a1405: Ex-CIA official threatened lawsuit against Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JJEANPIERRE1@aol.com

Carlucci bleeped from HBO version of Lumumba
> > Ex-CIA official threatened lawsuit
from: http://global search./ca/articles/LAU112A.html
> > By Joanne Laurier
> > 15 March 2002
> >
> > Home Box Office (HBO), the US cable television network, is currently
> > broadcasting a censored version of Lumumba, the award-winning film about
> > Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of independent Congo,
> assassinated
> > by imperialist agents in January 1961. Haitian-born director Raoul Peck’
s
> > work fictionally reconstructs Lumumba’s coming to power in 1960 and the
> > intrigues which led to his brutal murder. The film shown on HBO is a
> version
> > of the French-language original dubbed into English, which bleeps out
the
> > name of Frank Carlucci, a future deputy director of the Central
> Intelligence
> > Agency (CIA) and secretary of defense, in the dialogue and masks his
name
> in
> > the credits. At the time of Lumumba’s death, Carlucci was the second
> > secretary at the US embassy in the Congo and, covertly, a CIA agent.
This
> > attempt to keep Carlucci’s role in the Congo from television audiences
> > follows the release of US government documents revealing that President
> > Dwight Eisenhower ordered the CIA to murder Lumumba. Minutes of an
August
> > 1960 National Security Council meeting confirm that Eisenhower told CIA
> > chief
> > Allen Dulles to “eliminate” the Congolese leader. The official note
taker,
> > Robert H. Johnson, testified to this before the Senate Intelligence
> > Committee
> > in 1975, but no documentary evidence had been previously available to
back
> > up
> > his claim. Carlucci’s lawyers threatened Peck and distribution company
> > Zeitgeist Films with legal action if the name of the former US official
> was
> > not bleeped out of a scene that shows American Ambassador Clare
Timberlake
> > and Carlucci, along with Belgian and Congolese officials, plotting
Lumumba
> ’s
> > assassination. Carlucci insisted that only the altered version of the
> film,
> > with his name missing, could be used for mass market venues, such as
> > television, video and DVD, allowing the original track to remain intact
> for
> > theater showings. Zeitgeist officials said they were too small and weak
> > financially to fight a case in court. Carlucci is an immensely wealthy
> > individual, with connections at the highest levels of the US government.
> > Deputy chief of the CIA under Jimmy Carter and secretary of defense
under
> > Ronald Reagan, Carlucci is now chairman of the Carlyle Group, a private
> > equity investment group with billions of dollars of assets in the
defense
> > industry. The company employs prominent ex-officeholders, such as former
> > president George Bush, former British prime minister John Majors and
> former
> > president of the Philippines Fidel Ramos. Carlucci has the closest
> > financial,
> > political and personal ties to the Bush family. Other figures involved
in
> > Carlyle Group operations include former secretary of state James Baker,
> who
> > headed up George W. Bush’s effort to block vote recounts in Florida in
> 2000
> > and hijack the presidential election. Carlucci has a long-term political
> > relationship with his former classmate and wrestling buddy from
Princeton,
> > the present secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld. At a January 24
> screening
> > of the film in New York held at the Council on Foreign Relations (CRF),
> > publisher of Foreign Affairs magazine, Peck confirmed that the film had
> been
> > changed in response to Carlucci’s legal threats. Despite considerable
> media
> > presence at the event, during which Washington Post columnist Richard
> Cohen,
> > for one, raised a question about Carlucci’s name being removed,
virtually
> > nothing has appeared in the mainstream media about the issue. The WSWS
> spoke
> > with freelance journalist Lucy Komisar, who attended the screening and
> wrote
> > an article about Carlucci’s action for the Pacific News Service. She
> > commented: “This is censorship. This is a story that he does not want to
> > talk
> > about. Although he was not in charge , he was involved in what was going
> on.
> > It is a part of his history. The honorable thing to do would have been
to
> > acknowledge that the Americans helped in doing away with a man who could
> > have
> > helped that region—that they supported Mobutu, who for decades led a
> brutal
> > dictatorship which caused enormous suffering. I think the incident shows
> the
> > extremes to which people like Carlucci will go to cover up actions they
> know
> > were wrong—even to censoring a movie.” The panel at the CFR screening
> > included Brian Urquhart, chief assistant to Ralph Bunche, who headed up
> the
> > United Nations (UN) mission in Congo during the Lumumba crisis.
