page_title: Decolonization
section_title: Assassinated anti-colonialist leaders
hierarchical_section_title: Decolonization / Assassinated anti-colonialist leaders
caption_attribution_description: English: Gandhi with Lord and Lady Mountbatten
context_page_description: Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby a nation establishes and maintains its domination on overseas territories. The concept particularly applies to the dismantlement, during the second half of the 20th century, of the colonial empires established prior to World War I throughout the world. Scholars focus especially on the movements in the colonies demanding independence, such as Creole nationalism.
context_section_description: A non-exhaustive list of assassinated leaders would include:
  Tiradentes was a leading member of the Brazilian seditious movement known as the Inconfidência Mineira, against the Portuguese Empire. He fought for an independent Brazilian republic.
  Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, nonviolent leader of the Indian independence movement was assassinated in 1948 by Nathuram Godse.
  Ruben Um Nyobé, leader of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC), killed by the French SDECE on September 13, 1958. No clear cause has ever been ascertained for the mysterious crash. Assassination has been alleged.
  Barthélemy Boganda, leader of a nationalist Central African Republic movement, who died in a plane-crash on March 29, 1959, eight days before the last elections of the colonial era.
  Félix-Roland Moumié, successor to Ruben Um Nyobe at the head of the Cameroon's People Union, assassinated in Geneva in 1960 by the SDECE (French secret services).
  Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was assassinated on January 17, 1961.
  Burundi nationalist Louis Rwagasore was assassinated on October 13, 1961, while Pierre Ngendandumwe, Burundi's first Hutu prime minister, was also murdered on January 15, 1965.
  Sylvanus Olympio, the first president of Togo, was assassinated on January 13, 1963.
  Mehdi Ben Barka, the leader of the Moroccan National Union of Popular Forces (UNPF) and of the Tricontinental Conference, which was supposed to prepare in 1966 in Havana its first meeting gathering national liberation movements from all continents – related to the Non-Aligned Movement, but the Tricontinal Conference gathered liberation movements while the Non-Aligned were for the most part states – was "disappeared" in Paris in 1965, allegedly by Moroccan agents and French police officers.
  Nigerian leader Ahmadu Bello was assassinated in January 1966 during a coup which toppled Nigeria's post-independence government.
  Eduardo Mondlane, the leader of FRELIMO and the father of Mozambican independence, was assassinated in 1969. Both the Portuguese intelligence or the Portuguese secret police PIDE/DGS and elements of FRELIMO, have been accused of killing Mondlane.
  Mohamed Bassiri, Sahrawi leader of the Movement for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Wadi el Dhahab was "disappeared" in El Aaiún in 1970, allegedly by the Spanish Legion.
  Amílcar Cabral was killed on January 20, 1973 by PAIGC rival Inocêncio Kani, with the help of Portuguese agents operating within the PAIGC.
caption: Gandhi in 1947, with Lord Louis Mountbatten, Britain's last Viceroy of India, and his wife Vicereine Edwina Mountbatten.
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