Lucas Samalenge

Lucas Samalenge (2 October 1928 – 19 November 1961) was a Congolese and Katangese politician who was Katanga's Secretary of State of Information.

Lucas Samalenge
Lucas Samalenge writing, 1961.
PresidentMoïse Tshombe
Secretary of State of Information of the State of Katanga
Personal details
Born2 October 1928
Died19 November 1961(1961-11-19) (aged 33)
120 kms northwest of Élisabethville, Republic of the Congo [1]
Political partyConfédération des associations tribales du Katanga

Early life and career

Samalenge was born on 2 October 1928.[2] He became a nationally elected Member of Parliament for the CONAKAT party for the district of Élisabethville. This party consisted mostly of Southern Katangese people, including Moïse Tshombe and Godefroid Munongo. He was the only MP of his party to vote the investitutre at the Lumumba Government in June 1960.[3]

Katangese secession
Flag of the State of Katanga

When Katangese provincial governor Moïse Tshombe declared the independence of the State of Katanga from the Congo, Samalenge became the Secretary of State of Information. His Chef de cabinet was the Belgian journalist Étienne Ugeux and deputy Chef de cabinet was Barthélemy Bwengu.[4] Public relations officer for Samalenge's office was Christian Souris, who later wrote a novel based on true facts under the pseudonym Christian Lanciney, named Les héros sont affreux.[5][6] According to Catherine Hoskyns, his office had a dual function of offering a Katangase nationalism for the Katangese people, and to brand the country as a peaceful, prosperous, Western-oriented state endangered by black nationalism and pro-communist forces in the Congo and at the United Nations. The information secretariat coordinated the Katangese representations in Brussels, Paris, and the Katanga Information Services in New York, as well as the various pro-Katangese groups abroad.[7] The propaganda efforts abroad in Katanga and abroad were successful. After Operation Rum Punch in August 1961, it seemed as if the secession was on its last legs, but the failure of Operation Morthor and the death of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld further consolidated the regime. Samalenge issued a statement in October 1961 in which he boasted that the 1.7 million Katangans have defeated the whole United Nations of more than 2 billion people, which succeeded because Katanga was in the right, according to him.[8]

Assassination of Lumumba

At the time of the arrival of prisoners Patrice Lumumba, Maurice Mpolo, and Joseph Okito in a Douglas DC-4 plane at the airport of Luano in Katanga's capital Élisabethville during the afternoon of 17 January 1961, Samalenge was at the Cinéma Palace movie theatre with his Chef de cabinet Étienne Ugeux[9] and Tshombe at a screening of the Moral Re-Armament campaign when Tshombe was called to his residence somewhere between 16:00 and 17:00.[10] Minister of Finance Jean-Baptiste Kibwe later denied that Samalenge was present when the three Congolese politicians were assassinated near Élisabethville, but other sources place him at the execution.[11]

Samalenge was one of the very first individuals, or perhaps the first individual, to reveal Lumumba's death. According to Frédéric Vandewalle, he went on a pub crawl on the streets of the capital on 18 January and drunkenly confided to journalist Léopold Daffe of the Secreatariat of Information the details of the assassination.[12] According to Ludo De Witte, Samalenge went to the busy bar Le Relais and told everyone that Lumumba was murdered and he kicked his corpse. He then went around repeating the story until the police took him away.[13]

Death

Lucas Samalenge died on 19 November 1961 under suspicious circumstances. Jules Chomé, Belgian lawyer and critic of the Katangese secession (and, later, a notable critic of Mobutu Sese Seko) reported that he officially died during a hunting incident, but that he was probably assassinated because he knew too much about the death of Lumumba.[14] The alleged incident took place in the woods 120 kms northwest of Élisabethville[15] His death occurred during the same week of Katangese Minister of National Education Joseph Kiwele, who died of a brain thrombosis on 14 November.[16] His body showed gunshot wounds in his neck, and when he was found, the people accompanying Samalenge already disappeared.[17]

