5 March 2002
interview
Recently the Belgian government publicly acknowledged its involvement in the assassination of late Patrice Lumumba, and openly apologised to the Lumumba family, and the people of Congo. H.E. Jozef Smets is the Belgian Ambassador to Nigeria, and in this interview with Musa Aliyu and Abubakar Jibrin of our Foreign Desk, he speaks on Belgium's open acknowledgement of its role in Lumumba's assassination, Nigeria-Belgian relations and more. Excerpts.
Your Excellency, how would you react to the acceptance of invol- vement in the assas- sination of Patrice Lumumba by Belgium, and the apology it tendered over the issue, including the monetary compensation it prom- ised the family of the late Congolese Prime min- ister?
Very positively. I think that I have something to say because before being made an ambassador to Nigeria, I was a consul general in the Democratic Republic of Congo. More precisely in Lubumbashi, the area where Mr. Patrice was murdered 40 years ago. I think it is a good process if we, a former colonial country, want to start again on clean and honest relations with a country like Congo. We have to talk about the past, and we have to talk about what went wrong in the past. It is clear that something went wrong. I thought it was rather courageous of the Belgian authorities to create a parliamentary enquiry commission. That commission worked very seriously. I can tell you that, because I was still in Congo as a diplomat, when they started their work. We assisted when some other Congolese people who were present in the area of the assassination, were flown to Belgium to testify before the commission. It was really a very serious thing. I am rather proud of the fact that we are capable now of being honest, and to confess our responsibility in this, and to present excuses to members of the Patrice Lumumba family who were also present in Belgium when the results of the commission were published. The sons of Lumumba were there and they also read a statement, which was very constructive. It was not a revenge statement in any way. They also acknowledged that a lot of things went wrong in Congo after independence, and that there was chaos. They were very constructive. I think it was something, which has to happen so that we can view the past in an open and honest way and take up responsibility. I am positive about it. It is something good.
Apart from the apology and financial compensation to the family of Lumumba, what else is the Belgian government doing for the Congolese people, to alleviate the physical and pyschological trauma they have had to live with since Lumumba's death?
Again like I said, after 40 years the family is not caught in the mentality of revenge.
Now what we did was to create funds which will award scholarships to be renewed every year, to young Congolese to study democracy, conflict prevention, human rights and the rule of law. Quite a lot of money is involved. We know that in the past, a lot of things went wrong. We know the history of colonial time. A lot of things also went wrong after independence in Congo, and unfortunately the country is still in the middle of war. I think my government wants to invest in the future of Congo. You look at the past, what went wrong and who was responsible, and also look at what we are going to do in the future. Are we going to play the odd games of the past? No! Belgium has changed, Congo has changed, and the world has changed.
What we can do for Congo is to help them to establish their peace, to end the war, and to invest and work for democracy in that country. Right now, we have a government that is very engaged in that process. My minister of foreign affairs has been to the region so many times, and he is pushing as much as he can.
My prime minister was recently in Congo, you know we try to do what we can, but we are a small European nation. We try to push our European partners into launching once more, the European co-operation programme with Congo. The co-operation was stopped because of a dictatorship, and because of related problems in Congo. We decided together with our European partners to start it again, saying we must give to this young Congolese government a chance, before we say it is doing this in the wrong manner, or that this is not good. We must at least help it to take off. At the same time we will push as much as we can, at the international level, to stop that war and the occupation of Congo.
So, I think our message is that we want to be honest about the wrong doings of the past. Let's now help Congo in terms of the future. That is the best compensation you can give.
Did your country tender the apology as an acceptance of guilt, or just to put an end to the mystery surrounding Lumumba's assassination, and the accusations and counter accusations that trailed it?
Gentlemen it will be so good if I hand over to you a copy of the commission's conclusions. But I have requested from my ministry, and it was presented about two days ago to the parliament and to the press. But I don't have a copy here.
Of course we acknowledged our part of the responsibility in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba very clearly. Because we felt that Lumumba was in danger, and he was given into the hands of his Congolese enemies. We knew that they were going to kill him. But we did nothing to stop it. So this is a way of cleaning our hands, knowing that it was going to happen. So, the government of Belgium acknowledged this, and said that we were hypocrites at that time. We were not honest enough to save this man. One of Lumumba's Congolese enemies was Mr. Mobutu, who was later to become Congo's President. He was Lumumba's secretary, but at that time he was already preparing to take over. You know that is another dirty part of the game. But our officials said that we were wrong. The interesting part is that all the archives have been opened, you know some of these archives were secret. Some of them were at the royal palace. As you know we are a monarchy, and the King was also very much interested in the Congolese effort. Some of them were with the army and the military. Some of the archives were in the ministry of Foreign Affairs. So for the first time, everything was brought out, and the commission had access to so much information. Let me give you one example. A book written by one of the key persons at that time, was not handed over to the commission. They sent the police, and the police immediately took possession of this document, and handed it over to the commission. So it was very tough.
Now that we have a set of Congolese seeking a new awakening through the leadership of Joseph Kabila, what message do you have for them?
