Patrice Lumumba was assassinated more than 60 years ago, but his killing still hangs over the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Even for non-Congolese Africans, some born years after Lumumba’s death, his killing symbolises something traumatic – the suffocation of the pan-African liberation dream by western colonial forces.
Last week, after decades of avoidance and denial, there was an extraordinary development. A Belgian court ruled that a former Belgian diplomat, 93-year-old Étienne Davignon, will stand trial in connection with the killing.
