Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, directed by Johan Grimonprez (2024), is about the CIA-sponsored murder of Patrice Lumumba, leader of newly independent Congo, in 1961. It is showing in cinemas now and streaming on Apple TV and then on other platforms.

The weight of colonial history

These events happened sixty years ago while African nations were still ridding themselves of the colonial yoke. Belgian rule in the Congo had been particularly brutal. Rubber exploitation was based on forced labour and hands were cut off if quotas were not reached. Killing of recalcitrant natives were “proved” by the presentation of a severed hand. Imported diseases also ravaged the population. Previously rubber had been the great wealth extracted by the colonialists but huge mineral deposits became the magnet for Western capital in the post war period.

The imperialist powers were willing to accord formal independence to their ex-colonies as long as the liberation struggles did not threaten their economic interests. They intervened directly or through mercenary armies to eliminate leaders who were not prepared to become new neo-colonial partners. Patrice Lumumba had won the leadership of the country and spoke up in defence of its sovereign interests. The Belgians, supported by the US, used the old divide and rule tactic. A compliant military leader called Mobutu from the mineral rich Katanga province was supported in a separatist operation.

Aided by mercenaries, some from Britain and South Africa, Mobutu defeated the loyalist forces and was installed as dictator for several decades after. Lumumba, while formally under the protection of the United Nations, was murdered along with two other leaders. Demonstrations denouncing this were held throughout the world. In New York Maya Angelou and dozens of other black activists protested inside the UN building after getting tickets through the Cuban embassy.

This film tells this story through an assemblage of historic newsreels from the US and Europe and clips of Black American jazz stars like Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and John Coltrane among many others. During this post war period the CIA actively financed modern art and jazz as part of its “soft” cold war offensive. We see Khrushchev denouncing the cacophony of modern jazz. Soviet art under the Stalinist bureaucratic dictatorship was solidly naturalist and social realist. The US wanted to provide an attractive cultural alternative to this in order to weaken support for these regimes. Both the jazz artists and the abstract artists were nearly all unaware of this funding.

As the films shows the Black community, already mobilised around civil rights, and some jazz artists stood up against the US government’s role in backing dictators against progressive anti-colonial leaders. There are lots of excerpts from Malcolm X’s speeches highlighting the links between the anti-racist struggle in the United States and the anti-colonial uprisings in Africa and elsewhere.

CIA killing of Lumumba – not the first and not the last

The Congo CIA operation was just another one in a long line after the Second World War – Guatemala against Arbenz, the Dominican Republic against Bosch, Iran against Mossadegh, Chile against Allende – to name just a few well known examples. The film also shows up the utter incapacity of the UN at the time to do anything about a flagrant attack on Congolese sovereignty.

The film provides a huge number of quotations written on the screen along with the clips from interviews with people like Allen Dulles, head of the CIA. In those days these people seemed to have less inhibition in admitting to their criminal actions. Colonial ideology was even stronger then. It is reflected in the way mercenaries talked of killing natives as not being the same as killing a German or an Englishman. Just as in Vietnam, villages were burnt and woman and children massacred. Truly chilling was the evidence shown that journalists looking for a sensational scoop could “order” the extra-judicial killing of native Congolese for $500.

At times the film probably provides an overload of textual information on screen – it is hard to keep up at times. In some ways it might be more accessible in two or three chunks (it is 2hr 30min long) or seen in streaming on TV so you can stop and rewind. The music of course breaks up the text to an extent and we are treated to some extraordinary jazz tracks.

The scenes with Khrushchev are interesting. At that time the Soviet Union was non-capitalist and was objectively in a much clearer opposition to US imperialism. Although its support for the anti-colonial revolution was also conditional on defending the bureaucracy’s national interests, it did give material support to anti-colonial struggles against the US such as in Cuba (after Castro had won) and in Vietnam. We see Khrushchev banging the desk at the UN with his fists, and at one stage with his shoe, vowing to bury colonialism.

Democratic Republic of the Congo today

Today in Congo there is still a scramble by corporate interests to ensure it gets it supplies of precious minerals like lithium for electric batteries. Chinese and Russian companies join in too. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is currently facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian and food insecurity disasters and has become the second largest internally displaced people’s crisis globally. 25.4 million people are food insecure, including, 13.2 million children.

Amnesty in its 2023 report states that: “Persistent large-scale attacks against civilians by armed groups and the Congolese security forces fuelled the humanitarian crisis in which nearly 7 million people were internally displaced and thousands of others fled the country. Armed groups killed thousands of civilians, and the army carried out extrajudicial executions. Sexual and gender-based violence remained prevalent, with over 38,000 reported cases in Nord-Kivu province alone during the first quarter of the year. The rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association were routinely violated. Journalists, opposition members and activists, among others, were subjected to arbitrary detention and faced unfair trials. Mining projects in Lualaba province led to the forced eviction of thousands of people from their homes and livelihoods, while Indigenous Peoples faced eviction in the name of conservation.”

The current government is battling a number of armed groups in various provinces and in in conflict with Rwanda which supports some armed groups in the DRC as the latter does in Rwanda.

Clearly the murder of Lumumba was possibly a lost opportunity to plot a different path forward for the people there. Sixty years later the current dominance of extractivist corporations is not providing significant benefits for the population.

Last word to Archie Shepp: “We’re not angry man, we are enraged. You can no longer defer my dream. I’m gonna sing it, dance it, scream it and if need be: I’ll steal it from this very earth!”

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