Belgium delivers tooth to Congo independence hero’s family

Belgium handed over a tooth, the only known remains of Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba, to his family during a ceremony in Brussels on Monday.

Lumumba became the first democratically elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after independence from Belgium in 1960, but alarmed the West with openness to Moscow at the height of the Cold War.

The government lasted just three months before he was overthrown and murdered by a firing squad. His supporters and some historians accuse the CIA of having ordered the death. His body was never found.

A Belgian official delivered a blue box containing the tooth to family members at Egmont Palace in central Brussels on Monday.

“It is not normal for the Belgians to have guarded the remains of one of the founders of the Congolese nation for six decades,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said in a speech.

De Croo asserted that Belgian colonial rule was a dark page in Belgium’s history, echoing Belgian King Philippe’s comments on a visit to the DRC in early June, adding that Africans still experience racism in Belgium today.

DRC Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde called Lumumba a national hero and said his death and the crackdown on his supporters had harmed not just the victims’ families but the country as a whole.

Lumumba’s daughter, Juliana, who in 2020 sent a letter to the King of Belgium asking for the return of her father’s remains, said that there are still many doubts about the final moments of his life.

“All we know is that he was convicted and unable to defend himself,” she said in a speech.

A Belgian parliamentary investigation into the murder concluded in 2002 that Belgium was “morally responsible” for Lumumba’s death.