The King of the Belgians Philippe arrives this Tuesday, June 7 afternoon in Kinshasa for his first official visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), against a backdrop of work of memory and reconciliation between Belgium and its former colony.
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The sovereign, his wife Mathilde and the accompanying government delegation are to be welcomed at N’Djili International Airport by DRC President Félix Tshisekedi, his wife and various state and political institutions mobilized for the occasion. This royal visit, the first since that in 2010 of Albert II, father of Philippe, has been twice postponed, in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic then at the beginning of this year because of the war triggered by the Russia in Ukraine. It has a strong symbolic significance, two years after the king, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the independence of the former Belgian Congo, expressed in a letter to Félix Tshisekedi his “deepest regrets” for the “injuriesof colonization, a historic first.
The sovereign, who has reigned since 2013, had regretted the “acts of violence and crueltycommitted at the time when his ancestor Leopold II had made the Congo his personal property (1885-1908), before the half-century of presence of the Belgian State in the immense country of Central Africa. “There were regrets, it’s the start of a new partnership that will go on to consolidate“, estimated Monday evening in Kinshasa in front of the press the spokesman of the Congolese government, Patrick Muyaya, during a briefing devoted to this visit. “We don’t forget the past, we look to the future“, he added, welcoming the “strengthened relationships” with Belgium, when they were “in the past on the verge of breaking“. “I think that sometimes, in order to build a good future, you have to face the pastBelgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo also told RTBF.
New life”
The king’s trip will include three stages: Kinshasa first, with in particular a visit to the national museum on Wednesday and a speech on the esplanade of the National Assembly; Lubumbashi in the mining southeast, with an intervention Friday in front of university students, and Bukavu, in the east, a region plagued for nearly three decades by violence from armed groups. The king must visit on Sunday in a peripheral district of Bukavu, capital of the province of South Kivu, the clinic of gynecologist Denis Mukwege, co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his action in favor of women victims of rapes. The colonial past, with among other things the question of the return of works of art to the former colony, should again be mentioned during this trip by the king who, according to the Belgian royal palace, also wants to give a “new startto the partnership with Kinshasa. Health, education, training, forest protection… Philippe and his wife should have an overview of the sectors where development aid is exercised. Belgium is the fourth donor to the DRC, after the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany.
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This trip by King Philippe comes at the height of renewed tension between the DRC and its neighbor Rwanda, accused by Kinshasa of supporting an old rebellion that reappeared at the end of last year and that violent fighting opposed the Congolese army in late May. the neighboring province of North Kivu. Kigali denies but Félix Tshisekedi assured Sunday that he had “no doubton this support.