MALCOLM X ON U.S. COMPLICITY IN DRC

Here, Pan-Africanist Malcolm X responded to a CBS News reporter asking about the 24 November 1964 covert Belgian-US paratrooper operation called 'Operation Dragon Rouge,' which killed two dozen out of 1,000 European and US hostages in the short-lived People's Republic of the Congo capital, Stanleyville (later Kisangani). The effort involved DRC troops and apartheid-era South African mercenaries.

Congolese rebels loyal to former revolutionary Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba (1925-61) opposed then-Prime Minister Moïse Tshombe (1919-69), a one-time Katanga separatist leader complicit in Lumumba's 1961 assassination. The rebels used hostages to shield villages from US-supplied aerial bombings.

While Western media called the rebels 'cannibals,' and 'savages,' they identified themselves as 'simbas' (Swahili for 'lions'). Their attempt was part of a broader effort, the 'Simba Rebellion,' that took place between 1963 and 1965.