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[nicky g]

You would have killed the democratially elected leader of a newly independent postcolonial nation because he wanted to redisribute that country's wealth which was almost entirely in the hands of several foreign mining corporations that had killed literally millions of his county men to get their wealth, while the people starved, and despite the fact he was voted in on that platform. At least we know where we stand. Given that that's precisely what happened, I hope you're happy with how things turned out.
As it happened Lumumba was not in power long enough to put any redistribution programmes into practice, its pure conjeecture to say how it would have happened and what compensation procedures would or would not have been put in place. It's completely absurd to say that people who stole property in the first place have 'rights' to that property. As a fellow Irish person I would have hoped you'd have more humananity. Your post genuinely depresses me more than you can imagine.

[DeliciousDi]

nicky, I'm sorry you're depressed but life does that. It struck me that you described the Nazi regime to a tee - democratically elected, voted in on that platform - and Germany was suffering under the heels of the allied land grabs and reparations - none of which justified the robbery of Jewish property and mass theft from other peoples for redistribution to the German people - nothing ever justifies the robbery of property or the taking of human life except in self defence or the defence of one's human rights (tough lesson the commies had to learn the hard way, that the right to the safe possession of property is a human right - until we see plants and animals owning property) or in the defence of others. The only difference between Hitler and Lumumba was that Hitler survived longer.
The most massive redistribution of wealth in history was accomplished and continues in the United States with the advent of the Federal Income Tax and not a shot was fired because it was accomplished with the consent of the governed.
nicky I don't know what your credentials are as a freedom fighter for the oppressed, but mine were earned during the 30 months I spent in the United States Correctional Facility for Women in Alderson, West Virginia, for my illegal activities on United States soil on behalf of the Republican Army and I'm working out 20 years unsupervised probation with frequent social calls from the FBI. So life is tough: I had to put up with those socialistic idiots in the SF and the IRA and now I have to put up with the FBI and the Department of JustUs but I've learned a good healthy respect for the law and due process.
So I wave the flag of Texas (Don't Tread on Me!) and if some 'savior' of the people shows up with cannons demanding my property in the name of 50 million Congolese or 50 thousand Congolese or 50 Congolese or 1 Congolese, I say take it if you can, bastard, but be prepared to die.

[nicky g]

"It struck me that you described the Nazi regime to a tee - democratically elected, voted in on that platform": right, so all democratically elected governments that act on their mandates are Nazis. Lucky for you Bush wasn't democratically elected, I suppose.

The difference between Lumumba and the Nazis was that the Jews hadn't been ruling Germany for 80 years, hadn't killed tens of millions of people and weren't in ownership of all the country's national resources. They were an entirely innocent scapegoat of Nazi racism. The Belgians in the Congo on the other hand were guilty of all those things and what's more they now admit it and have apologised for it. Furthermore, Lumuba didn't even kill any Belgians - his only revenge consisted of slightly insulting King Baudoin (who was complicit in his assassination); the killings came after independence, which was a shaky but largely peaceful matter, and the people who died were Congolese in the Western-fomented war, and those who suffered under the post-Lumuba regimes.
You continue to insist that redistribution of property would have taken the form of violent theft, when you have no way of knowing that as such a programme was never implemented, because the Belgians fomented the war and the succession of coups that put Mobutu in power for 30 years, who redistributed a lot of property to himself, and let the Belgians and the rest get on with it. You make no sense: the Nazis invaded most of Europe and killed 10 million people in concentration camps becaus of a bizarre extreme right wing social theory. Lumumba was a left-winger who wanted to redistribute wealth in the Congo. His opponents killed tens of thousands of his supporters after his death. Forgive me if I don't see the similarity.

Futrhermore the Nazis regime wasn't democratically elected; Hitler and 2 other s were given posts as a minority partner in a coalition government and Hindenburg was somehow persuaded to make Hitler chancellor. They then proceeded to grab power, and their only mandate came from referendums they ran once their totalitarian power had been consolidated.

I make no claims to any status as a freedom fighter. I hope you're proud of what the IRA did with the money you raised for them, blowing up people out doing their shopping, having a drink, killing Protestant workers on their way home and so forth, and keeping a pointless war that both sides suffered needlessly under running for 30 years.

[DeliciousDi]

Along with the much greater tragedies of the war for the liberation of Ulster was that I was betrayed by my own people and turned over to the US authorities because I continued to demand an end to the attacks on the Prots and the civilian population and denounced those assaults in Army councils. The Brit military and the RUC offer ample targets for those who wish to destroy an enemy but 'leaders' sometimes prefer to set up scapegoats, easy targets, people of other faiths, Jews or mining interests, distractions from the facts of our own failures to set liberating agendas on behalf of those we seek to liberate, forgetting that you can establish tyranny in the name of liberation.
Hitler had supporters and Lumumba had supporters and the Jews were not entirely innocent and the mining interests were not entirely innocent but it goes nowhere to play armchair liberator with smoke and mirrors - to say that some dictator or two was elected is not to say that all elected officials are dictators.
You are a true believer with no knowledge of the evil that exists in real politics, on all sides. You would make a hero of a man who accomplished nothing because he was stopped from doing what he said he would do, and if he had accomplished it he would have stolen an industrial enterprise from those capable of running it and handed it over to those incapable of running a dairy farm. Edward R. Murrow reported a sign of those times on the wall at the Leopoldville airport - "Will the last European to leave please turn out the lights."

[nicky g]

This is absurd. The 2 cases just aren't comparable. How exactly were the Jews "not entirely innocent"? And how were those incapapble of running a diary farm to become competent in running anything (eg an independent nation) without some sort of wealth rdistribution neccessary to improving their lot and offering any kind of universal education? Why don't you address the point that the Belgians stole the wealth in the first place, not only at gunpoint but by killing an estimated minimum of 10 million Congolese? And given that the foreign intervention in the Congo has resulted in a historythat simply put, couldn't be any worse, with millions still dying each year, wouldn't Lumumba's mandated programme have been better than what happened instead, however much importance you attach to (stolen) property "rights"?
If what you say about your involvement is in republicanism is true, then respect to your efforts to keep civilians out of the line of fire. That said, even a campaing against only the British military infrastructure would have kept a war which civilians on both sides suffered under needlessly going, and delayed any political solution.