Congo reports vandalism of Lumumba's Mausoleum holding gold-capped tooth

Congo’s government says the mausoleum of assassinated independence leader Patrice Lumumba has been vandalized, and 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 the glass doors were smashed Monday and the coffin containing the tooth was broken. It's not clear who was responsible, 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.