The Last Trail of Lumumba
- On January 17, 1961, Patrice Lumumba, an anti-colonialist leader, was murdered, who crumbled his body in acid and ended his life. 60 years later, the only remaining remains, a tooth, have been returned to the family. So, Lumumba will have her own grave.
Born 17 January 1961 (Katanga, current Democratic Republic of the Congo). The anti-colonialist leader and first head of democratic government of the Democratic Independent Republic of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, was murdered. It was later learned that in the execution, in addition to the representatives of Katanga, there were also members of the Belgian intelligence and the cia.
Lumumba was Prime Minister of Congo between June and September 1960, from the country's independence from Belgium, until Mobutu was expelled from power by a coup d'état in June and September 1960. Lumumba fled and tried to concentrate forces on his defense, but was arrested on 1 December by the police. The death sentence had been imposed on him beforehand. After the UN refused to support the elected Prime Minister, on 26 August, the CIA Director, Allen Dulles, sent the following telegram to the agents in Congo: “We have decided that our most important goal is to eliminate it and that, in the current situation, it has a high priority in our secret action.” And “eliminating” meant not only killing Lumumba, but also leaving no trace of her. The day after his death,
The body of Lumumba was disintegrated into acid, according to Belgian former policeman Gerard Soete, 52, confessed in 2000. Soet was ordered to destroy Lumumba's fingerprints and assured 40 years after he had discovered the body and put it in acid. He also said that he had kept two teeth and showed them on a German television show. Soete died the following year and the subject remained silent until in 2016 his daughter decided to take him out into the media. Then, the Belgian justice ordered that the house of Soete be searched, in which a tooth was located and requested in a precipitate manner.
In January 2020, the sons of Lumumba wrote a letter to King Philip I of Belgium in which they returned the tooth, the last of his father, saying: “Our father disappeared from the world of the living to live among us, but always in a cold way (…) In order for our family to follow his footsteps and receive the precious heritage of his talent, his courage and his brave patriotic virtue, we must bury in the eternal grave what unfortunately disappeared.”
The examining magistrate in charge of the case, after receiving approval from the Prosecutor’s Office, decided in September 2020 to hand the tooth over to the family and, after 60 years, Lumumba will have his own grave.
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