Film Review: Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat

Reviewed by Blair Bertaccini

November 22, 2024

For those who did not live through the period covered by the principal events of this excellent documentary, the late 1950s and early 60s,  the history covered is probably completely unknown.  The film covers the events that led to the arrest and assassination of the prime minister of the recently independent  Democratic Republic of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba.  It describes these events in a unique way, using the music of and interviews with famous African American jazz artists such as Abbey Lincoln, Max Roach, Nina Simone, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington and most importantly Louis Armstrong.

Many of these artists were sent on US State Department tours throughout Africa during the period covered by the film, often via various CIA created front organizations.  Some of these artists eventually realized how they were being used to cover for US segregation and the denial of human rights.

Director and writer, Johan Grimonprez, certainly did exhaustive research, finding interviews with CIA agents, UN representatives, South African mercenaries, Congolese supporters of Lumumba, historians and, as mentioned, many jazz artists in both film and print.  If you are a fast reader you can catch his bibliographic references under most of the quotations put in print on the screen.

Patrice Lumumba was a leader in the struggle to gain the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) independence from Belgium and in the anti-colonial movement in Africa.  This struggle coincided with the rise of the Non-Aligned Movement by Third World nations to steer a course between the Soviet Union and the US locked in conflict in the Cold War.  Many of the film’s segments are from various UN meetings dealing with the Congo, especially those with the participation of Nikita Khrushchev. The clips of Khrushchev’s speeches and his spoken memoir make very clear the USSR’s support of independence struggles.

What the film also makes clear is the absolute duplicity of the UN as controlled by the US in denying the DRC true independence and its conversion to a neo-colonial state controlled and exploited by Western business interests, particularly the L’Union Minière du Haut-Katanga which controlled uranium and copper mines in the Katanga  province.  The uranium mines were key in producing US nuclear weapons. Dag Hammarskjöld, the then UN Secretary General, yields to US and western pressure to use the UN to sabotage Congolese independence.  Watch his face though, to perhaps catch some of his misgivings about his role.  Although not mentioned in the film he died in a mysterious plane crash in eastern Africa while on a mission to broker a peace deal between forces supporting Lumumba and the western backed Katanga separatists. 

One of the most interesting scenes in the film is a segment of  Lumumba’s speech at the DRC’s independence day ceremony with King Baudouin of Belgium present as Lumumba denounces Belgium’s colonial exploitation of the Congo.  Baudouin had given a speech extolling the great civilizing mission of Belgium in its colony.  Watching the king as Lumumba speaks the truth of the colonial experience is worth a thousand words.

The film is not chronological and uses the performances of many jazz artists as “the soundtrack.” Malcolm X is featured frequently highlighting his support for the African anti-colonial struggle and how it was intertwined with the freedom struggle\ of African-Americans.  Although many of these jazz artists did perform on US State Department tours, their sympathies and participation with the efforts to free all Africans is made clear.

Indeed even Louis Armstrong, who was brought to the DRC while Lumumba had been arrested by puppet forces headed by Col. Joseph Mobutu and Moise Tshombe, told the State Department that if he was to be used for US propaganda purposes he would move to Ghana and renounce his US citizenship.

The events leading up to Lumumba’s killing by Belgian agents in collaboration with his Congolese captors and supported by the CIA are complex and explained well by the film.  A key figure in the liberation struggle was Andrée Blouin, a Guinean activist and intellectual  who was Lumumba’s Chief of Protocol and speech writer.  She and  Koli Jean Bofane, author of “Congo Inc.:  Bismarck’s Testament”  help link the DRC’s current plight to the events surrounding its early independence struggles.  The current war raging in the eastern DRC to control minerals vital to the production of cell phones, batteries and other electronic devices cannot be understood without knowing about the coup d’etat that ousted Lumumba from power and led to his murder.  You will also learn about how the UN operates to protect imperial interests.

Soundtrack for a Coup d’Etat will be playing in various theaters around the US in the near future, including in New York City where it can be currently viewed.