As I told you, I have strong personal links with Congolese people, and with that country, and I am not the only one. So basically our philosophy is that we must give the young leader a very serious chance. We think the young Kabila is a very serious gentleman. He belongs to the new generation. There was the time of Lumumba, there was the time of Mobutu, and there was also the time of Mobutu, and there was also the time of Laurent Kabila, who belonged to the time of 60s and the 70s which was just after independence. Now that there is a new generation, what we try to do is to give them confidence, and to help them financially.
The country is on the ground, the economy is completely down, and we cannot expect that they do miracles. You cannot expect that they install the rule of law, democracy, perfect democracy, or any thing without giving them the means, and without being liberated. Don't forget that about 35 or 40 per cent of the national territory is occupied.
So give them help first. Secondly, intervene very, very actively in handling this war. A new chapter on the peace talks is going on in South Africa's Sun City. We are the main financial contribution to facilitate these talks. These people have to be flown in from everywhere, for instance, from rebel held territory, from exile in Kinshasa etc. So we try to push them as much as we can. We had close contacts with the Nigerian authorities, to see if together we could help our Congolese friends with their peace process. I think it is very important to have Nigeria involved in these talks. We cannot do it alone, anyway. We simply cannot do it alone.
With Brussels being the EU capital, given the controversy over the newly introduced "Euro', what has unity been like among EU members?
This step has been tremendous. About 10 or 11 countries suddenly dropped their currencies. These currencies were among the world's strongest and most respected. I am talking about the German 'Mark' for instance. They suddenly abandoned and substituted it with the 'euro'. It is a huge challenge, and everybody says it seems that it will succeed. It is also a huge challenge for those countries that decided not to take part. They are not obliged. UK, Sweden, Denmark who are members of the EU have decided not to adopt 'euro' as their currency. I think this is an aspect of national sovereignty. Some of them seem to say, may be, shortly or in a few years time, they will join. It is a very strong thing, which happened. It means your central bank has no autonomy anymore to decide about your monetary policy.
Another big challenge as your question suggests, is the enlargement of the EU. There are about 12 countries lining up to join the EU. In that case we will be moving up from 15-member states to 27. Here in Nigeria we (EU ambassadors) meet on monthly basis. We are going to create one bloc. It's now, for instance, a rule that every national language can be used in European documents, and there are over 20 languages to translate the documents into.
What is the EU doing towards resolving the Middle East crises?
The European position regarding the Middle East is a common position based on what the individual member states think or do. There might be slight differences from one country to another. But you have noticed that our position is that we think that a very balanced approach is necessary. We have since 1980 said that a Palestinian state is a necessity, and that we would like to recognise it. We have very intense relations and contacts, not only with the Israeli government, but also the Palestinian leadership. We are approaching them in a very balanced way. We do not share the American position, which at the moment, is very critical of the Palestinian leadership. We think that both sides should make a strong effort and we have voiced our disapproval with what is presently going on there. There is the need to encourage both sides towards the path of peace.
Recently the European leaders, particularly the Belgian leadership voiced some criticism of the American approach to the fight against terrorism. We think, and we want to say to our American friends, that you cannot fight it only the military way. You must look at the root of the problem, the basis of the problem. In the Middle East for instance, Palestine and Israel have had this problem for more than 40 years. The Palestinians have no independent state. The action of radicals could have been responsible for terrorism. So the problem of the Middle East should be resolved.
We are not in favour of confrontation with countries like Iran and Iraq. We don't believe that a confrontational approach should be the only one solution to the matter.
Strong and good diplomacy is also necessary. We keep in touch with the Palestinian leadership. There is no way we are going to isolate them.
So what is the specific position of the EU on America's push against the so-called 'axis of evil'?
I think I have in way answered this question. Of course there is the fundamental will to stop violence and terrorism. There are a very few countries who wouldn't want these things to stop. Violence leads to nothing but more problems. So it must be stopped.
Indeed, we are among the group of Europeans who say that the military approach is not the only way. What is going on in Palestine is not terrorism, but a liberalisation struggle. I mean these people fighting for their independence. So that is not terrorism. You have to be careful in assessing the word 'terrorism'. You cannot use it for every situation whenever you have problems. So we will like to convince our American partners that there should be another approach.
Regarding the 'axis of evil", France, Germany and a few others do not want to go along with the US. What is the Belgian position?
The same. The same. My government voiced the same opinion.
What is your assessment of the Nigerian Belgian relations?
Last year was a breakthrough because we had the visit of President Olusegun Obasanjo to Belgium in July. Our relations have been quite successful. In November last year we had a trade fair in Lagos, and in June this year, a Belgian trade mission will be coming to Abuja and Lagos.
Our bilateral trade is quite intensive, but still Nigeria is a minor trading partner for Belgium. Since 1999, a relationship, which I described as warm, has seen more bilateral visits than during the Abacha regime.
We would like to sign an investment protection agreement with Nigeria. Your president has said that he would like to have more Belgian investments in Nigeria. We urge the Nigerian government to sign such an agreement, and we are working on that. I hope that I can contribute to this new climate.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2002 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
