Ceremonies for the repatriation of Lumumba's remains: his grandson asks for transparency

Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba waves to the crowd as he leaves the Palais de la Culture in Léopoldville on August 27, 1960. AP

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As soon as the schedule was announced, the return of Patrice Emery Lumumba's remains was postponed

indefinitely

.

The reason given by the authorities is the health crisis.

Jean-Jacques Lumumba, the grandson of the father of Congolese independence, asks for transparency on the costs incurred by these ceremonies.

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Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi was due to go to Brussels to attend a first ceremony in ten days. The tooth, since it is that, was then to be presented for tributes in several cities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Ultimately there will be none of this, officially because of the third wave of Covid-19. This is what the Congolese Prime Minister Sama Lukonde Kyenge announced on Friday in the Council of Ministers, and which was also confirmed on the Belgian side this Saturday by his Belgian counterpart Alexander de Croo. From the side of the Lumumba family, few reactions. Apart from this call launched by his grandson and anti-corruption activist Jean-Jacques Lumumba to clarify the budget for these ceremonies. The DRC, he explains, does not have the means to make exceptional expenses.

I think the occasion is chosen to be able to clarify national and international opinion on the use of the sum of 16 million dollars for these festivities.

Congo is a poor country with many priorities (...) which lacks everything.

And I think that this postponement will make it possible to clarify all these gray areas, because we should not use the memory of Lumumba or the repatriation of the relics of Lumumba to frustrate the population.

because it will be a happy event for the honor of this great African.

RD CONGO _Son EVENING Report Lumumba tribute: family reax can be a bad thing for a good, this will clarify the budget

► To reread and listen to: Special file: Patrice Lumumba, an independence assassinated 

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