BRUSSELS — Belgium’s King Philippe on
Tuesday begins a historic visit to the
Democratic Republic of Congo, in a
region cruelly exploited by his ancestors, as tensions rise in the volatile
east.
اضافة اعلان
The six-day trip, at the invitation of
President Felix Tshisekedi, has strong symbolic significance, coming two years after
Philippe expressed to the Congolese leader his “deepest regrets” for the
“wounds” of colonization.
The visit, the
monarch’s first to the DR Congo since ascending the throne in 2013, has been
billed as a chance for reconciliation after the atrocities and other abuses
committed under Belgian colonial rule.
It had originally been scheduled to take place in
June 2020 to mark the DRC’s 60th anniversary of independence but was
rescheduled to 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The visit was then
postponed from March to June because of the
Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Philippe will be accompanied by his wife, Queen
Mathilde, and members of the Belgian government, including Prime Minister
Alexander De Croo.
Colonial statuesThree stops are planned and the sovereign will deliver a speech at the
first two: in Kinshasa on Wednesday during a ceremony with
Tshisekedi at the
Congolese parliament, then Friday before students at the University of
Lubumbashi in the south of the country.
Historians say that
millions of people in the Belgian Congo were killed, mutilated, or died of
disease as they worked on rubber plantations belonging to Leopold II, Belgium’s
monarch from 1865–1909 and the brother of Philippe’s great great grandfather.
The growth of the
Black Lives Matter, initially a reaction to police violence in the US but now a
broader anti-racist movement, has seen several colonial-era statues removed in
Belgium.
Belgium is also
preparing to return to Kinshasa a tooth — the last remains of Patrice Lumumba —
a hero of the anti-colonial struggle and short-lived first prime minister of
the independent Congo. Lumumba was murdered by Congolese separatists and
Belgian mercenaries in 1961, and his body dissolved in acid, but the tooth was
kept as a trophy by one of his killers, a Belgian police officer.
Philippe’s visit
comes 12 years after the last visit of a
Belgian sovereign, Albert II in 2010,
and will also aim to reset ties that were soured during the presidency of
Joseph Kabila, who left office in 2018. The latter was criticized, including by
Brussels, for having remained in power beyond his second term, in violation of
his country’s constitution, and development ties were suspended for a time.
The visit comes in
a context of renewed violence in North Kivu, where the DRC accuses neighboring
Rwanda of supporting armed rebels opposed to the Congolese authorities.
Belgium has called
for an “immediate” halt to the fighting, which is causing civilians to flee.
The last stop of their journey is scheduled for June 12 in
Bukavu, in the clinic of gynecologist Denis Mukwege, co-winner of the 2018
Nobel Peace Prize for his fight against sexual violence.
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