Belgium hands over tooth to family of Congo independence hero
Reuters
June 20, 2022 16:48 MYT
June 20, 2022 16:48 MYT
Roland Lumumba speaks at a ceremony during which the remains of his late father, Patrice Emery Lumumba, are symbolically handed over to the murdered leader's children and to an official delegation, Brussels, Belgium, June 20, 2022. - REUTERS
BRUSSELS: 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.
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.