The memorial pilgrimage retraced the life of the hero of independence, former first Prime Minister of the country, assassinated on January 17, 1961.
Le Monde with AFP
National mourning, official and popular tributes followed by burial: the coffin of Patrice Lumumba is expected Monday, June 27 in Kinshasa, last stage of the memorial pilgrimage which retraced the life of the hero of the independence of the Democratic Republic of the Democratic Republic of the Democratic Republic of the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC).
The plane carrying his body, of which only a tooth left on June 20 by Belgium at the DRC, must leave Lubumbashi (Southeast) in the morning. At the time of takeoff, the flags will be put at half mast over the entire territory in tribute to the first Prime Minister of the country murdered more than 61 years ago, for a national mourning scheduled until June 30.
President Félix Tshisekedi will be at the head of the Coffiil reception committee at Ndjili International Airport in Kinshasa, surrounded by customary chiefs present in the Congolese capital, according to the official program.
As in the stages of Sankuru (center), his native land, Kisangani (northeast), former political stronghold of the national hero and Haut-Katanga, place of his assassination on January 17, 1961, a cultural and religious program is planned in Kinshasa, the national mourning and burial stage.
traditional songs, with a pygmy polyphony and a hundred tam-tom drumers, will accompany the procession of the airport to the Palais du Peuple, seat of the Congolese Parliament where tributes will be paid to it by officials, guests and the population.
Elected in May 1960 deputy for the district of Kisangani, it was in Kinshasa (the former Léopoldville) that Patrice Lumumba was appointed Prime Minister, in his capacity as leader of the majority coalition in the two chambers of Parliament.
But it was with a speech against the racism of the Belgian settlers that he entered the legend on June 30, 1960, becoming an icon of African independence. “We knew the ironies, the insults, the blows that we had to undergo morning, noon and evening, because we were negroes,” he told Kinshasa in front of King Baudouin at the official ceremony marking the birth of the DRDC , while the program did not provide for him to speak.
According to historians, this virulent speech had sealed the fate of this nationalist considered a “communist” by his detractors. His lease at the head of the government of the new independent state lasted only 75 days, from June 30 to September 12, 1960.
his dissolved body in acid
His government was neutralized by President Joseph Kasa-Vubu and the head of the army Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, who installed an interim government team consisting essentially of students and rare Congolese academics, baptized “Government of the General Commissioners “.
Put in residence, he was able to escape the vigilance of the soldiers committed to his guard and left Kinshasa by road to join his stronghold of Kisangani, where his relatives had preceded him to prepare the resistance.
But before reaching the center of the country, his executioners arrested him and brought him to his formidable adversaries, who imposed on him a way of the cross until it killing by Katangais separatists in Shilatembo, near de Lubumbashi, with the support of Belgian mercenaries.
His body, dissolved in acid, has never been found. It took decades to discover that human remains had been kept in Belgium, when a Belgian police officer who participated in the disappearance boasted in the media. A tooth that this policeman had in his possession was seized in 2016 by Belgian justice.
The burial ceremony will take place on June 30, the day of the Independence Festival, in a site fitted out on a large artery of the Congolese capital which bears the name of this martyr of the independence of the DRC.