The film begins with a montage of Lumumba and his compatriots
Joseph Okito and
Maurice Mpolo being driven to their executions, cutting to their bodies being exhumed, dismembered, and burned on the orders of
Mobutu Sese Seko. The film then jumps back to the late 1950s as Lumumba has a debate with
Moïse Tshombe and
Godefroid Munongo, rival politicians from the pro-Western
CONAKAT party. Lumumba expresses his
Pan-Africanist ideals, which infuriate Tshombe and Munongo. Following the debate, the film cuts back to Lumumba receiving his job as a beer salesman. While using his beer sales to promote his political ideas in Leopoldville, Lumumba meets Joseph Mobutu for the first time. After hearing that
Baudouin of Belgium has become more favorable to independence, the street meeting is broken up by
Force Publique soldiers, who arrest and imprison Lumumba where he is beaten by the Belgian guards before being freed and sent to
Brussels to negotiate Congolese independence. While in Brussels, Lumumba first meets
Joseph Kasa-Vubu, a fellow independence-minded politician from the rival
ABAKO party, who wishes to better compromise with the Belgians. Upset that the Belgians do not recognize the legitimacy of the
Mouvement National Congolais despite their success in the elections, Lumumba backs Kasavubu for president, who in turn appoints Lumumba as prime minister. On the night of the coalition's formation, Lumumba is threatened by Tshombe and Munongo, who were not given any leadership positions in the new government. At the formal recognition of independence from the king of Belgium, Lumumba's speech strikes a more combative tone than Kasavubu's, highlighting the oppression that the Congolese suffered under Belgian rule. Back in the Congo, the
Congo Crisis has begun. The cabinet then debates the removal of
Émile Janssens, who does not support African officers. Following the assault by soldiers of a Walloon couple, the Belgian ambassador visits Lumumba and makes veiled threats to involve the United Nations and
NATO, which infuriates Lumumba, insisting that the Belgians have caused the problem by retaining a segregated military. Lumumba dismisses Janssens and charges the ambassador with removing him from the country. On a visit to Katanga, Munongo refuses to allow the government's plane to land, signaling the secession of Katanga into the
State of Katanga. After a run-in with Belgian troops at
Ndjili, Lumumba drives to crush the secessionist Katangans. Evidence surfaces that Mobutu's forces massacred large numbers of civilians while fighting the Katangan rebels, and Lumumba dismisses a recalcitrant Mobutu, upset that he will have to answer for Mobutu's atrocities. He brushes off support from the United States, and meets with an exhausted Kasavubu, where he reveals that he feels that the
Soviet Union is the only country that he can rely on for support. At a military camp, the American ambassador pledges his support to Mobutu, provided that he help in eliminating Lumumba. Kasavubu dismisses Lumumba for both his alleged communist sympathies and his perceived role in the South Kasai massacres, creating political deadlock due to Lumumba's widespread popularity. After condemning Kasavubu's criticism and brushing off accusations of being a communist, Lumumba returns home where he learns that his infant daughter must be sent to Switzerland, since she is gravely ill. Mobutu arrives and tells Lumumba that Kasavubu wanted him arrested, but has elected to place him under house arrest instead, leading Lumumba to suspect that Mobutu is working with a foreign power. Later, Mobutu announces that the army has seized power, and claims to have arrested both Lumumba and Kasavubu. While plotting his escape to
Stanleyville, Lumumba learns that his infant daughter has died in Switzerland. While Lumumba and his partisans cross the river towards Stanleyville, soldiers arrive and accost Lumumba's family on the riverbank and he returns to face them, where he is arrested. At Mobutu's military encampment, he and others vote to kill Lumumba, with Kasavubu reluctantly casting his vote. Lumumba, Mpolo, and Okito are taken to Katanga where they are brutally beaten, with Munongo joining in. The ending of the film intersperses Mobutu, now
Mobutu Sese Seko, publicly remembering Lumumba, with shots of the men's executions in dark woods. ==Cast==