Latest news with #PatriceLumumba
DW
2 days ago
- Politics
- DW
Who killed Patrice Lumumba, DR Congo's first prime minister? – DW – 06/18/2025
For Juliana Lumumba, Patrice Lumumba wasn't just an independence leader and politician. He has her father. That's why she continues to call for the truth about Lumumba's assassination 64 years ago. For more than 60 years, Juliana Lumumba has had questions. Who murdered her father? How did the Americans help? What did the United Nations do? Did they stand idly by, even though he was under their protection? They are uncomfortable questions, political questions. And Juliana will not rest until she has answers. "You cannot be the child of Patrice Lumumba without this impacting your life" she says. Her gaze is composed as she looks out of the window of her house in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lumumba murder case could go to trial On June 17, the Belgian federal prosecutor's office announced that it has requested that the case in connection with the assassination of Juliana's father be referred to a Brussels criminal court. It follows more than a decade of investigation. On Congo's independence day in 1960, Patrice Lumumba spoke about the atrocities inflicted on Congolese people under Belgian colonial rule, angering King Baudouin (in white) Image: Belga/IMAGO The Belgian state is partly responsible for the murder. A 2001 parliamentary investigation established that King Baudouin, Belgium's then-monarch, knew about the assassination plan but did nothing to stop it. Juliana's brother Francois, the plaintiff in a 2011 complaint, accused the Belgian state of war crimes and torture, and of having been part of a conspiracy aimed at the political and physical elimination of his father. Lumumba fought for the Congo's independence On June 30, 1960, Patrice Lumumba freed the Congo from Belgian colonial rule and became the country's first prime minister. He promised democracy, prosperity and an end to the exploitation of Congolese minerals by foreign powers. But that never happened. The West – in particular Belgium and the US — opposed Lumumba's plans to nationalize Congo's raw materials and his proximity with the Soviet Union in the midst of the Cold War. On January 17, 1961, half a year after Lumumba was elected the first prime minister of a free Congo, Congolese separatists took him to the hostile province of Katanga – with Belgian and American blessing. Lumumba and two of his aides were shot in the forest under the command of Belgian officers. The facts only came to light thanks to investigations by the likes of Belgian sociologist and writer, Ludo De Witte, whose findings were detailed in his 2003 book, "The Assassination of Lumumba." Patrice Lumumba gives a press conference in Leopoldville in August 1960. He would be dead 5 months later at only 35. Image: AFP Another Belgian officer, Gerard Soete, sawed the bodies in pieces and dissolved them in sulfuric acid. Two teeth were all that remained of Lumumba. Soete kept them as a trophy. Juliana learned about this on television, in a 2000 report on a German broadcaster in which Soete himself recounted the details and held the teeth into the camera. This gruesome memory still angers Juliana. "How would you feel if they told you that your father was not only killed, buried, unburied, cut in pieces but they also took parts of his body?", she asks. "To many, he was the first prime minister of the Congo, a national hero. But for me, he's my father." Still fighting for the truth Years later, Juliana wrote a letter to the Belgian king demanding one of the teeth be returned. No one knows where the second one is. Soete had claimed that he had thrown it into the North Sea. He died shortly after, but later his daughter showed the golden tooth to a journalist. Ludo De Witte then sued her and Belgian authorities confiscated the remains. Lumumba's children at the ceremony in Brussels, receiving the last remains of their father Image: Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga/AFP In 2022, then prime minister Alexander de Croo returned the tooth to Lumumba's children at a ceremony in Brussels and apologized – unlike King Philippe, a direct descendant of King Baudouin, who did not utter the word "sorry." He merely expressed his "deepest regrets" for the violence inflicted on the Congolese people under Belgian rule. But apologies are not the point for Juliana. "It's not a problem of apology. It's a problem of truth. Verité," she says. "I need to know the truth." Growing up in exile When her father was murdered, Juliana was just five years old. She learned of it while in exile in Egypt. A few months before Lumumba's assassination, she and her siblings were smuggled out of their house in Congo, where their father was placed under house arrest, and taken to Cairo with fake passports. Patrice Lumumba knew he was going to die, Juliana says. He also hinted at it in his last letter to his wife. In Cairo, Lumumba's children grew up with Mohamed Abdel Aziz Ishak, a diplomat and friend of Lumumba. But they couldn't escape their own history. "We are a political family," says