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“Greater than 60 years of ache”: That is how Juliana Lumumba has described her household’s life.
The 67-year-old politician and daughter of Patrice Lumumba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s former prime minister, has been ready a long time for Belgium to return the identified stays of her father — a tooth and finger bones.
“As a household, we now have to maneuver on and we will solely do it as soon as we bury our father’s stays in peace,” she informed DW by telephone from Congo. “To date, the handover course of has been very bureaucratic and paired with the pandemic, we’re nonetheless ready for his tooth. Hopefully this 12 months Belgium will hand over what’s rightly ours.”
On June 20, Belgium will formally current Patrice Lumumba’s toothto his relations at an official ceremony in Brussels.
Whereas the tooth is only a physique a part of the Congolese chief, it additionally symbolizes a darkish interval in each Belgium and Congo’s historical past; a interval that Belgium remains to be making an attempt to unpack and settle for, in line with Juliana Lumumba.
The assassination of Patrice Lumumba
Juliana’s father, Patrice Lumumba, rose to energy to turn into the primary democratically elected prime minister of Congo in 1960.
“I keep in mind going to the workplace with him as a five-year-old lady and watching him work,” she remembered fondly. “He was a person who personified democracy throughout colonialism.”
However Lumumba’s tenure lasted lower than a 12 months as a result of his rival, Congolese President Joseph Kasa-Vubu, tried to dismiss him — the following coup d’état instrumentalized by Colonel Joseph Mobutu amid the chaos overthrew the prime minister.
An image taken in December 1960 reveals troopers guarding Patrice Lumumba (R) and Joseph Okito (L), vice-president of the Senate, upon their arrest in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa)
Imprisoned below Mobutu’s dictatorship, Lumumba continued to induce democratic and communist values. However this additionally made him a menace to Belgium and america.
“They feared he would achieve help from the Soviet Union again then. This was the height Chilly Warfare period,” Belgian author Ludo De Witte, who wrote the e-book “The assassination of Lumumba,” informed DW. “The Belgian authorities additionally thought of Lumumba’s values as a menace to their basic pursuits in Congo.”
This concern led to the homicide of Lumumba in January 1961. He was shot lifeless by troopers belonging to the breakaway Congolese state of Katanga, as Belgian officers watched.
“As soon as he was executed, a Belgian police officer named Gérard Soete and his brother took cost of destroying Lumumba’s physique to cover all proof of his homicide,” De Witte defined. “They lower his physique into items and dissolved the stays in a barrel of sulphuric acid.”
“However Soete stored some remnants of Lumumba’s physique with him and determined to carry it again house to Belgium as a type of ‘looking trophy’,” he added. “This reveals what elites can do once they contemplate you a menace.”
Affect of his demise
After De Witte printed his e-book analyzing Lumumba’s homicide in Dutch in 1999, Soete got here ahead and confirmed his function in Lumumba’s homicide.
A 2001 Belgian Parliamentary Inquiry was then launched and located that the nation was morally liable for Lumumba’s demise.
“The execution occurred within the presence of Katangan ministers and was carried out by Katangan gendarmes or law enforcement officials, within the presence, although, of a Belgian police commissioner and three Belgian officers who had been below the authority, management and supervision of the Katangan authorities,” the inquiry said.
It additionally added that the Belgian authorities didn’t protest the illegal execution of Lumumba, nor categorical remorse or disapproval in relation to it.
Following the inquiry, Belgium’s then-Overseas Minister Louis Michel conveyed his “honest regrets” for his nation’s function. However the nation continued to carry on to Lumumba’s tooth, which has been stored on the Belgian Prosecutor’s workplace in Brussels to this point.
It was solely in 2020, on the top of the worldwide Black Lives Matter motion, that the Belgian King responded to a letter from Juliana Lumumba and agreed to return her father’s stays.
“Getting his stays is vital for us as a household,” she informed DW. “Nevertheless it has an even bigger influence on the individuals of the DRC as a result of his demise was the assassination of democracy within the nation. He was killed for his values and nonetheless stays within the minds of the individuals.”
The Congolese diaspora in Belgium shared comparable sentiments, in line with Anne Wetsi Mpoma, an artwork historian and impartial curator.
“Patrice Lumumba fought for the liberty of his nation and the Congolese group by no means actually recovered from that loss,” Mpoma stated. “Furthermore, contemplating the disaster within the nation right this moment, he’s actually like a logo of peace who individuals look as much as at a time when a lot of the leaders in African nations right this moment select themselves as a substitute of selecting their individuals.”
Is returning the tooth sufficient?
In 2018, following a request by the Congolese and different African communities in Belgium, the Brussels metropolis council introduced {that a} public sq. can be named after Patrice Lumumba.
The sq. in query is at present in the midst of a bustling purchasing avenue in Brussels and has turn into an area the place individuals collect to protest towards racism, in line with Aliou Balde, an activist from Guinea.
“For a lot of Africans, Patrice Lumumba is our impulse to combat racism, police violation and name for decolonization,” he informed DW. “Identical to a automotive wants petrol to perform, Patrice Lumumba is our supply of vitality to combat for our rights.”
An indication to commemorate Patrice Lumumba and his allies Joseph Okito and Maurice Mpolo, 60 years after their execution, was held in Brussels on 17 January 2021
However for De Witte, public squares and the return of relics imply nothing — and stated the Belgian authorities remains to be detached to its darkish historical past.
“The nation has nonetheless not taken full duty for his assassination. Sure, there have been apologies and regrets however it’s all passive. Extra importantly, the demise of Lumumba led to a long time of dictatorship and civil upheavals that are clearly liable for the state the nation is in right this moment,” he stated.
“So I believe we now have to get apologies, but additionally extra political, monetary and symbolic help to unpack this darkish interval successfully,” he added.
Artwork historian Mpoma shared that view, and highlighted that Belgium and Europe additionally want to start out having actual conversations to unpack the brutalities of colonialism.
“From the second individuals begin to acknowledge that deeds up to now had been unsuitable, they may even be obliged to see the results of these deeds right this moment,” she stated.
Edited by: Stephanie Burnett
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