The last hour of the late, great Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Dem. Rep. of Congo, before he was killed in 1961.

He was tied to a tree, shot by a firing squad, buried, exhumed, reburied again, exhumed, hacked into pieces then dissolved in sulphuric acid.

The details

The man who dissolved Patrice Lumumba in sulphuric acid, Belgian Police Commissioner Gerard Soete, confirmed that he did the act to AFP on 15th May, 2002.

He even kept relics or souvenir, two of Lumumba's teeth, fingers, bullets lodged in his body.

This was Lumumba when he was captured by officers loyal to Mobutu, who he made the chief of army staff, before he was flown down to the Katanga province to meet his death by the Belgians.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo never remained the same afterwards.

When the Katanga and Belgian killers decided to confirm his death, lying that Lumumba escaped and was killed by villagers, protests immediately broke out in 30 MAJOR WORLD CITIES - including ALL Eastern Europe capitals - over Lumumba's death.

Even the UN was not spared.

Lumumba's hatred by the Belgians started during DRC's Independence celebrations (30-6-1960), when the Belgian King extolled Leopold II, who massacred about 10 million Congolese during his brutal reign.

Lumumba then delivered an unexpected speech that totally embarrassed the King

The full text of Lumumba's Independence speech that totally embarrassed the King of Belgium.

The speech was widely extolled as not only brave, but the most frank granted by any African leader during independence celebrations.

Malcolm X loved it.

After all the information made public on Lumumba's death, especially by Soete, the Belgian Parliament set up an enquiry.

It concluded that Belgium bears a ''moral responsibility'' for the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba in a report published on November 17, 2001.

Excerpts