{"id":1321,"date":"2020-08-21T10:46:27","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T10:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vor.org.ng\/?p=1321"},"modified":"2022-08-14T00:43:05","modified_gmt":"2022-08-14T00:43:05","slug":"patrice-lumumbas-teeth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ictnetworldltd.com\/newvor\/2020\/08\/21\/patrice-lumumbas-teeth\/","title":{"rendered":"PATRICE LUMUMBA\u2019S TEETH"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Femi Olugbile<\/strong><br \/>\n<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3189\" src=\"http:\/\/ictnetworldltd.com\/newvor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Femi-Olugbile-300x169-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/><br \/>\nOn the 17th of January 1961, shortly before midnight, Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo, was taken to an isolated spot in a forest, lined up against a tree and shot dead. So were two of his Ministers, one after another. The next day, worried that the execution might have been observed by some locals, the executioners exhumed the three bodies and took them to a more secluded spot near the border with Rhodesia. On the 21st of January 1961, the bodies were dug up yet again. Lumumba\u2019s body was cut up with a hacksaw and dissolved in concentrated sulfuric acid. The bones were ground up and scattered over a wide expanse of land to prevent any possibility of future identification. Two tiny items did not dissolve in the acid. When Belgian Police Commissioner Gerard Soete moved up close, he discovered that they were two of Lumumba\u2019s teeth. He picked them up, washed them in water, wrapped them in a piece of cloth, and put the tiny bundle in his pocket, to be kept as a souvenir. Fast forward to 2000. In a documentary screened on a German television channel, Police Commissioner Soete, now in comfortable retirement in his home country, described how he had disposed of the bodies of Lumumba and the other two Africans, but had kept two of the Prime Minister\u2019s teeth. He brought out the teeth and displayed them before the camera. On June 30, 2020, on the sixtieth anniversary of the independence of the Democratic Republic of Congo from Belgian colonial authority, Patrice Lumumba\u2019s daughter, Juliana Amato Lumumba wrote a letter to Belgium\u2019s monarch, King Philippe, demanding the return of her father\u2019s teeth. \u2018\u2026We, Lumumba\u2019s children, call for the just return of the relics of Patrice Emery Lumumba to the land of his ancestors\u2026The remains of Patrice Emery Lumumba are being used on the one hand as trophies by some of your fellow citizens, and on the other as funereal possession sequestered by your kingdom\u2019s judiciary.\u2019 Her father, she said, was a \u2018hero without a grave\u2019. She condemned \u2018vile statements made in Belgium about holding some of his remains\u2019. This was clearly in reference to an earlier incident when Soete\u2019s daughter proudly showed off a tooth which she said belonged to the Congolese leader during a newspaper interview. The Belgian nation, in the era of \u2018Black Lives Matter\u2019, was beginning to utter vague words of conciliation, without frontally admitting guilt or responsibility for its racism and rapacity on the African continent, especially in the \u2018Belgian Congo\u2019. On the same date as Juliana\u2019s letter, King Philippe released a statement, expressing, \u2018deep regrets\u2019 for the \u2018suffering and humiliation\u2019 the Congolese had been subjected to in under Belgian rule. Indeed, millions of Congolese had been killed or mutilated under the most savage conditions of slavery on rubber plantations belonging to Philippe\u2019s ancestor, the brutal King Leopold II. The Lumumba incident was one of the earliest drama pieces that highlighted the contradictions and hypocrisies of the Western world concerning colonialism, the independence of African nations, and the dangers the West perceived in allowing Africans to run their own affairs. Patrice Lumumba was born in July 1925 to a farmer\u2019s family in the Kasai province of \u2018Belgian Congo\u2019. After early education in Mission schools, he underwent a one-year training at a government post office training school. He took an interest in Philosophy and Literature and wrote Poetry with an anti-imperialist theme. He founded the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC). National elections came up. His party won. Lumumba\u2019s government was formally inaugurated on 24th June 1960, with Lumumba as Prime Minister. Independence Day was celebrated on 30th June 1960 at a ceremony attended by the world press and many international leaders, including King Baudouin of Belgium. Things quickly went awry from there. King Baudouin offended the African audience by lavishly praising the \u2018genius\u2019 of his great-uncle \u2013 Leopold II and glossing over his atrocities. Lumumba immediately rose to deliver an impromptu rebuttal. \u2018\u2026this Independence\u2026it was by fighting that it has been won\u2026a fight\u2026for which we gave our strength and our blood\u2026to put an end to the humiliating slavery which was imposed upon us by force\u2026\u2019 Europeans were shocked. Time magazine described Lumumba\u2019s speech as a \u2018venomous attack\u2019. Within a few days, disaster unfolded. Soldiers mutinied in different parts of the country. Trying to jump ahead of the chaos, Lumumba renamed the Army as the \u2018Armee Nationale Congolese\u2019 (ANC) and replaced the Belgian head with an indigenous officer. The State of Katanga under its ambitious leader Moise Tshombe declared independence, in open rebellion. Belgium intervened, sending in troops ostensibly to protect its citizens. Frantic, Lumumba appealed to the UN Security Council, who passed Resolution 143, calling for immediate withdrawal of Belgian forces and dispatch of UN Operation in the Congo (UNOC) troops to the Congo. The Prime Minister made a desperate foreign trip to New York and Washington. He wanted arms for his \u2018ANC\u2019 troops to counter the Katanga rebellion and widespread insurrection. He got none. In Accra, on his way back home, he signed a secret \u2018Union of African States\u2019 pact with Nkrumah. It was an inexorable downhill journey for Lumumba. He had threatened to appeal to the Soviet Union for assistance if he did not get help from the West. Europe and America, long suspicious, decided he was a \u2018communist\u2019 and a danger to their interests. President Eisenhower authorized the CIA to \u2018take him out\u2019. The UK government apparently gave similar instructions to MI6. Belgium, of course, always had it in for him. The rest of the story is well known. Mobutu\u2019s abetted coup. Lumumba was arrested, beaten up, and flown to the rebellious Katanga Province, where he was assassinated, and his body dissolved in acid. Now if only the Belgians could be prevailed upon to release Lumumba\u2019s teeth, his people could bury them in a coffin in a grave with the satisfaction that his spirit is finally home to rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Femi Olugbile On the 17th of January 1961, shortly before midnight, Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo, was&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[745],"tags":[282,283,121,284,285,286,287],"class_list":["post-1321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vor-opinion","tag-belgium","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-femi-olugbile","tag-king-philippe","tag-patrice-emery-lumumba","tag-patrice-lumumba","tag-patrice-lumumbas-teeth"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.7 - 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