The 80th anniversary session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York began in September 2025 under the theme, “Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights.” This theme likely does not resonate in South America and the Caribbean as the United States extrajudicially kills civilians from the region on fishing boats in international waters, in violation of the use of force rules of the U.N. Charter. The U.N. has urged restraint while the United States claims the laws of war apply and summarily executes people without trial for unsubstantiated allegations of drug trafficking. “Better together” likely also comes across as empty rhetoric in Sudan, which currently faces the largest humanitarian crisis since recordkeeping began, where the U.N. has been engaged in longstanding conflict resolution efforts.
Additionally, the anniversary theme most certainly falls flat in Haiti, given the U.N.’s shameful history there. In 2010, peacekeepers charged with protecting Haitians were responsible for a deadly cholera epidemic which resulted in 800,000 cases and killed an estimated 10,000 Haitians. Despite Haiti having no history of cholera outbreaks, the U.N. took years to admit its role and did not provide effective remedy. Peacekeepers in Haiti also committed widespread rape, sexual abuse, and sexual exploitation of women and children without redress. One survivor surmised, “As far as the U.N. goes, they came here to protect us, but all they’ve brought is destruction.”
In too many instances, the U.N. has largely functioned to preserve unjust global power dynamics. At the time of its founding in 1945, racial apartheid remained a brutal reality and approximately 750 million people were subject to colonial domination and rule. The U.N. continues to institutionalize this hierarchy; as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently commented: “Five permanent members effectively make decisions on behalf of more than 85% of the world’s population living in countries of the Global South.”
Recalling the 1960 coup in the Republic of the Congo (now Democratic Republic of Congo), and a subsequent protest at the U.N. offers a window to see the U.N.’s malignant neglect more clearly.
Coup in the Congo
Amidst the wave of decolonization in Africa following World War II, the Belgian government planned to formally grant independence to Congo, while neo-colonially governing key areas. Belgium desired to maintain control of Congo’s vast mineral riches. Today, for example, Congo holds half the world’s reserve of cobalt, used in batteries for cell phones, cars, computers, and other electronics. During the handover ceremony in June 1960, newly elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba forcefully asserted independence, declaring, “We who suffered in our bodies and hearts from colonialist oppression, we say to you out loud: from now on, all that is over.” But following almost a century of colonization, the road ahead was not easy.
On July 5, 1960, Congolese rank-and-file soldiers mutinied in response to Belgian military officials proclaiming, “Before independence = after independence.” The soldiers were disgruntled by lack of leadership changes and wanted higher wages. Sensing an opportunity, Belgium immediately reasserted power. With Belgian support, the mineral-rich province of Katanga seceded, with Moïse Tshombe as nominal leader. Both feared the central government’s encroachment on lucrative mining profits, which provided 60 percent of the country’s income.
To respond to the secession, Lumumba traveled to the United States to request assistance from it and the U.N. While in New York, Lumumba met with the activist and writer Rosa Guy, founding member of the Harlem Writers Guild. The United States rebuffed Lumumba, and while the U.N. assembled a large peacekeeping force, Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld refused to allow U.N. forces to intervene in Katanga. Making matters worse, when he later visited the country, Hammarskjöld declined to meet with Lumumba, heading instead to see Tshombe and seemingly granting him legitimacy. Guy lobbied informally to member States of the U.N. that they should continue to recognize Lumumba as Congo’s legitimately elected prime minister.
Simultaneously, Lumumba faced prospects of a secession from the mineral-heavy province of South Kassai. Consequently, he approved army chief Joseph Desiré Mobutu’s plan to lead an attack on the province. Congolese troops subsequently rampaged, resulting in massive killings and alienating many from Lumumba’s government.
With few options left, Lumumba turned to the Soviet Union for military aid. The Soviets agreed, incensing the United States, given their Cold War rivalry. In August 1960, the U.S. government authorized a clandestine scheme to “replace the Lumumba Government by constitutional means.” The U.S. ambassador advised President Joseph Kasavubu to buy votes in parliament prior to a no-confidence vote against Lumumba. Though Kasavubu did not follow the advice and lost the vote, on Sept. 5, 1960, he nevertheless announced Lumumba’s dismissal on the radio.
Over cables, Hammarskjöld indicated that the U.N. had no issues with Lumumba’s illegal removal from power. U.N. officials in Congo even attempted to stop Lumumba from challenging his purported dismissal, though he eventually did so on the radio.
