The relic should be handed over, on June 20, by Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo to an official Congolese delegation.
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A tooth is at the heart of difficult diplomatic relations between Belgium and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It would be the only relic of Patrice Lumumba, the founder of the Congolese National Movement (MNC) and ephemeral Prime Minister after the proclamation of the independence of his country on June 30, 1960. Departed by his functions by Congolese President Joseph Kasa-Vubu, Worried, like the United States and Belgium, of the support it was looking for in Moscow, it was assassinated on January 17, 1961 in Katanga, with the complicity of the Belgian authorities.
The tooth should be handed over, on June 20, by Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo to an official Congolese delegation before being presented to the Congolese of Belgium, then to travel to the places that marked the career of Patrice Lumumba And, finally, to integrate the mausoleum built in his memory in Kinshasa.
It was in 2000 that a former Belgian police officer, Gerard Soete, said on television hold a tooth having belonged to the hero of decolonization. With other Belgian police officers, he had been responsible for making all traces of Lumumba and two other officials disappear, murdered on January 17, 1961 near Jadotville, Katanga. At the time, the rich province fueled secessionist ambitions, with the discreet support of the old colonial power which thus hoped to retain its influence in the country.
But, even buried, the former Prime Minister always seemed to be a threat. Soete and other Belgians were therefore responsible for cutting his body, grinding his head and dissolving the remains in acid. “A evil work,” confided the policeman thirty-nine years later, indicating in passing that he had in fact preserved, unlike the orders he had received, two fingers and two teeth.
” Moral responsibility “
It is with the police of the policeman, now deceased, that a tooth was seized in 2016, the rest having apparently been thrown into the North Sea. The relic is kept in the federal prosecutor’s office, where an investigation for “war crimes” has languished since 2011.
The children of Patrice Lumumba filed a complaint against twelve potential suspects, but the investigations have little chance of succeeding, taking into account, in particular, the reluctance of the Chamber of Deputies: it refuses to transmit to the federal prosecution the content of Discussions held, behind closed doors, by a parliamentary commission of inquiry. Elected officials had heard many witnesses before concluding, in 2002, to the “moral responsibility” of Belgium in the death of Lumumba, but without concluding, for lack of “formal indications”, the responsibility of the Belgian authorities.
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