At 43 minutes a detachment of congolese troops barge into a meeting of the countries rulers, including Lumumba, and demand an end not just to white officers but the officer class as a whole. These troops and their cohorts seized military installations and settlements and took hostages as part of their rebellion. The force Publique also began enacting violence on white residents of the Congo and demanding bribes from civilians(52:05). Lumumba and Kasavubu are denied permission to land at the Elizebethville airport, being told that Lumumba, “can’t set foot on Katanga soil”(57:15-59). These ethnic tensions, compounded with the tensions within the Force Publique result in an extremely fragile state with a very weak hold on power. This fragility is exploited by Mobutu and his Western allies to topple Lumumba’s
At 43 minutes a detachment of congolese troops barge into a meeting of the countries rulers, including Lumumba, and demand an end not just to white officers but the officer class as a whole. These troops and their cohorts seized military installations and settlements and took hostages as part of their rebellion. The force Publique also began enacting violence on white residents of the Congo and demanding bribes from civilians(52:05). Lumumba and Kasavubu are denied permission to land at the Elizebethville airport, being told that Lumumba, “can’t set foot on Katanga soil”(57:15-59). These ethnic tensions, compounded with the tensions within the Force Publique result in an extremely fragile state with a very weak hold on power. This fragility is exploited by Mobutu and his Western allies to topple Lumumba’s