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jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
"A Brussels court ruled Tuesday that the retired diplomat, Étienne Davignon, must face war crimes charges over the killing of Mr. Lumumba. The ruling was the culmination of a criminal complaint that Mr. Lumumba’s children filed 15 years ago and a milestone in Belgium’s decadeslong effort to reckon with crimes committed during its brutal rule of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mr. Davignon is the only surviving member of a group of Belgian officials who prosecutors say organized the kidnapping and murder of Mr. Lumumba, as part of a coup against the newly elected government shortly after Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960. Belgian officials saw Mr. Lumumba as a rabble rouser who might tilt the country toward the Soviet Union."