Pto salutes the memory of the “hero” of Congolese independence and a leading figure in African independence, the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Félix Tshisekedi, and the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Denis Mukwege, celebrated this Sunday, the 60e anniversary of his assassination. Enough to bring back among the living the memory of Patrice Émery Lumumba who was the ephemeral Prime Minister of the first years of what was called at the time the Belgian Congo, then the Congo Léopoldville.
The tribute of President Tshisekedi
In the capital Kinshasa, the president visited the site which will host the burial place of the “national hero”, assassinated at the age of 35 after a meteoric journey. In December, the president mentioned a “repatriation of the relics” of Lumumba, and a tribute during the 61e anniversary of independence on June 30th. The chosen location is located under the so-called “interchange” tower on Boulevard Lumumba, not far from a modest-sized bronze statue in memory of the former Prime Minister. In the meantime, in Belgium, the justice must return to the family a tooth seized by justice from the daughter of a Belgian police commissioner who helped to remove the body.
Lumumba, a meteorite journey
Born in 1925, Patrice Lumumba made an impression with his indictment against Belgian colonization on Independence Day on June 30, 1960, in the presence of the King of the Belgians Baudouin, who had praised the civilizing work of his country. In the post-independence chaos (mutinies, killings of Belgians, secession of Katanga …), Lumumba had been overthrown in September, then delivered on January 17 to the Katangese, who executed him with the help of Belgian mercenaries, at night, in the heart of nature, about fifty kilometers from Lubumbashi (formerly Élisabethville). Her tormentors made her body disappear. “It was Belgians who planned the death of Lumumba and who had him executed,” recalls the Congolese historian Guillaume Nkongolo, referring to the opening of the archives.
The homage of Dr Mukwege and Europe
The only Congolese Nobel Prize winner in history, gynecologist Denis Mukwege presented Patrice Lumumba as “one of the greatest heroes in African history”. Lumumba “fought to the end for the freedom and sovereignty of the DRC. […] A model of courage for young people, ”Mukwege added on Twitter. The Ambassador of the European Union in the DRC, Jean-Marc Châtaigner, paid “a sincere and profound tribute to this hero of the independence of the Congo and to this freedom fighter”, killed with his two companions Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito. In his message, the European ambassador quoted from a speech by Lumumba: “We will take from Western civilization what is good and beautiful, and reject what does not suit us. ”
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