50 years ago today, Patrice Lumumba was assassinated.
Here's an interesting piece on the assassination from the Guardian. Here's a (French) transcription of a rousing speech he made on the occasion of Congolese independence.
Matt's made the good point that Collier's ideas are less radical than they seem; Blattman's pointed out that it is morally dubious to shoot down Collier without a valid alternative.
But ultimately, we have a bad enough record when it comes to external interventions by force or the threat thereof that I think the only morally defensible position is to be humble enough to say that we almost certainly know too little to be making any strong claims for the use of violence (real or implied) even if this does bias us towards inaction.