and culture, which was threatened by “Anglophone” Uganda and its Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) protégés.
- Lumumba asked the UN to use ONUC to attack Katanga.
- However, it is not the part of the UN to attack another state and so they refused to forcefully unite the breakaway province with the rest of Congo.
- Lumumba asked the Soviet Union for help to help him achieve his goal of a united Congo.
- Equipped his forces with planes to gian power in Africa and an advantage over the U.S.