In 1961, seven months into his term as the first prime minister of the newly independent Congo, Patrice Émery Lumumba was tortured and assassinated. His short tenure was thwarted by the efforts of the Belgian colonial state, the United States, the white leaders of southern Africa, the United Nations and the mining companies extracting Congo’s mineral resources. It’s a complicated story, touching on iPhones, $24 trillion in unmined assets, and grim statistics: 80,000 women have been treated for rape at Congo’s Panzi Hospital since the UN troops arrived.
One white Katanga separatist sounds wistful as he recalls his efforts against the new Congolese state: “Shoot at the lot, destroy them, burn the villages, kill the chickens and goats ... It was a great life, mate. With no regular hours and nice weather ... they are cannibals so you can’t class them as shooting normal people. It’s like shooting Irishmen or Germans.”
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev responded to the neocolonial fightback by banging his shoe on his desk at the UN General Assembly and demanding an end to colonialism. Johan Grimonprez’s vibrant, fleet-footed chronicle deconstructs the complexities of Lumumba’s murder and the wider African anti-imperialist struggles of the period. Editor Rik Chaubet and sound designer Ranko Pauković keep the rhythms pacy.
The film never lets up. Pieced together from carefully colour-graded archive footage and the contemporaneous testimonies of Khrushchev, Andrée Blouin, In Koli Jean Bofane and Conor Cruise O’Brien (narrated by Patrick Cruise O’Brien), Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat finds an unlikely villain in its propulsive score: jazz.
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Unbeknown to the musicians, Louis Armstrong Dizzy Gillespie, and Nina Simone were dispatched by the CIA to distract from America’s belligerent actions against Marcus Garvey’s dream of a United States of Africa.
Not everyone was duped. Echoing Khrushchev’s earlier actions, drummer Max Roach, author Maya Angelou, singer Abbey Lincoln and 60 others crashed the UN Security Council in protest. The crowd’s righteous anger blazes up the screen decades later.
