In an ironic twist of history, Munongo was the grandson of King Msiri. In 1891, Belgian mercenaries dispatched by Leopold had assassinated Msiri to take control of Katanga, and exactly seventy years later, Msiri’s grandson joined with the Belgians to assassinate Lumumba and hand Katanga back to the Belgians. After torturing Lumumba for hours, Tshombe and the Belgians shot him dead. They chopped up the body and threw the parts into barrels of sulfuric acid. Lumumba’s skull, bones, and teeth were ground to dust and scattered on the drive back, save just one tooth, taken as a souvenir by the
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