By Sept. 14, 1960, the CIA’s principal agent and Lumumba’s erstwhile confidante Mobutu, spearheaded a military coup. Conor Cruise O’Brien, a U.N. official in charge of operations in Congo, remarked that the U.N. displayed a concern for legalism “when it was a question of rescuing Lumumba which was quite absent from their very uninhibited phase of activity when it was a question of bringing about Lumumba’s political destruction.”
On Jan. 17, 1961, the day of Lumumba’s assassination, Mobutu delivered Lumumba to Tshombe, Belgian officials, and mercenaries who beat him bloody. Stuart Reid, a history and foreign policy writer, gruesomely details how Katanga’s Belgian police commissioner and the police commissioner’s brother used sulfuric acid, turning Lumumba “into a mass of mucus.” When the acid finished, only Lumumba’s bones and teeth remained. Reid recounts how the Belgians twisted teeth out of Lumumba’s skull with pliers. They then set the remaining parts of Lumumba aflame. The CIA has since acknowledged its involvement in Lumumba’s demise and claims that the U.N. and Belgium played “equally important roles.”
A Demonstration at the U.N.
Lumumba’s execution was met with grief and despair within Congo and beyond. Across the Atlantic, as part of the Black freedom movement, activists and writers Maya Angelou and Rosa Guy, along with jazz great Abbey Lincoln had previously created the Cultural Association for Women of African Heritage (CAWAH), an organization of artists dedicated to supporting the movement. Following Lumumba’s murder, Congolese diplomats informed Guy, who shared the devastating news with Angelou. Angelou wrote of her profound experience in her autobiography, “The Heart of a Woman”: “I knew no words which would match the emptiness of the moment. . . the loss of one hero was a setback of such proportion it could dishearten us and weaken the struggle.”
Guy’s connections with Congolese diplomats tipped them off that Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., was about to announce Lumumba’s murder at the U.N. Following a CAWAH meeting in Harlem, Guy and Angelou stumbled upon Malcom X delivering a speech, which inspired them greatly. Angelou wrote that Guy told her they had “‘to let the Congolese and all the other Africans know that we are with them.’” They convinced some members of CAWAH and the Harlem Writers Guild to join the demonstration. One of Guy’s relatives discouraged her from organizing the protest, declaring, “The United Nations is all the poor countries of this world have…Don’t do anything that might endanger its existence.”
Nevertheless, they persisted. At a bookstore and frequent gathering place in Harlem, Angelou, Guy, and Lincoln informed those in attendance of Lumumba’s execution and the audience responded with disbelief and wailing. Lincoln implicated the Belgians and the Americans. She shared news about their planned demonstration, which included women clipping black mourning veils to their hair, and men wearing black armbands. Lincoln declared, “‘We’re going to stand up and remain standing until they put us out.’” Many in the crowd shouted agreement, “‘See you at the U.N.!’”
They scheduled the demonstration for Feb. 15, 1961. Members of several Black nationalist groups participated. However, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam were not involved due to the Nation’s policy of non-engagement, which prevented members from participating in politics and protests. Malcolm X was increasingly frustrated with the Nation being seen as talking tough, but never doing anything.
Angelou writes of her disbelief at the large crowd in front of the Manhattan headquarters of the U.N., with placards proclaiming “‘Freedom Now.’” Many activists were unable to enter the U.N., but sympathetic States provided access to about 75 Black demonstrators.
Inside, the U.N. Security Council was meeting to discuss Lumumba’s murder, and Hammarskjöld was busy protecting his tenure from the Soviet Union’s calls for his resignation. In a searing 1,500-word statement, the Soviets labeled him an accomplice to murder and an imperialist. U.S. Ambassador Stevenson flew to Hammarskjöld’s defense, “Shall the United Nations survive? Shall the attempt to bring about peace by the concerted power of international understanding be discarded?”
During Stevenson’s speech, Angelou writes, a piercing “scream shattered his words.” Other voices joined the bloody shriek:
“Murderers.”
“Lumumba. Lumumba.”
“Killers.”
Angelou did not anticipate a riot at the U.N. She expected “to stand, veiled and mournful.” Yet, she heard her own voice joining the chorus shouting, “Assassins.”
Suddenly, the U.N. was in chaos. Angelou recounts diplomats vanishing as guards quickly escorted activists outside. Demonstrators outside were energized. Angelou recalls someone exclaiming, “‘This ain’t no United Nations. This is just united white folks. Let’s go back in.’” With police preventing re-entry, protestors headed for the Belgian Consulate instead, singing, “‘And before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave.’”