Legacy

In 1961, a literary competition named "Lucas Samalenge" was organised in Élisabethville.[18]

See also

References
  1. "Katangaans minister op jacht omgekomen". Provinciale Zeeuwse Courant. 23 November 1961. p. 17. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  2. Benoît Verhaegen; Jules Gérard-Libois (1960). Congo 1960: tome II. Centre de Recherche et d'Information Socio-Politiques. p. 126.
  3. Benoît Verhaegen; Jules Gérard-Libois (1960). Congo 1960: tome II. Centre de Recherche et d'Information Socio-Politiques. p. 126.
  4. Weber, Guy (1983). Le Katanga de Moïse Tshombe ou le drame de la loyauté. Brussels: Éditions Louis Musin. p. 201. ISBN 2-87083-013-0.
  5. Christopher Othen (7 September 2015). Katanga 1960-63: Mercenaries, Spies and the African Nation that Waged War on the World. History Press. p. 279. ISBN 978-0-7509-6580-4.
  6. Christian Lanciney (1962). Les héros sont affreux. C. Dessart.
  7. Hoskyns, Catherine (1965). The Congo Since Independence, January 1960-December, 1961. Oxford University Press. pp. 288–289.
  8. Hoskyns, Catherine (1965). The Congo Since Independence, January 1960-December, 1961. Oxford University Press. p. 436.
  9. "DÉCÈS Etienne Ugeux, témoin d'Afrique pour «Le Soir»". Le Soir. Brussels. 19 February 1998. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  10. "Enquête parlementaire visant à déterminer les circonstances exactes de l'assassinat de Patrice Lumumba et l'implication éventuelle des responsables politiques belges dans celui-ci" (PDF). Belgian Chamber of Representatives. 16 November 2001. p. 377. Retrieved 12 January 2021. À l’arrivée des prisonniers, Tshombe ne se trouve pas à sa résidence mais il assiste à une séance cinématographique organisée par le « Réarmement moral » au cinéma Palace. Il est accompagné du secrétaire d’État Samalenge et du chef de cabinet de ce dernier, Ugeux. Entre 16 et 17 h Tshombe est rappelé et il se dirige vers sa résidence
  11. "Enquête parlementaire visant à déterminer les circonstances exactes de l'assassinat de Patrice Lumumba et l'implication éventuelle des responsables politiques belges dans celui-ci" (PDF). Belgian Chamber of Representatives. 16 November 2001. p. 398. Retrieved 12 January 2021. Certaines sources le signalent cependant sur le lieu de l’exécution. Le ministre Kibwe, qui cite cinq noms de ministres, dément en revanche devant la commission d’enquête la présence de Samalenge lors de l’exécution.
  12. "Enquête parlementaire visant à déterminer les circonstances exactes de l'assassinat de Patrice Lumumba et l'implication éventuelle des responsables politiques belges dans celui-ci" (PDF). Belgian Chamber of Representatives. 16 November 2001. p. 399. Retrieved 12 January 2021. Certaines sources le signalent cependant sur le lieu de l’exécution. Le ministre Kibwe, qui cite cinq noms de ministres, dément en revanche devant la commission d’enquête la présence de Samalenge lors de l’exécution.
  13. Ludo de Witte; Witte De (2001). The Assassination of Lumumba. Verso. p. 126. ISBN 978-1-85984-618-6.
  14. Jules Chomé (1966). Moise Tshombe et I'escroquerie katangaise. Éditions de la fondation J. Jacquemotte. p. 168n16.
  15. "Katangaans minister op jacht omgekomen". Provinciale Zeeuwse Courant. 23 November 1961. p. 17. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  16. "Katangaans minister op jacht omgekomen". Provinciale Zeeuwse Courant. 23 November 1961. p. 17. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  17. "Elisabethville". The Citizen. Prince George, British Columbia. 20 November 1961. p. 1. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  18. Ndibu, Mukenge (1978). "À propos de la littérature zaïroise" [About the Zairean Literature] (PDF). Bulletin de l'académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises (in French). LVI (3–4): 325. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
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