The most dramatic and weird international event this month, June 2022, is, without a doubt, the returning by Belgium to the Democratic Republic of Congo of a tooth that was stolen after the assassination of first Prime Minister Patrice Emery Lumumba 61 years ago.

During a June 20 ceremony at the Royal Egmont Palace in Brussels, Lumumba’s daughter, Juliana, who was only five years old when her father was abducted, tortured and killed in 1961, thanked the Belgian Government for returning his remains, in a rather sombre reference to that little item. She was accompanied by her two brothers, Francois and Roland. Belgian King Philippe met with the Lumumba siblings.

Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said the Belgian government had accepted “moral responsibility” for Lumumba’s macabre killing.

“A man was murdered for his political convictions, for his ideals. As a democrat and a liberal, I cannot accept this,” the premier said.

On June 30, 2020, Juliana sent a letter to King Philippe during the “Black Lives Matter” protests that followed the May 2020 killing by police of George Floyd in Minneapolis, United States, asking for her father’s remains.

This is the latest twist in the continuing story of Patrice Lumumba, who has remained in the news for six decades. The popular bespectacled Congolese independence leader’s tooth was stolen by a Belgian police officer after he had been executed and before his body was dissolved in sulphuric acid in 1961. Katanga secessionists committed the heinous crime.

The police officer had secretly hidden the slain leader’s two teeth as a trophy. Though the Belgian authorities returned one tooth, in a gesture that was welcomed by Lumumba’s family, daughter Juliana said that was not enough.

Some 61 years later, Lumumba’s killers remain unpunished.

His killing sparked global outrage, instantly turning him into a national hero and a symbol of the dashed hopes of a post-independent Africa. This has been captured in a number of moving songs by Congolese and international musicians.

The circumstances of his death remain unclear today, but Belgium, according to the latest media reports, has admitted its responsibility in the killing, but did not name the culprits. However, his family has vowed to continue the fight for the truth about his assassination.

The Lumumba tragedy was keenly followed elsewhere in Africa, as Lumumba became a continental hero. Like Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Toure, many parents in Kenya named their children after Lumumba. Prominent Kenyan lawyer PLO Lumumba bears both his names – with Patrick being the English version of the French Patrice. Institutions, streets and estates are also named after him, including  Nairobi’s Jericho (Lumumba) and Lumumba Drive in Roysambu.

Ultimate price

Just a year before his death, the Congolese, particularly in the capital, Leopoldville (renamed Kinshasha in 1966), had ushered in independence under Prime Minister Lumumba, dancing to the song, The Independence Cha-Cha, composed by Joseph Kabasele, better known as the Grand Kalle. The leader would later pay the ultimate price for fighting for his country’s freedom. However, his name remains immortalised in the songs that told the tragic story.

Lumumba was seized with his two companions and executed by the breakaway Katanga troops supervised by Belgian officers. 

He penned a moving letter to his wife before he was executed. “Don’t cry for me, my partner. I know that my country, which has suffered so much, will find a way to defend its independence and its freedom. Long live the Congo! Love Live Africa!” – Patrice Lumumba.

Shortly afterwards, Franco Luambo Makiadi of OK Jazz, who would later dominate the Congolese music scene for more than three decades, composed the song, Liwa ya Emery, Lingala for the death of Emery, which was Lumumba’s middle name.

Five years later, at the direction of Mobutu Sese Seko, who had seized power in a coup, Franco released another song, Lumumba a National Hero. In it, the band and the people mourned the death of the martyr.

Other remarkable tributes to Lumumba were by South African songstress and freedom struggle heroine Miriam Makeba, who is also fondly remembered for her song, Pata Pata, and a rendition of the Kenyan hit, Malaika. She released the song, Lumumba, in 1974. Other renowned musicians, including Americans, wrote songs praising him as a charismatic leader, who died too soon.

Ivorian reggae star Alpha Blondy would later also sing that the “fire is still burning”. Also notable are an Argentinian reggae band founded in 1998, simply known as Lumumba. Duke Lumumba, a Ghanaian star, who worked with Nigerian Fela Kuti, released an album in 1974.

Patrice, who was born on July 2 in Kasai Province in 1925, and died on January 17, 1961, spoke Tetela, French, Lingala, Kiswahili and Tshiluba.

Military crisis

He served as the Prime Minister from June to September 1960. Shortly after independence, a mutiny broke out in the army, a military crisis that led to Lumumba’s assassination. He had appealed to the US and United Nations to help end a Belgian-supported secession in Katanga Province led by Moise Tshombe. Both refused, as they considered him a communist. He then turned to the Soviet Union for help and the CIA targeted him. Mobutu, then the army chief, would then stage a military coup, deposing President Joseph Kasavubu. The US has been fingered as having sponsored the plot to kill Lumumba.

He gained international recognition with a university and streets overseas named after him. Besides Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, Raul Paek’s film titled, Death of a Prophet, has been screened worldwide. Lumumba, who died at the age of 35, has also been likened to Jesus Christ, who was crucified at 33. Both men were publicly humiliated before suffering painful deaths.

The surrender of Lumumba’s tooth to his family this week brings some little closure to the gruesome story of European colonialism, and vested post-independence interests, as savagely executed by Belgium and the US.

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