In the aftermath, since Guy and Angelou were originally stirred to action by Malcolm X’s oration, they sought out his belated guidance about what they should do. As one of the most radical leaders in the country, they figured he had to support their action. Instead, Malcolm X told them they were wrong, that “‘going to the United Nations’” would “‘not win freedom for anyone.’” He subsequently issued a statement asserting his and the Nation of Islam’s non-involvement, but pointedly observed that the demonstration at the U.N. was symbolic of Black rage in the United States.
Other commentary quickly followed. The New York Times described the activists as “invading” the Security Council chamber and absurdly declared it “the most violent demonstration inside United Nations headquarters in the world organization’s history.” Ralph Bunche, who became the first Black Nobel Peace laureate in 1950, and was serving as undersecretary of the U.N. at the time of the protest, apologized before the General Assembly, telling delegates that the activists were “misled,” and unrepresentative of the “thinking and conduct” of Black Americans. Some in the Black elite were aligned with Bunche’s distancing remarks. Others, like James Hicks, editor of the New York Amsterdam News, challenged Bunche’s apology for Black grief. This sentiment was echoed in several letters to the editor from Black Americans. Hicks described Lumumba’s assassination as the “international lynching of a black man on the altar of white supremacy” that “was staged before the world under the auspices of the United Nations.”
Conclusion
Notably, the country inspiring the 1960s riot never recovered from the complicity of international actors. Mobutu brutally ruled Congo for 32 years. He enriched himself, acquiring sums estimated at $4 to $5 billion, while the 100 million inhabitants of Congo lived in extreme poverty. Protracted extractivist warfare followed Mobutu’s demise, resulting in the deadliest conflict in the 21st century. Since the 1990s, more than six million people have died, seven million people are internally displaced, while 25 million face starvation in Congo. Hundreds of thousands of women and girls have also been subject to rampant sexual violence. Warring parties as well as U.N. peacekeeping forces are implicated in these wanton abuses. In 2022, more than 60 years after Belgium brutally murdered Lumumba, it finally returned for burial a gold tooth that one of his assailants took as a macabre souvenir.
In Sept. 2025, U.N. General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock, a former German foreign minister, mused, “Our world is in pain…But imagine how much more pain there would be without the United Nations.” The story of the Congo is the story of the U.N. The Congo could not possibly experience more pain than it has amid a constant U.N. presence for the past 65 years, including three different peacekeeping missions, with the last being the most expensive in history. In 2022, profound frustration with the U.N.’s failure to protect civilians led some Congolese to protest calling for the organization’s departure. Perceptions persist that the U.N. does not defend the Congolese and is aligned with foreign actors, reminiscent of earlier concerns expressed in the aftermath of Congo’s independence. If the U.N. is the “life insurance for every country,” as Baerbock asserted, then it’s past time for a radical change in policy.
The historian Brenda Gayle Plummer described the 1960s U.N. protest as a “massive …international outcry against imperialism,” the likes of which had not occurred in the United States since protests against the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s. Although relegated to the annals of history, the 1960s demonstration at the U.N. is a powerful reminder of the importance of connecting international freedom struggles with those at home in the United States. Following Malcolm X’s break from the Nation of Islam in 1964, he revised his position on political activism. In a speech in New York on Feb. 16, 1965, he observed that “‘human rights’ is part of the charter of the United Nations.” For Malcolm X, framing issues as human rights violations meant, “you can take your troubles to the World Court. You can take them before the world. And anybody anywhere on this earth can become your ally.” Internationalization could “make the world see that our problem was no longer a Negro problem or an American problem but a human problem. A problem for humanity. And a problem which should be attacked by all elements of humanity.”
We saw echoes of the legacy of the 1960s demonstration last month, as thousands protested outside U.N. headquarters in opposition to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the General Assembly inside, hundreds of diplomats in the chamber walked out before his speech. Their walk-out is in marked contrast to the reception he received when the U.S. Congress invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress in July 2024, with most legislators standing and rapturously applauding.
The animating issue shaping the U.N.’s work is whether it furthers the continuation of colonialism, exploitation, and subordination, or supports the radical transformation of the international order that governs our lived realities. In the parable of the elephant and the mouse retold by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, when an “elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” Certainly, when “you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” This is the U.N.’s essential quagmire.
On Oct. 15, 2025, prior to U.N. Secretary-General’s Antonio Guterres’ Baerbock spoke of the need “to build a more coherent and responsive United Nations system that is fit for the 21st century.” Lamentably, these UN80 proposals do not envision transformative structural change. Shall the United Nations survive? On Oct. 17, Michael Fakhri, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, speaking before the General Assembly, declared that the “U.N. died in Gaza.” Indeed, the institution’s very survival depends on how it ultimately positions itself between the elephant and the mouse, in South America and the Caribbean, Asia, Africa, and beyond.
