LONDON, UK–Pauline Opango, the wife of Patrice Lumumba passed away on 23 December in Kinshasa. She died a week after her return from Paris where she was receiving medical treatment. She was born on 1January 1937, in Wembonyama, in Sankuru district, in Kasai Oriental province, Democratic Republic of Congo.
She had four children, of which two died, including Patrice Lumumba , born after the death of his father Patrice Lumumba. She is survived by Roland and Julienne Lumumba and her grandchildren.
Coincidentally, Lumumba’s sister Henriette Dimoke Esambo and her daughter Louise Eseka passed away respectively in mid and early December 2014 (Digitalcongp.net).
On behalf of African revolution and African revolutionaries around the world, of which Lumumba and the struggle he led in the Congo were a vibrant integral part, we would like to express our condolences to Lumumba’s family and loved ones.
We are saddened that at this moment and time the African liberation movement in Congo and outside Congo, is not be able to give her a proper send off, equal to her significance as the wife and companion of Patrice Lumumba, a giant of African liberation, prime minister and the only legitimate leader of Democratic Republic Congo since the flag independence in 1960.
Oppressed colonised people do not die of natural causes! It is clear for us that she lost her life because of the immense suffering imposed on her by the decision of imperialist leaders from the US, Belgium, France, Canada, Portugal, South Africa and Britain to assassinate her husband : Patrice Lumumba, the Prime Minister of Congo.
The saying that behind every great man , there is great woman, is true of Pauline Opango, who was an early member of the’ Mouvement National Congolais’ (MNC), the organisation, created by her husband Patrice Lumumba. Prior to independence, the MNC was the only African organisation which organised across regions and ethnicities in the Congo
She was 23 years old, when she and her children were deprived of a husband and of a father respectively, while depriving the whole people of Congo and the African nation of a loved and very able anti imperialist leader.
Pauline, who witnessed her husband’s brutal arrest, and children were left traumatised for the rest of their lives. She has to live under the rule of betrayal known as neo Colonialism, knowing very well that her husband was killed by traitors who have gone to live an easy and parasitic life at the expense of the freedom and future of our people.
She lived a life of sacrifice as experienced by a great majority of colonised African women in Congo and around the world; she never remarried after the loss of her husband. She said that “after she has lived with Patrice Lumumba, she could not find someone else of the same quality”.
She is correct in the sense that only revolutionary struggle can produce men of Lumumba’s quality and stature. Black human dignity, and honourable black personality and quality life for black people are products of a black revolution.
Pauline Opango’s words are implicitly a criticism of neo-colonialism leadership, whose daily acts an embarrassment to all of us and an offense to our pride and honour. This reality is experienced by all masses of African people, in Congo and around the globe, in thousand ways.
She was made a widow in the same way millions of African women in the Congo whose husbands are killed by the U.S.-backed Uganda and Rwandan armies. Her trauma was aggravated by the immunity enjoyed by Lumumba's killers, in the same way that millions of women in the Congo are hurt to see those who are responsible for Congo’s genocide and rapes rewarded with wealth, prestige and immunity.
Pauline Lumumba had to endure for 54 years, the impunity enjoyed by all white and black neo-colonial murderers and plotters of Lumumba’s death; she woke up every morning and witnessed the lies propagated by the imperialist media or their collaborators about the political significance of Patrice Lumumba.
She had to raise her traumatised children in exile by herself. Imperialism made her a single parent. She never received a single reparation from Belgian or US governments for the murder of her husband.
She spent times in many countries to escape neo-colonial regime oppression, particularly in Egypt under Nasser, Cuba of Fidel Castro, in Uganda by Milton Oboté, in Tanzania by Julius Nyerere, in China by Mao Tsé Toung etc…
The fact that she was under the care of French colonial medical system should not obscure the fact that the French played a critical role in bringing down Lumumba‘s government that resulted in forcing Pauline Opango and her children into exile.
After the diplomatic rupture between Belgium and the RDC on 4 August 1960; Brazzaville, the capital of the Congo Republic, a former French colony, under the rule of neo colonial leader, Fulbert Youlou, a catholic priest, became the headquarter of all plots and attacks against the government of Patrice Lumumba.
Fulbert Youlou at the service of French imperialism was probably the most vociferous anti Lumumba neo-colonial leader outside Congo Kinshasa, who worked overtime with African petty bourgeois puppet leaders from Congo Kinshasa to bring down Lumumba.
From Brazzaville, the collaboration of French and Belgian imperialism established a powerful radio station which broadcasted against Lumumba’s government, while Lumumba himself, the legal head of Congolese government was prevented from accessing the radio station in Kinshasa by the UN soldiers.
Countless propaganda flyers to slander and discredit Lumumba were printed from Brazzaville and distributed in Kinshasa and elsewhere throughout Congo.
Mrs Lumumba has left us at a very critical time in world history, characterised by the decline of US power and EU power, which played a major role in murdering her husband.
This critical time is also characterised by the re-emergence of national liberation movements like the one her brilliant husband led in the sixties. It is our belief and conviction, that this re-emerging African revolutionary movement will deliver justice to her and all other African women whose lives and families have been stolen or destroyed by this savage and murderous system of European and North American white imperialism.
Such is the mission of the African working class, the only social force to complete Lumumba’s struggle for national liberation.
As we mourn her loss and pay tribute to her, we are calling on women from Congo and throughout the African Nation to join us on 28/29 March 2015 in London, to build the African Women International Organisation, whose mission to equip all African women with revolutionary philosophy and a program to end the imperialist oppression and exploitation of African women on earth and complete the black revolution of the sixties.
Long Live Pauline Opango Lumumba!
Long Live Patrice Lumumba!
Long live the struggle for African Liberation!