Juliana. "We came to Egypt for political reasons, hosted by President Nasser. Politics is the core of our lives, whether we like it or not." The children also entered politics. Juliana held various ministerial posts, and her brother Francois is the leader of the Congolese National Movement, the party his father founded. In 2022, Patrice Lumumba was finally laid to rest in a ceremony in Kinshasa Image: Samy Ntumba Shambuyi/AP Photo/picture alliance Juliana says that she always knew that her father's assassination was political, even when she was still a child in Cairo. The news of Lumumba's death in 1961 spread quickly in the city. "They set fire to the library of the American university and looted the Belgian embassy," she recalls. "People in the streets shouted 'Lumumba, Lumumba.'" Guilt, accountability and colonial continuities It wasn't until 1994, when Congo's Mobutu dictatorship was on the verge of collapse, that Juliana returned to her homeland after years in exile. This had been her father's wish. "He told us, no matter what happens, you have to come back home. So, when it was safe for us again, we came back home, where we belong," she says. Today, Juliana is less active in Congolese politics. She doesn't want to talk about the current situation, the conflict between the Congolese army and the rebel militia M23, or the ongoing exploitation of natural resources by Western nations, China, Rwanda, and other foreign powers. Juliana Lumumba, the daughter of Patrice Lumumba, wants justice for her father. Image: privat Nor does she want to speak about the potential trial in Brussels of the last living suspect who might have been complicit in her father's killing, 92-year-old Etienne Davignon. A former top Belgian diplomat, businessman and former vice-president of the European Commission, Davignon is the last of 10 Belgians who were accused of involvement in the murder in the 2011 lawsuit filed by the Lumumba children. With little progress in over six decades, Juliana is losing hope that someone will finally face justice for her father's death. "No one has been held accountable. No Belgian, no European, no Congolese. No white, no Black. Everybody agrees that there was an assassination. There is a crime. But nobody has done it," she says. On July 2, 2025, Patrice Lumumba would have been 100 years old. Edited by Stuart Braun
France 24
2 days ago
- France 24
HRW: 'The M23 armed group has deported over 1,500 people from eastern DRC to Rwanda'
13:12 Issued on: 13:12 min A new report by Human Rights Watch says that the M23 rebel group in eastern Congo has forcibly deported over 1,500 people to Rwanda. This act, which is allegedly backed by Rwanda, could constitute a war crime and has raised international alarm. Also, Over six decades after the assassination of Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba, Belgium is taking steps to put 92-year-old former diplomat Etienne Davignon on trial for his alleged involvement in the killing. And last month, the Central Bank of West African States blocked transactions from several fintech companies offering money transfer services, citing non-compliance with regulations. This has had a widespread impact: more than half of Senegal's population of 18 million use mobile payment apps, and Senegalese fintech companies claim to be incurring major losses as a result.
DW
2 days ago
- Politics
- DW
Who killed Patrice Lumumba? – DW – 06/18/2025
For Juliana Lumumba, he was not just a politician: Patrice Lumumba was her father. That's why she continues to demand the truth about an assassination for which no one has faced justice. For more than 60 years, Juliana Lumumba has had questions. Who murdered her father? How did the Americans help? What did the United Nations do? Did they stand by idly, even though he was under their protection? They are uncomfortable questions, political questions. And Juliana will not rest until she has answers. "You cannot be the child of Patrice Lumumba without this impacting your life" she says. Her gaze is composed as she looks out of the window of her house in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lumumba murder case could go to trial On June 17, the Belgian federal prosecutor's office announced that it has requested that the case in connection with the assassination of Juliana's father be referred to a Brussels criminal court. It follows more than a decade of investigation. On Congo's independence day in 1960, Patrice Lumumba spoke about the atrocities inflicted on Congolese people under Belgian colonial rule, angering King Baudouin (in white) Image: Belga/IMAGO The Belgiumstate is partly responsible for the murder. A 2001 parliamentary investigation established that King Baudouin, the then Belgian monarch, knew about the assassination plan but did nothing to stop it. Juliana's brother François, the plaintiff in a 2011 complaint, accused the Belgian state of war crimes and torture, and of having been part of a conspiracy aimed at the political and physical elimination of his father. Lumumba fought for the Congo's independence On June 30, 1960, Patrice Lumumba freed the Congo from