In the spotlight: the time of memory and tributes in the DRC
Audio 03:21
Patrice Lumumba.
AFP
By: Sébastien Duhamel
8 min
Publicity
We have obviously talked a lot about it on RFI, this weekend was the 60th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba.
On its site,
Radio Okapi
first
recalls
that "
the first head of the Congolese executive had been assassinated in circumstances still obscure to this day
".
R
adio Okapi also looks back
on the events planned to mark the
occasion
.
President Tshisekedi notably participated in “
a thanksgiving mass celebrated in Notre-Dame du Congo cathedral
” we can read.
7sur7 specifies
that the president also went to visit the place of the future burial of Patrice Lumumba, at the level of the Limete interchange.
He was accompanied, we learn, “
by members of the organizing committee for the repatriation of relics and Lumumba children
(François, Roland and Juliana)”.
Radio Okapi
spoke with a grandson of Patrice Lumumba, Jean-Jacques.
He thinks that his grandfather's fight "
for the dignity of the Congo and the Congolese
" should continue "
in the fierce fight against corruption and embezzlement of public funds
".
Many tributes ...
And naturally, besides President Tshisekedi, many have also paid tribute.
"
Jean-Marc Chataigner, Ambassador of the European Union in the DRC, also honored the memory of Patrice Emery Lumumba
",
writes actualite.cd
.
The diplomat underlined the “
inspiring speech numbers
” of the hero of independence.
Actualité.cd also relays the words of Denis Mukwege, the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
He sees in Patrice Lumumba "
one of the greatest heroes in the history of Africa
".
... but not just tributes
And there are not only tributes this morning in the Congolese press.
Le Nouvel Observateur
notes that the commemoration of this year "
has the particularity
" of coinciding with that of the 20th anniversary of the death of Laurent-Désiré Kabila.
"
Two nationalists at all costs
" whose "
heritage is today sullied by an immature political class
," said
Le Nouvel Observateur
.
In view of “
the current mess
[…],
their fight remains to materialize.
How can we not believe it, the newspaper calls out to us, while the country is on fire in the East and in Kinshasa, it's the rat race and the race for folding seats
?
".
France's role in Rwanda called into question
Soon 27 years after the genocide in Rwanda, the role of France still raises questions ... And the French press echoes these questions.
A double page today in
Le Monde
.
The newspaper firstly recalls that for having "
formed the Hutu regime militarily and having supported it politically, the role of France remains a hot topic of dispute
".
And
Le Monde
looks back on a stage that it considers "
decisive in the struggle over archives
".
Researcher François Graner, also a member of the Survie association, was finally able to consult the archives of President Mitterrand.
“The
more we advance, the more the picture is overwhelming,
” he laments.
“
At no time, from 1990 to 1994;
there is no panic or blindness in Paris,
”explains François Graner.
He is categorical, for him: "
The French policy which has been carried out
[concerned with protecting its influence vis-à-vis Anglophones]
is complicity in genocide, in the precise sense of
" active support, knowing the facts "".
This is evidenced in particular by a document submitted on 6 February 1991 by Jacques Pelletier, the Minister for Cooperation.
He warns François Mitterrand that the situation in Rwanda "
worries him more and more
".
Or notes, 2 years later, in 1993 indicating that Pierre Joxe, the Minister of Defense, recommended the departure of the troops.
Or even, when the ethnic massacres multiply in May 1994, a note from the DGSE on "
the untenable position of France
" ... In short, for François Graner, if there are still many "
gray areas
" on the Paris' role around this genocide, it is certain that the leaders of the time could not ignore the path on which Rwanda was heading.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Newspaper
DRC
Lumumba, an assassinated independence