AhlulBayt News Agency

source : Hausa TV
Saturday

23 October 2021

6:37:18 AM
1191223

Late African independence leader Patrice Lumumba commemorated in Iran

A ceremony was held in Tehran on Wednesday in honor of the late African independence leader and Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba at Iran’s Institute for Political and International Studies.

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): A ceremony was held in Tehran on Wednesday in honor of the late African independence leader and Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba at Iran’s Institute for Political and International Studies.

The ceremony was attended by Roland Lumumba, the eldest son and head of the Patrice Lumumba Foundation, as well as Iranian foreign ministry officials and African experts.

Lumumba served as the first prime minister of the independent Democratic Republic of the Congo, then called Republic of the Congo, from June to September 1960.

He played a significant role in the transformation of DR Congo from a colony of Belgium into an independent republic.

He also led the Congolese National Movement (MNC) party from 1958 until his assassination. Following his assassination, he was widely seen as a martyr for the wider Pan-African movement.

Lumumba's execution was carried out by a firing squad led by Belgian mercenary Julien Gat.

In the early 21st century, writer Ludo De Witte found written orders from the Belgian government that had requested Lumumba's execution, and documents on various arrangements, such as death squads. He published a book in 2003 about the assassination of Lumumba.

In 2002, Belgium formally apologized for its role in the assassination.

Lumumba's corpse were later dug up by Belgian Police Commissioner Gerard Soete, who admitted he cut the body with a hacksaw, and dissolved it in concentrated sulfuric acid.

The 2001 report by the Belgian Commission describes previous U.S. and Belgian plots to kill Lumumba.

Among them was a CIA-sponsored attempt to poison him, which was possibly ordered by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.