Belgian colonial rule and became the country's first prime minister. He promised democracy, prosperity and an end to the exploitation of Congolese minerals by foreign powers. But that never happened. The West – in particular Belgium and the USA — were not fond of Lumumba's plans to nationalize Congo's raw materials. And certainly not of him cozying up with the Soviet Union in the midst of the Cold War. On January 17, 1961, half a year after Lumumba was elected the first prime minister of a free Congo, Congolese separatists took him to the hostile province of Katanga – with Belgian and American blessing. Lumumba and two of his aides were shot in the forest under the command of Belgian officers. The facts only came to light thanks to investigations by the likes of Belgian sociologist and writer, Ludo De Witte, whose findings were detailed in the 2003 book, "The Assassination of Lumumba." Patrice Lumumba gives a press conference in Leopoldville in August 1960. He would dead 5 months later. Image: AFP Another Belgian officer, Gérard Soete, sawed the bodies in pieces and dissolved them in sulfuric acid. Two teeth were all that remained of Lumumba. Soete kept them as a trophy. Juliana learned about this on television, in a 2000 report on a German broadcaster in which Soete himself recounted the details and held the teeth into the camera. This gruesome memory still angers Juliana. "How would you feel if they told you that your father was not only killed, buried, unburied, cut in pieces but they also took parts of his body?", she asks. "To many, he was the first prime minister of the Congo, a national hero. But for me, he's my father." Still fighting for the truth Years later, Juliana wrote a letter to the Belgian king demanding one of the teeth be returned. No one knows where the second one is. Soete had claimed that he had thrown it into the North Sea. He died shortly after, but later his daughter showed the golden tooth to a journalist. Ludo De Witte then sued her and Belgian authorities confiscated the remains. Lumumba's children at the ceremony in Brussels, receiving the last remains of their father Image: Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga/AFP In 2022, then prime minister Alexander de Croo returned the tooth to Lumumba's children at a ceremony in Brussels and apologized – unlike King Philippe, a direct descendant of King Baudouin, who apparently could not utter the word "sorry." He merely expressed his "deepest regrets" for the violence inflicted on the Congolese people under Belgian rule. But apologies are not enough for Juliana. "It's not a problem of apology. It's a problem of truth. Verité," she says. "I need to know the truth." Growing up in exile When her father was murdered, Juliana was just five years old. She learned of it while in exile in Egypt. A few months before Lumumba's assassination, she and her siblings were smuggled out of their house in Congo, where their father was placed under house arrest, and taken to Cairo with fake passports. Patrice Lumumba knew he was going to die, Juliana says. He also hinted at it in his last letter to his wife. In Cairo, Lumumba's children grew up with Mohamed Abdel Aziz Ishak, a diplomat and friend of Lumumba. But they couldn't escape their own history. "We are a political family, says Juliana. "We came to Egypt for political reasons, hosted by President Nasser. Politics is the core of our lives, whether we like it or not." The children also entered politics. Juliana held various ministerial posts, and her brother François is the leader of the Congolese National Movement, the party his father founded. In 2022, Patrice Lumumba was finally laid to rest in a ceremony in Kinshasa Image: Samy Ntumba Shambuyi/AP Photo/picture alliance Juliana says that she always knew that her father's assassination was political, even when she was still a child in Cairo. The news of Lumumba's death in 1961 spread quickly in the city. "They set fire to the library of the American university and looted the Belgian embassy," she recalls. "People in the streets shouted 'Lumumba, Lumumba.'" Guilt, accountability and colonial continuities It wasn't until 1994, when Congo's Mobutu dictatorship was on the verge of collapse, that Juliana returned to her homeland after years in exile. This had been her father's wish. "He told us, no matter what happens, you have to come back home. So, when it was safe for us again, we came back home, where we belong," she says. Today, Juliana is less active in Congolese politics. She doesn't want to talk about the current situation, the conflict between the Congolese army and the rebel militia M23, or the ongoing exploitation of natural resources by the Western nations, China, Rwanda, and other foreign powers. Juliana Lumumba, the daughter of Patrice Lumumba, in her home in Kinshasa Image: privat Nor does she want to speak about the potential trial in Brussels of the last living suspect who might have been complicit in her father's killing, 92-year-old Etienne Davignon. A former top Belgian diplomat, businessman and former vice-president of the European Commission, Davignon is the last of 10 Belgians who were accused of involvement in the murder in the 2011 lawsuit filed by the Lumumba children. With little progress in over six decades, Juliana is losing hope that someone will finally face justice for her father's death. "No one has been held accountable. No Belgian, no European, no Congolese. No white, no Black. Everybody agrees that there was an assassination. There is a crime. But nobody has done it," she says. On July 2, 2025, Patrice Lumumba would have been 100 years old. Edited by Stuart Braun
