Belgium hands over tooth to family of Congo independence hero Lumumba
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BRUSSELS, June 20 (Reuters) – Belgium handed over a tooth, the only known remains of the murdered Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba, to his family during at a ceremony in Brussels on Monday.
Lumumba became the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) first democratically elected prime minister after independence from Belgium in 1960, but alarmed the West with overtures to Moscow at the height of the Cold War.
He also angered Belgium with a speech criticising the colonisation of the African country.
King Philippe of Belgium (2-L) poses with Juliana (L), Francois (2-R) and Roland Lumumba (R), children of the first democratically elected prime minister of Congo Patrice Lumumba, in Brussels, Belgium, 20 June 2022. Lumumba was assassinated in 1961 in Congo, and his body was buried and exhumed twice before being dismembered and dissolved in acid. Only a tooth remained which was kept by the Belgian Federal Prosecutor in Brussels inside a custom-made box. EPA-EFE/OLIVIER HOSLET
His government lasted just three months before he was overthrown and assassinated by a firing squad. His supporters and some historians accuse the CIA of having ordered his killing. His body was never found.
A Belgian official handed a blue box containing the tooth to members of his family at Egmont Palace in central Brussels on Monday.
“There’s a feeling of satisfaction after several years,” one of his sons Roland Lumumba told broadcaster RTBF before the ceremony.
Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout; editing by Philip Blenkinsop
