Hundreds gathered in a huge square for the occasion, waving flags and watching a large photo of Lumuba, with his trademark glasses on his horn and side hair, framed by white flowers. Lumuba was assassinated on January 17, 1961 in the southeastern province of Katanga after being ousted as prime minister last year, just months after the Liberal Democratic Party’s independence from Belgium. A banner reading “Thank you very much, national hero” was hung over the crowd, which included the president of the neighboring Republic of the Congo, Dennis Sassu Ngeso, the Belgian foreign minister and several African ambassadors. “Finally, the Congolese people can be honored to offer a burial to their eminent Prime Minister,” said President Félix Tshisekedi. “We are ending the mourning we started 61 years ago.” The funeral was held on the 62nd anniversary of the independence of the Central African country. That day, Lumumba gave a fiery speech condemning the 75-year-old Congolese colonization of Belgium. Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister, Lumuba, has worried the West with approaches to Moscow at the height of the Cold War. His government lasted only three months before he was overthrown and assassinated. Supporters and some historians accuse the CIA of meddling. A Belgian parliamentary inquiry into Lumuba’s murder concluded in 2002 that Belgium was “morally responsible” for his death. Subscribe to the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7 p.m. BST The body was never found. The only tooth left was allegedly taken by a Belgian police officer, Gerard Soete, who claimed that he had dissolved much of the corpse in acid and burned the rest. King Philip of Belgium visited the DRC for the first time this month and handed over the tooth to the Lumuba family on June 20th. “Your return home, the prices you receive here is a page in the story you continue to write,” one of his granddaughters said in a letter to Lumumba she read at the funeral. “With you today, Africa is writing its own story.”