Business Insider
2 days ago
- Politics
- Business Insider
Belgian officials go after a 92-year-old diplomat for his role in the murder of Patrice Lumumba
Belgian prosecutors are looking to take Etienne Davignon (92), a former diplomat who was allegedly involved in the murder of the Congolese revolutionary, Patrice Lumumba. Belgian prosecutors are investigating Etienne Davignon's involvement in Patrice Lumumba's murder. Accusations center on unlawful detention and degrading treatment of Lumumba prior to his execution. Davignon was a trainee diplomat at the time and is the sole survivor among the suspects. According to the prosecutor's office, the accused was involved in the "unlawful detention and transfer" of the former Congolese head of state, who was wrongly imprisoned and subjected to "humiliating and degrading treatment". AFP news agency disclosed that Davignon is the only survivor of ten Belgians who are suspected of being engaged in Lumumba's assassination. He held the position of vice-chairman of the European Commission throughout the 1980s and was a trainee diplomat at the time of the killing. As reported by the BBC, in 2011, Lumumba's children filed a complaint in Belgium to seek justice for their father's murder at the age of 35. A hearing is scheduled for January 2026 to determine if he should go to trial. The news was welcomed by Juliana, Lumumba's daughter, who told Belgian network RTBF: "We're moving in the right direction. What we're seeking is, first and foremost, the truth." Life of Patrice Lumumba Patrice Lumumba, born in 1925 in the Belgian Congo, was a fierce anti-colonial leader and the first Prime Minister of an independent Congo. A powerful orator and visionary, he led the Congolese National Movement and played a central role in securing the country's independence from Belgium on June 30, 1960. His passionate Independence Day speech, in which he denounced the cruelty of Belgian colonialism, shocked Western leaders and marked him as a threat to foreign interests. Within months of independence, Congo descended into crisis. The mineral-rich Katanga province, backed by Belgian interests, declared secession. As Lumumba sought Soviet assistance to defend Congo's unity, Western powers, including the U.S. and Belgium, grew increasingly hostile. He was soon overthrown in a coup led by Colonel Joseph Mobutu, who had Western backing. Lumumba was arrested, humiliated, and eventually handed over to Katangan secessionists. On January 17, 1961, he was executed by firing squad alongside two allies. His body was dismembered and dissolved in acid to prevent a grave from becoming a rallying point. Foreign complicity in his death is widely acknowledged today. Patrice Lumumba remains a martyr of African liberation, his life and brutal killing symbolize the deep struggles Africa faced in shaking off the chains of colonialism.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Belgium seeking to try ex-official over killing of Congolese prime minister Lumumba
Over 60 years after the killing of the first Congolese prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, prosecutors in Belgium announced Tuesday they were looking to try the last of 10 Belgians accused of complicity in the murder of the iconic leader, in the European country's latest effort to reckon with its colonial past. Belgian prosecutors said Tuesday that they were seeking to put a 92-year-old former diplomat on trial over the 1961 killing of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. Etienne Davignon is the only one still alive among 10 Belgians who were accused of complicity in the murder of the independence icon in a 2011 lawsuit filed by Lumumba's children. If he goes on trial, Davignon would be the first Belgian official to face justice in the more than six decades since Lumumba was murdered. A fiery critic of Belgium's colonial rule, Lumumba became his country's first prime minister after it gained independence in 1960. But he fell out with the former colonial power and with the United States and was ousted in a coup a few months after taking office. He was executed on January 17, 1961, aged just 35, in the southern region of Katanga, with the support of Belgian mercenaries. His body was dissolved in acid and never recovered. Davignon, who went on to be a vice president of the European Commission in the 1980s, was a trainee diplomat at the time of the assassination. (FRANCE 24 with AFP) Read more on FRANCE 24 EnglishRead also:DR Congo inters independence hero Lumumba's remains after national homageRemains of Congolese independence leader Lumumba returned home
