Africa explorer's remains exhumed in Algiers

[Al-khiyal]

The remains of Pierre de Brazza, the 19th Century French explorer and founder of modern-day Congo, have been exhumed in Algeria.

They will be reburied in three days' time in the Congolese capital, Brazzaville.

It is one of the few African cities that retains the name of its colonial founder.

Brazza was buried in 1905 in Algiers, when Algeria was part of metropolitan France.

His century-old adventure story pits the Frenchman against the envoy of the Belgian crown, Henry Morton Stanley, to capture central Africa.

Both men had different masters but a common aim - to win the 19th Century "Scramble for Africa", that audacious and often cruel race to subjugate a continent.

The American Stanley, who today is famous for having re-supplied the struggling British explorer David Livingstone, was working for the ambitious King of Belgium, Leopold. Brazza was working for France.

They both wanted to capture the navigable section of the great Congo river - and with it vast territories and fabulous mineral wealth.

In the end, Brazza won the race through uncharted jungles, planting the French flag on the northern shore of the river.

Brazzaville was born. Stanley was forced to the southern shore of Congo river. He founded another city and named it after his royal Belgian backer, and Leopoldville took root.

Today, Brazzaville and Leopoldville, later renamed Kinshasa, are joined by only a short ferry ride.

Brazzaville is the capital of Congo. Kinshasa is the capital of the confusingly named "Democratic Republic of Congo".

Brazza's remains will be flown to Brazzaville in a few days time to be reburied in a mausoleum built jointly by the French and Congolese governments.

Some Congolese are critical about the honouring of this controversial figure.

They say Africans have not benefited from the relationship with France.

French and Congolese historians of Brazza's exploits say, however, that by the standards of the day, their man was a humanist who had respectful relationships with African chiefs.

Where possible, they say, he used negotiations rather than force - unlike Stanley, who by most accounts was a brash and violent conqueror.

Africa explorer's remains exhumed in Algiers

[FORTUNATO]

Why they dont Name it Kunta-Kunti land ? anyway they have existed even before this Brazza arrived and "discover" them

[Al-khiyal]

"...Our country has uselessly spent millions to build this monument to a coloniser in the service of France who made our forefathers suffer in forced labour and exploited our riches. Today, the French are the first to shut the doors of their country to us..."

BRAZZAVILLE (Reuters) - Congo Republic's capital Brazzaville received the body on Monday of its 19th century founder, sparking debate over whether an architect of French colonial Africa deserved to have his last resting place there.

The remains of Italian-born explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza will be re-buried on Tuesday in Brazzaville, 126 years after he claimed the Congo River settlement for France in a pact with a local African king sealed by a gift of cloth and beads.

Local dancers at the airport greeted the arrival of the explorer's coffin, draped in the French tri-colour flag. It was flown in from its original burial place in Algiers, accompanied by the remains of his wife and four children.

Crowds watched police motorcyclists escort the cortege with the coffins along spruced-up avenues festooned with banners reading: "Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza comes back to his own people".

His remains will be interred with solemn ceremony in a specially built mausoleum alongside the Congo River.

President Denis Sassou Nguesso had agreed to a request by Brazza's descendants to re-bury his body in the city that bears his name. But ordinary Congolese had mixed opinions about the expense and significance of the initiative.

"Our country has uselessly spent millions to build this monument to a coloniser in the service of France who made our forefathers suffer in forced labour and exploited our riches. Today, the French are the first to shut the doors of their country to us," said Brice Samba, a 38-year-old teacher.

Others saw it as a celebration of Brazzaville's past.

"Nobody can deny history and this is simply a recognition, a deserved homage to the man who founded our capital, and our children will better understand our past, our history when they visit Brazza's memorial," said Pierre Makosso, an electrician.

On the trip from Algiers to Brazzaville, the remains were also honoured during a stopover at Franceville, Gabon, another of the discoveries made by the famous French explorer who participated in the 19th century colonial carve-up of Africa.

He died of dysentery in Dakar in west Africa in 1905.

To some, Congo's decision to honour its European founder may appear unusual on a continent where since the 1960s independence process it became more fashionable for former explorers, colonisers and rulers to be vilified rather than praised.

But some European and African historians hail Brazza as a humane explorer who opposed the exploitation and abuses that characterised the scramble for Africa by European powers.

"This was a man whose great spirituality made him a real humanist. He refused to consider the locals in the colonies as simple economic assets, but as human beings," said Professor Dominique Ngoie Ngalla, a Congolese historian.

In contrast, across the river, the memories of the colonial founding fathers of the Democratic Republic of Congo - Welsh-born explorer Henry Morton Stanley and Belgium's King Leopold - have been excoriated and their statues toppled.

Leopoldville was renamed Kinshasa and Stanleyville became Kisangani.

To receive its founder, Brazzaville, battered by civil war in the late 1990s, was given a face-lift.

The remains of Brazza and his family will lie in state at the city hall overnight before their reburial in the mausoleum, which is fronted by a statue of the explorer created by a sculptor from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Return of founder's body stirs debate in Congo city