According
> to
> > Urquhart’s own account of the affair recently published in the New York
> > Review of Books, he was in touch with Lumumba on nearly a daily basis
> until
> > the latter broke off relations with Bunche. Urquhart’s article, as his
> > statements at the film screening, depicted the UN as an independent,
> neutral
> > force that was, albeit reluctantly, helping Lumumba. Contrary to
Urquhart’
> s
> > version of events, Peck’s film depicts the UN as an instrument of the US
> and
> > Belgium and an accessory to the campaign of subversion mounted by the
> > imperialist powers against Lumumba and the newly indepdendent Congolese
> > government. Lumumba invited in the UN “peacekeepers,” but broke contact
> with
> > them when their role became clear. UN officials and troops, in turn,
> refused
> > to take any action to prevent his murder. Carlucci’s attack on the film
> > dates
> > back at least to last summer. At a July 25 screening of Lumumba in
> > Washington, DC, he was a panelist along with Howard Wolpe, the former
> > congressman and chairman of the House subcommittee on Africa. Carlucci
> > called
> > the subsequently censored scene in the movie “a cheap shot.” He did make
a
> > mild—and thoroughly cynical—criticism of the US role. “Did handle him
> > right?” Carlucci asked. “It’s clear we were too strident,” he replied.
In
> > an interview with Komisar, Carlucci claimed that the US had “no role
> > whatsoever” in plotting Lumumba’s death. He referred to Madeleine Kalb’s
> > book, The Congo Cables, and asserted, “You’ll find no references to me.”
> As
> > Komisar notes, “Carlucci has a bad memory.” Not only does Kalb’s book
> refer
> > to Carlucci, it describes “the efforts by the US Embassy and the CIA to
> > topple Lumumba.” The book, she writes, “contains documents by Timberlake
> and
> > CIA chief Lawrence Devlin talking about their desire and efforts to stop
> > Lumumba, and even Devlin’s unhappiness one leader’s refusal to commit
> > murder. The State Department’s official ‘Analytical Chronology of the
> Congo
> > Crisis’ talks about a plan ‘to bring about the overthrow of Lumumba and
> > install a pro-western government...Operations under this plan were
> gradually
> > put into effect by the CIA.’” In a letter to Peck, Belgian Ludo De
> > Witte—author of the recent book, The Assassination of Lumumba —also made
> > clear that Timbelake, Devlin and Carlucci worked together “on Congolese
> > efforts to get rid of Lumumba.” De Witte further commented: “We know
that
> > Devlin and other US personnel in the capital were informed about the
> > transfer
> > of Lumumba to the Kasai or Katanga... Everybody knew that there were
> waiting
> > some subcontractors to do the dirty job, and, given the rank and
> involvement
> > of Carlucci in Lumumba-related activities from the US embassy, we may
> assume
> > (although it’s not proven) that Carlucci knew of what equaled a death
> > sentence for Lumumba.” After leaving the Congo, Carlucci was in Brazil
at
> > the
> > time of CIA and US State Department efforts to overthrow the Goulart
> > government, which lead to a military coup in March/April 1964. He was
the
> US
> > ambassador to Portugal during the years of intense revolutionary crisis
in
> > 1974-77, before returning to Washington and assuming top posts in the
> > military and intelligence apparatus. Carlucci’s efforts to suppress his
> role
> > demonstrates that US complicity in Lumumba’s death remains a sensitive
> > issue.
> > The American establishment does not care for anyone to know that its
> > interventions—past, present and future—are guided by the economic and
> > political interests of US capitalism and often carried out by criminal
and
> > bloody means. The bleeping of Carlucci’s name from Lumumba is not simply
a
> > matter of covering up the past. Carlucci remains a major figure in both
> the
> > US state and the American corporate world, as well as within the
> Republican
> > Party. The US, moreover, is intensifying its intrigues in Africa, and a
> > reminder of its dirty past complicates its present-day activities on the
> > continent. The crude censorship of the film underscores as well the
> > increasingly open assault on democratic rights and freedom of expression
> in
> > the US.
> >