Belgium, has on Monday, June 20, 2022, handed over the last tooth of slain Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba to his family, turning a page on a grim chapter in its colonial past.
Chief prosecutor, Frederic Van Leeuw, gave the former leader’s family a small, bright blue box containing the tooth in a televised ceremony, and said the legal action they had taken to receive the relic delivered “justice”.
The tooth was placed in a casket that was then draped in the flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which celebrates Lumumba, who was murdered by separatists and Belgian mercenaries in 1961, as an anti-colonial hero.
Lumumba’s assassination, and the brutal history of Belgian control of the Congo have been enduring sources of pain between the two countries.
Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander De Croo, iterated that his country’s authorities bore a moral responsibility over the killing.
“I would like, in the presence of his family, to present in my turn the apologies of the Belgian government. A man was murdered for his political convictions, his words, his ideals.”
Alexander De Croo
Lumumba’s son, Francois noted that his relatives have been waiting “more than 60 years” for this event.
“I think it will provide solace for the family and the Congolese people. We are opening a new page in history.”
Alexander De Croo
A fiery critic of Belgium’s rapacious rule, Lumumba, became his country’s first prime minister after it gained independence in 1960. But he fell out with the former colonial power and the United States and was ousted in a coup a few months after taking office.
Lumumba was executed on January 17, 1961, aged just 35, in the southern region of Katanga, with the support of Belgian mercenaries.
His body was subsequently dissolved in acid and never found. However, the tooth was kept as a trophy by one of those involved- a Belgian police officer.
The tooth was then seized by Belgian authorities in 2016 from the daughter of the policeman, Gerard Soete, after Lumumba’s family filed a complaint.
Remains to be Laid to Rest
The casket containing the tooth is set to be flown back to the DRC, where it will be officially laid to rest at a memorial site.
The country is set to hold three days of ‘national mourning’ from 27th to 30th June– its 62nd anniversary of independence to mark the burial ceremony.
It can be recalled that Lumumba’s older son, Francois, filed a complaint in Belgium in 2011, pointing the finger of responsibility for his father’s killing at a dozen Belgian officials and diplomats.
The investigation for war crimes is still ongoing but only two of the targeted officials are still alive.
A Belgian parliamentary commission of enquiry in 2001 concluded that Belgium had moral responsibility for the assassination and the government presented the country’s apologies a year later.
De Croo said Belgian officials “chose not to see, chose not to act to stop the killing,” even if they had not directly intended it to happen.
Lumumba’s children were also received Monday by Belgium’s King Philippe, who this month, travelled to DR Congo to express his “deepest regrets” over the colonial past.
Historians say that millions of people were killed, mutilated or died of disease as they were forced to collect rubber under Belgian rule. The land was also pillaged for its mineral wealth, timber and ivory.
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