Congo Independence Day
Today we celebrate the Congo Independence Day – the day marks the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s independence from the brutal colonial rule of Belgium on 30 June 1960. We celebrate as well Patrice Lumumba the first prime minister of the First Congolese Republic. Lumumba was murdered by the colonial western powers on the 17 January 1961. A murder that is very reminiscent of the murder of the Swedish UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld later in 1961 during the Congo Crisis and the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986.
Between 1885 and 1908, many atrocities were committed in the Congo Free State under the rule of King Leopold II of Belgium, and millions of the natives were murdered. The first international protest occurred in 1890 and led to coining “crimes against humanity” later a key concept in international law. It has also been discussed as Genocide.
In the book Heart of Darkness (1899), a novel by Joseph Conrad, in which sailor Charles Marlow tells the story. Marlow meets a Swedish captain while traveling up a river, inviting him up to the bridge, who tells another Swede he has been a guest on the boat and that man had hung himself.
Swedish lieutenant worst
Military personnel from the Swedish army would be the third most numerous nationality in Leopold II’s army of terror. The Swedes became known by the native people as the most cruel soldiers in the atrocities. Lieutenant Knut Jakob Theodor Svensson (1863-1898) from the Dalregementet, called the lion by the natives, opened fire at the entire population of villages. The Swedish King Oscar II was awarding many of the homecoming officers from Congo with För tapperhet i fält (for valour on the battlefield) and the Royal Order of the Sword.
Lumumba Vea – a fan in football
A fan of the national football team Michel Kuka Mboladinga from the Democratic Republic of the Congo is standing motionless during football matches as a statue sometimes with a raised arm, an artistic performance in homage to Patrice Lumumba – copying the pose of the Patrice Lumumba statue in Kinshasa. Search videos with “Lumumba Vea” to view the artist in action.
Moyogo, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Tomorrow, on 1st July, Congo will meet England but that is another story.
Source: Gardell, Carl Johan (11 oktober 2007). ”Svensk löjtnant värst i Leopolds plundrarstat” Svenska Dagbladet (eng., “Swedish lieutenant worst in the Leopold’s terror state”).