Belgium: the long history of Patrice Lumumba's tooth
Detail of a painting by Sam Ilus, 2016, on Lumumba's tooth.
RFI / Sabine Cessou
Text by: Sabine Cessou Follow |
Sabine Cessou Follow
7 min
Fifty-nine years after the assassination of their father, the children of Patrice Lumumba will recover the only remains of the remains of the hero of Congolese independence: a tooth.
A look back at a relic that has hit the headlines in Belgium for the past twenty years.
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Almost sixty years after his arrest and death in Katanga, January 17, 1961, at the hands of a squadron of Belgian police officers, Patrice Emery Lumumba, whose body was dislocated and burned in acid, should finally have a burial in Congo.
Two of his teeth, kept as a hunting trophy by a Belgian police commissioner who worked for a long time in the Congo, have been claimed by the family since 2011. And this, in the context of a lawsuit brought in Belgium by the children of Lumumba against ten Belgians involved in the murder.
The remains of Patrice Lumumba were only seized by the federal prosecutor's office in 2016, which "agreed", according to the Belgian press, to return them on September 10 to the "
beneficiaries
" of Patrice Lumumba.
The history of these human remains has been in the headlines for twenty years.
It all started with the publication in 1999 in Flemish of the book
La mort de Lumumba
, by Belgian sociologist Ludo de Witte.
The work aroused such an uproar over Belgian responsibility for the assassination that a parliamentary commission of inquiry was set up in 2000. This was to lead in 2002 to an apology from Belgium, and to conclude that it was “responsible”. morality ”of the former colonial metropolis.
"Moral" only, to avoid criminal prosecution.
Teeth exhibited on television by a Belgian policeman
In the meantime, the Belgian police officer Gerard Soete, whom Ludo de Witte went to see for his investigation, has resurfaced.
This man wrote several “colonial” novels, including a detailed account in Flemish on the death of Lumumba, published in 1978. Interviewed in 2000 by AFP, he tells how he made disappear the body of Lumumba and two of his faithful, with four Katangese soldiers and another "White" (his own brother, according to the Belgian press), by order of the Minister of the Interior of Kantaga, a province which secedes with the help of the Belgian army.
“
I, Little Gérard Soete from Bruges, had to fend for myself.
All the Belgian authorities were there, and they did not tell me to do nothing.
"Accompanied by men equipped"
with a hacksaw and a barrel of sulfuric acid, the body was quartered.
The hardest part was cutting it before pouring the acid
”.
He concludes: "
I think we have done well, to save thousands of people and keep calm in an explosive situation
."
Gerard Soete, who has no remorse, does not stop there.
He testifies for several television shows, and brags like in this one, "
A death of colonial style
", taken from the archives of the INA, to have "
pulled out
" the teeth.
Jean Bofane, Congolese writer living in Brussels, tells how, shortly after the publication of Ludo De Witte's book, he came across a program broadcast by a Flemish channel in 2000.
“
At two in the morning, while everyone was asleep, this is Gerard Soete who explains to us how he killed Lumumba, cut him into small pieces.
"
Patrice, you gave me so much work"
", he said.
The person interviewing him points out that it is a heinous crime.
He replies: “
Yes, I know, Ludo de Witte told me, and since that day I have been sleeping much less well.
When asked why he kept those two teeth, his answer is surreal.
“
Everyone wanted to brag about killing Lumumba, and to prove it was me, I kept my teeth.
"
Fallen into the hands of justice in 2016
In another program, Gerard Soete claims to have taken a boat to go and throw his teeth in the North Sea, and "
never to hear about this story again
".
He died on June 9, 2000 in Bruges, at the age of 80, and the story could have ended with him.
Except that only one tooth of Lumumba reappears in 2016 in the magazine
Humo
, which interviews the daughter of Gerard Soete, ready to exhibit this bone again.
The blood of the sociologist Ludo de Witte only turns: he complains for "concealment".
A search finally allows justice to get hold of the relic.
No one knows what happened to the second tooth.
The restitution, today, is the joy of Philip Buyck, an Antwerp activist who set up rue de la Tulipe, in the African district of Matonge, in Brussels, a "Lumumba Library": a pile of books on Africa bought to the fleas, which he would like to give to Congo at the same time as the long-awaited return of the tooth.
Philip Buyck made a statue of the tooth, which sits in a Congolese restaurant in Matonge, with paintings also featuring the famous tooth.
He declares: "
This must have happened sooner or later, thanks to the visits to Belgium of the children of Lumumba
".
Long history and great violence
For Jean Bofane, the pill remains hard to swallow: “
Imagine that the assassins of John Fitzgerald Kennedy or Olof Palme, Swedish Prime Minister, come to tell on television how they killed and kept teeth.
This is the country in which we live, the country of which we are nationals.
Today, the press writes that the "judge consents" to give Lumumba's teeth back.
There remains the skull of King Lusinga, preserved with the monkeys and gorillas at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences
!
This skull is claimed in vain by descendants of the king, to whom the Belgian authorities refuse DNA tests, as well as by the Tabwa community.
King Lusinga was beheaded in 1884 during an expedition commissioned by Belgian General Emile Storms, and his head brought back to Brussels.
“This
is the country in which we live
,” continues Bofane, author of Congo INC.
It's very strange and it is beyond me: there is no consideration for human beings, and no right of the city when it comes to Congolese.
The Belgian justice, in handling the complaint of the children of Lumumba, decreed that this murder was a war crime and not a crime against humanity.
That is why I was not one of those who asked for a
Lumumba place
in Brussels.
I was sure that the executioner would never honor his victim, but on the contrary that he would ridicule her more.
History of continuing the work that was done on his body the day of his death.
"
The Belgian public prosecutor spoke of a “
symbolic
”
restitution
, in the absence of “
absolute certainty
” that this tooth is indeed that of Lumumba.
Justice explained that it was not possible to do a DNA analysis on the tooth without destroying it.
This leaves many unsatisfied, in the quest for justice and truth.
For her part, the president of the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Jeanine Mabunda, asked her government to support the repatriation of the tooth, charged with a long history and great violence. , to grant Patrice Lumumba a “
funeral worthy of his rank
”.
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DRC: Belgium announces that it will return a tooth of Patrice Lumumba to his family