Exactly 60 years ago, on 17th January 1961, the first legally elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 35-year-old Patrice Lumumba, was tortured and then assassinated by members of the Belgian Secret Service. Four months earlier, he had been ousted in a coup that was led by Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, his former Chief of Staff of the Army, and backed by Belgium, the United States, and the United Nations. Shortly before he was killed, Lumumba wrote the following letter to his wife, Pauline Opango.

I am writing these words not knowing whether they will reach you, when they will reach you, and whether I shall still be alive when you read them. All through my struggle for the independence of my country, I have never doubted for a single instant the final triumph of the sacred cause to which my companions and I have devoted all of our lives. But what we wished for our country, its right to an honourable life, to unstained our dignity, to independence without restrictions, was never desired by the Belgian imperialists and the Western allies, who found direct and indirect support deliberate and unintentional, amongst certain high officials of the United Nations, that organisation in which we placed all our trust when we called on its assistance.