For a long time, evidence of the Belgian state’s complicity was largely fragmentary. In 1999 however – following the death of Lumumba’s authoritarian successor Mobutu, and the departure of the Christian-Democrats from the Belgian government, pillars of colonial rule before independence – historian Ludo De Witte was able to demonstrate how deep Brussels’s involvement in the murder was in his renowned The Assassination of Lumumba. This ranged, he argued, from supporting the regional independence movements that incarcerated Lumumba to transporting him to his assassination site. In response, a parliamentary inquiry was set up to clarify Belgium’s role in the affair.

The inquiry swiftly faced a chorus of critics – including De Witte himself, who accused investigators of not digging deeply enough and of leaning into colonial apologetics.

The Lumumba Plot has been subjected to savage criticism by De Witte, who faulted it for neglecting the Belgian variables in the crisis. Not only is the myopic focus on US influence self-aggrandizing – as if the Belgians were third-rate players in the Congo at the time – it indirectly supports the case of those in Belgium who are bent on closing the Lumumba dossier once and for all. Belgium’s motives in the crisis went far beyond resentment over his independence speech, after all. The democratisation of the former colonial army which Lumumba proposed in late 1960 already counted as an unforgivable provocation. Following this, numerous figures in the Belgian satrapy anticipated a Suez-style nationalisation of Katangese resources as had happened in 1956. Coupled with fears of an Algerian scenario – in which local Belgian colons would start Committees of Public Safety to safeguard their status as settler superiors and start a civil war – the rapidity of the Belgian retreat from its former crown colony begins to make sense