The president, Joseph Kasavubu, seemed an able administrator and the premier, Patrice Lumumba, a reasonable man.

President Kasavubu became exasperated with Lumumba and fired him.

Lumumba fired Kasavubu.

Parliamentary elections in 1960 produced the nationalist Patrice Lumumba as prime minister and pro-Western Joseph Kasavubu as president of the renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo.

President Kasavubu had clashed with Prime Minister Lumumba and advocated an alliance with the West rather than the Soviets.

Parliament refused to confirm the dismissal of either Lumumba or Kasavubu and sought to bring about a reconciliation between them.

After a week's deadlock, Mobutu announced on September 14 that he was assuming power until December 31, 1960, in order to " neutralize " both Kasavubu and Lumumba.

** The Congolese president, Joseph Kasavubu, fires Patrice Lumumba's entire government, and also places Lumumba under house arrest.

* President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba attempted to dismiss each other in September 1960.

It has been alleged but never proved that, fearing Lumumba's increasing popularity amongst the soldiers who might release him ( soldier mutinies and unrest increased by the day at prison camp Hardy in Thysville ), Harold d ' Aspremont Lynden ( Belgian minister for African Affairs ) sent a highly confidential telegram on January 16, 1961 to the government in Léopoldville ( Kasavubu and Mobutu ) to send Lumumba to Katanga.

Lumumba was elected Prime Minister, while Kasavubu became Congo's first President.

In September, Lumumba and Kasavubu fell out and Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba and instead appointed Joseph Iléo, a member of the Kalonji party as prime minister.

The 1960 elections, held in the wake of independence, saw Patrice Lumumba become prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu president.

In response, “ the secretary general suggested the dispatch of UN technical personnel to the Congo to assist in restoring order and discipline within the armed forces .” Canadian National Defence assumed that the United Nations would ask for French-speaking military advisers, the army maintained a standby list of one hundred officers, including many who were bilingual and could be posted abroad on short notice .” Before Hammarskjold could put his plan into action, however, a second Congolese request arrived, sent directly to the secretary general from President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Minister Joseph Lumumba, “ the Congolese leaders asked for UN military forces to counter the violent Belgian intervention .” Again Canada offered combat troops stating that if the need arose for Canadian military intervention in the Congo Canada could also “ deploy one of three French speaking battalions made ready for UN Service .” The offer for combat troops was again refused, though Hammarskjold officially accepted the Canadian French-speaking officers.

A few days after Congo gained its independence, Lumumba made the fateful decision to raise the pay of all government employees except for the army.

This cable goes on to state that the writer's sources ( not yet declassified ) said that after being taken from the airport Lumumba was imprisoned by " all white guards ".

" Insofar as such consequences ensued, we may compare the crime in Sudan to the assassination of Lumumba, which helped plunge the Congo into decades of slaughter, still continuing ; or the overthrow of the democratic government of Guatemala in 1954, which led to 40 years of hideous atrocities ; and all too many others like it.

Further discontent was caused by the decision by Lumumba to raise the pay of all government employees except the military.

As an admirer of the late Lumumba, Guevara declared that his " murder should be a lesson for all of us ".

I was curious about the impact of this political assassination on Negroes in Harlem, for Lumumba had -- has -- captured the popular imagination there.

Meanwhile Russia took every opportunity to meddle in the Congo, sending Lumumba equipment for his `` wars '', dispatching `` technicians '' and even threatening, on occasion, to intervene openly.

In February the murder of Patrice Lumumba, who had been kidnaped into Katanga and executed on order of Tshombe, again stirred the U.N. to action.

In Stanleyville, those loyal to the deposed Lumumba set up a rival government under Antoine Gizenga which lasted from 31 March 1961 until it was reintegrated on 5 August 1961.

In 1955, Lumumba became regional head of the Cercles of Stanleyville and joined the Liberal Party of Belgium, where he worked on editing and distributing party literature.

Lumumba and the MNC won this election and the right to form a government, with the announcement on 23 June 1960 of 34-year-old Lumumba as Congo's first prime minister and Joseph Kasa-Vubu as its president.

The UN Security Council was called into session on 7 December 1960 to consider Soviet demands that the UN seek Lumumba's immediate release, the immediate restoration of Lumumba as head of the Congo government, the disarming of the forces of Mobutu, and the immediate evacuation of Belgians from the Congo.

With CIA and Belgian presence, Lumumba was sent first on 3 December, to Thysville military barracks Camp Hardy, 150 km ( about 100 miles ) from Leopoldville.

In an interview on Belgian television in a program on the assassination of Lumumba in 1999, Soete displayed a bullet and two teeth that he boasted he had saved from Lumumba's body.

Rather, those records show two still-partly-censored CIA cables from Elizabethville on days significant in the murder: January 17, the day Lumumba died, and January 18, the day of the first exhumation.

A rich source of information on Lumumba, including a reprint of Stephen R. Weissman's 21 July 2002 article from the Washington Post.

* Beat Knowledge tribute to Lumumba Tribute to Lumumba on 50th anniversary of his assassination ( 17 January 2011 ).

* Patrice Emery Lumumba: Memory of Congolese Leader Lives on 50 Years Later.

Following the granting of independence on 30 June 1960, a coalition government was formed, led by Prime Minister Lumumba and President Joseph Kasa-Vubu.

On September 5, Kasa-Vubu dismissed Lumumba but the prime minister refused to accept this and in turn announced Kasa-Vubu's dismissal, creating a stalemate that was only ended on September 14 with army commander Joseph Mobutu's seizure of power and arrest of Lumumba.

He was arrested in Paris during a demonstration in honour of Patrice Lumumba, on January 17, 1961.

Lumumba then turned to the United States, but on landing in the US he was ignored and not received formally by President Eisenhower who hated him believing him to be a communist and thus a threat to US interests in the Congo region.

In his speech to the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly on 23 September 2009, Colonel Gaddafi called upon the Libyan president of UNGA, Ali Treki, to institute a UN investigation into the assassinations of Congolese prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, who was overthrown in 1960 and murdered the following year, and of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961.

Concerned that the United Nations force sent to help restore order was not helping to crush the secessionists, Lumumba turned to the Soviet Union for assistance, receiving massive military aid and about a thousand Soviet technical advisers in six weeks.

The new republic was immediately disrupted by political and military strife and regional secessionist movements, while the central government was paralyzed by conflict between the conservative Kasa-Vubu and his nationalistic prime minister Patrice Lumumba.

Dissatisfied with the UN, on August 17, 1960 Lumumba followed through on his threat to request military assistance from the Soviet Union.

The Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and his successor Cyrille Adoula requested intervention from United Nations forces, which they never received.