DR Congo Says Mausoleum Holding Independence Hero Lumumba’s Gold-capped Tooth is Vandalized

FILE - Workers stand by a memorial for Democratic Republic of the Congo independence hero Patrice Lumumba, in Kinshasa, Congo, June 20, 2022. (AP Photo/Samy Ntumba Shambuyi, File)

By JEAN-YVES KAMALE and MARK BANCHEREAU

11:00 AM EST, November 19, 2024

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Congo’s government says the mausoleum of assassinated independence leader Patrice Lumumba in the capital, Kinshasa, has been vandalized. It’s not immediately clear whether Lumumba’s remains — a single gold-capped tooth — were damaged or stolen.

A mausoleum curator told the national press agency that the coffin containing the tooth was broken Monday.

The glass doors were smashed and four suspects were arrested, the deputy mayor of the neighborhood where the mausoleum is located told the country’s main radio channel. He added that he couldn’t confirm whether the tooth was stolen or not.

It’s not clear who was responsible for the act of vandalism, Congo’s ministry of culture said in a statement Tuesday.

The return of Lumumba’s tooth from former colonizer Belgium in 2022 had been celebrated around Congo, with the tooth taken around the vast country so people could pay their respects.

Lumumba is widely hailed as the nationalist activist who helped to end colonial rule. He became Congo’s first prime minister and was seen as one of Africa’s most promising new leaders, but he was assassinated within a year in 1961. His body was dismembered and dissolved with acid in an apparent effort to keep any grave from becoming a pilgrimage site.

For many in Congo, Lumumba is a symbol of the positive developments the country could have achieved after its independence. Instead, it became mired in decades of dictatorship that drained its vast mineral riches.

Historians say Lumumba was a victim of the Cold War. He promoted leftist policies, and when he reached out to the Soviet Union for help in putting down a secessionist movement in the mineral-rich Katanga region, he fell out of favor with Belgium and the United States.

A military coup toppled Lumumba, and he was arrested, jailed and later killed. His assassination, blamed on separatists, cleared the way for the rise of Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled the country he later renamed Zaire for decades with support from Western powers until his death in 1997.

Even though Lumumba’s killers were Congolese, questions have persisted over the complicity of Belgium and the United States because of his perceived Communist ties.

His one remaining tooth was kept by the Belgian police commissioner who oversaw the destruction of his body. In 2016, the tooth was seized by Belgian officials from the police commissioner’s daughter.

The tooth was returned to Congo after the visit of Belgium’s King Philippe, who expressed regrets for his nation’s abuses in Congo when it was a Belgian colony.