Twenty-nine years ago this month, a man from Congo died in Rabat at 66, of prostate cancer. He left home in May.
Born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, 1930, Lisala, Belgian Congo. He was Lumumba's aide, then his army chief; Lumumba was murdered in 1961. In 1965 Mobutu took power by coup. He ruled for 32.
He renamed things. In 1966 Léopoldville became Kinshasa. In 1971 the country became Zaire, the river's old Portuguese name. In 1972 he renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga: the warrior who leaves fire in his wake.
In 1994 he welcomed the genocide's killers as guests. In 1996 he ordered the east's Tutsis to leave or die. They did not leave; war came west with Laurent Kabila. Mandela chaired the last talks on a ship. Mobutu limped off, refusing. On 23 May 1997 the country took back its name, the day he settled in Rabat.
He lies above ground in the European cemetery, the man who ordered his people out of their European names. In 2007 parliament recommended bringing him home. No one came. The fire is still out, in a country not his.
Some names a country gives back. Some bodies it never fetches. I am still learning the line between forgetting and being done.