20, June 2022
Belgium returns Lumumba tooth to family 0
Belgium on Monday handed over the last remains of slain Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba — a tooth — to his family, turning a page on a grim chapter in its colonial past.
Chief prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw gave the relatives a small, bright blue box containing the tooth in a televised ceremony, and said legal action they had taken to receive the relic had delivered “justice”.
The tooth was placed in a casket that was then draped in the flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which celebrates Lumumba, who was murdered by separatists and Belgian mercenaries in 1961, as an anti-colonial hero.
Lumumba’s assassination — and the brutal history of Belgian control of the Congo — have been enduring sources of pain between the two countries.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo reiterated that his country’s authorities bore a “moral responsibility” over the killing.
“I would like, in the presence of his family, to present in my turn the apologies of the Belgian government,” he said.
“A man was murdered for his political convictions, his words, his ideals.”
Lumumba’s son Francois told Belgium’s RTBF broadcaster that his relatives had been waiting “more than 60 years” for this event.
“I think it will provide solace for the family and the Congolese people,” he said.
“We are opening a new page in history.”
A fiery critic of Belgium’s rapacious rule, Lumumba became his country’s first prime minister after it gained independence in 1960.
But he fell out with the former colonial power and the United States and was ousted in a coup a few months after taking office.
He was executed on January 17 1961, aged just 35, in the southern region of Katanga, with the support of Belgian mercenaries.
His body was dissolved in acid and never found.
But the tooth was kept as a trophy by one of those involved, a Belgian police officer.
The tooth was seized by Belgian authorities in 2016 from the daughter of the policeman, Gerard Soete, after Lumumba’s family filed a complaint.
‘National mourning’
The casket containing the tooth is set to be flown back to the DRC where it will be officially laid to rest at a memorial site.
The country is set to hold three days of “national mourning” from 27 to 30 June — its 62nd anniversary of independence — to mark the burial ceremony.
Lumumba’s older son Francois filed a complaint in Belgium in 2011, pointing the finger of responsibility for his father’s killing at a dozen Belgian officials and diplomats.
The investigation for “war crimes” is still ongoing but only two of the targeted officials are still alive.
A Belgian parliamentary commission of enquiry in 2001 concluded that Belgium had “moral responsibility” for the assassination and the government presented the country’s “apologies” a year later.
De Croo said Belgian officials “chose not to see, chose not to act” to stop the killing, even if they had not directly intended it to happen.
Lumumba’s children were also received Monday by Belgium’s King Philippe, who this month travelled to DR Congo to express his “deepest regrets” over the colonial past.
Historians say that millions of people were killed, mutilated or died of disease as they were forced to collect rubber under Belgian rule. The land was also pillaged for its mineral wealth, timber and ivory.
Source: AFP
21, June 2022
Arrest Warrant for Hon. Joshua Osih: Understanding why the SDF man is now Ambazonia’s most wanted 0
A warrant has been issued in the Southern Cameroons for the arrest of Hon. Joshua Nambangi Osih, the vice-chairman of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) party. The warrant comes after Mr Osih insisted in an interview that “the US must implement the international arrest warrants issued by the State of Cameroon to put the financiers of Ambazonian Terrorism out of harm’s way.”
Mr Osih, who has consistently fulfilled his credentials as a halfwit with extremely vile inclinations, committed the offence during a live interview on Canal 2 International last Sunday, 19 June 2022. He is now wanted in Ambazonia to answer charges.
Reacting to this latest premeditated criminal incitement from Joshua Osih, a senior Southern Cameroons academic, said, “this man is not only dull. He is a simpleton and a stark illiterate to think for one moment that his despotic and terrorist French Cameroun state can simply send a so-called arrest warrant to America or any other state requiring the Cameroun regime’s political opponents to be handed over to that regime for assassination. He is the prototype of a big fool.”
Thoughtlessness has always been Joshua Osih’s Achilles heel. Last year, he accused the US of harbouring Southern Cameroonians, whom he blames for his domestic political troubles. He wrote, “Does America provide safe harbour and anchor for the financiers, propagandists, and sponsors of the war? Resounding YES!….we urge members of the United States Congress to engage more vigorously to ensure compliance with the international conventions against transnational crime and criminality to which the United States is a signatory and to ensure that their country is not a safe haven for perpetrators and funders of acts of extreme violence and terrorism on the people of Cameroon”.
Before yesterday’s warrant was issued, Cameroon Concord News had gathered that, over the last 18 months, Mr Osih had been wanted in Ambazonia for racketeering, malicious communication, and the possession of inappropriate material on a handheld mobile communication device. Mr Osih, who last year founded CAMPORT Plc in Douala, a private security company, is rumoured to be profiteering from the war in Ambazonia by sponsoring criminal militias operating in the Southern Cameroons. His day to face Amba justice is now near.
For those who know him, the worry is that his mouth seems to always set off before his mind, and he is prone to causing damage whenever he speaks. This flaw in his character means he keeps committing the same blunders year after year. But the worry for him now is that Ambazonia Intelligence Services are hot on his heels.
Mr Osih lacks intellectual gravity and personal honesty. He is a practiced liar, and his career path is paved with deception and corruption. As an SDF politician, he has been able to practice dishonesty unchecked. And his comments about Ambazonia leaders in the US show how out of touch he is.
Hon. Osih is yet to offer tangible solutions to tackle the war in Southern Cameroons. His SDF party is now a chaotic outfit, unequal to the severe challenges the two Cameroons face. The SDF’s attempts to abdicate responsibility for the war in Ambazonia revealed their duplicity. The SDF is a CPDM ally and asset. The top leadership of the SDF is emotionally bankrupt and socially and culturally detached from the pain and suffering of the people of Southern Cameroons.
The conflict in Southern Cameroons remains neglected within the international community. The Norwegian Refugee Council highlighted the conflict as the “most neglected” in the world last year after over 30,000 deaths, more than 1.5 million internally displaced, with over 100,000 refugees in camps in Nigeria. The United States has a critical role in stopping the war in Ambazonia through an internationally supervised negotiation. Southern Cameroons leaders particularly the Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government Dabney Yerima have always expressed their readiness to engage in genuine and inclusive dialogue with the Francophone regime in Yaoundé. But, Osih and Fru Ndi have always made matter intractable and a peaceful outcome impossible.
Genuine SDF members must know that their party has lost its way in the two Cameroons. To regain authority and credibility, the SDF needs new leadership and direction. And characters like Joshua Osih must not be near the top, for he is a huge liability, and his arrest will do both Cameroons enormous good.
By Isong Asu
Senior Political Researcher,
Cameroon Concord News Group, London