By John Ikani
The gold tooth of assassinated Congolese independence hero and Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, has been returned to his family.
The tooth was the only part of him that is thought to still exist after he was executed and then his body dissolved in acid in 1961.
Shot dead by a firing squad in 1961 by separatists from the Katanga region, with the tacit backing of former colonial power Belgium, his body was then buried in a shallow grave, dug up, transported 200km (125 miles), interred again, exhumed and then hacked to pieces and finally dissolved in acid.
The tooth was seized by Belgian officials in 2016 from the daughter of the Belgian police commissioner who said he took it after overseeing the destruction of Lumumba’s body
The man overseeing the destruction of the body, Belgian policeman Gerard Soete took the tooth as a “kind of hunting trophy”, he later said.
He also talked about a second tooth and two of the corpse’s fingers, but these have not been found.
The tooth has now been returned to the family at a ceremony in Brussels.
At a private ceremony with Mr Lumumba’s relatives on Monday, Belgium’s federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw handed over a case containing the gold-capped tooth in the presence of Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and Congolese officials.
The Prime Minister told Congolese officials and Lumumba’s family that the restitution came way too late.
“It is not normal that Belgium held onto the remains of one of the founding fathers of the Congolese nation for six decades,” said De Croo, who also offered apologies for the role played by his country in the assassination.
Congolese Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde said the return of the relic will be essential for the country’s national memory.
Lumumba’s daughter, Juliana, agreed with De Croo the handover was long overdue.
“Father, our hearts bled for 61 years.” she said during the official ceremony, speaking next to a coffin with a picture of her late father on top of it. “We, your children, your grandchildren and your great grandchildren, but also Congo, Africa and the world, we mourned your death without an eulogy.”
Later the coffin was brought outside and draped in a Congolese flag.
The relic’s return comes days after Belgium’s King Philippe expressed his “deepest regrets” for his country’s abuses in its African former colony, Congo.
In early June, the king on his first official trip to Congo told his legislature that Belgian colonial rule was unjustifiable and racist.
“Even though many Belgians invested themselves sincerely, loving Congo and its people deeply, the colonial regime itself was based on exploitation and domination,” stated the monarch during a joint session of parliament in Kinshasa. “This regime was one of unequal relations, unjustifiable in itself, marked by paternalism, discrimination and racism.”
Ten million Congolese were estimated to have died during the first 23 years of Belgium’s rule from 1885 to 1960 when King Leopold II ruled the Congo Free State as a personal fiefdom.
Villages that failed to keep up with rubber collection quotas were made to provide severed hands of natives instead.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was created in 1885 under Leopold II, annexed by Belgium in 1908 and finally secured its independence in 1960.
