BRUSSELS —
Belgium on Monday handed over the
last remains of slain Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba — a tooth — to his
family, turning a page on a grim chapter in its colonial past.
اضافة اعلان
Chief prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw gave the
relatives a small, bright blue box containing the tooth in a televised
ceremony, and said legal action they had taken to receive the relic had
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 reiterated
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,” he said.
“A man was murdered for his political convictions,
his words, his ideals.”
Lumumba’s son Francois told Belgium’s RTBF
broadcaster that his relatives had been waiting “more than 60 years” for this
event.
“I think it will provide solace for the family and
the Congolese people,” he said.
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.
He was executed on January 17 1961, aged just 35, in
the southern region of Katanga, with the support of Belgian mercenaries.
His body was dissolved in acid and never found.
But the tooth was kept as a trophy by one of those
involved, a Belgian police officer.
The tooth was seized by Belgian authorities in 2016
after Lumumba’s family filed a complaint.
‘National mourning’
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 27 to 30 June — its 62nd anniversary of independence — to mark
the burial ceremony.
The investigation for “war crimes” is still ongoing.
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.
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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