Centered around the circumstances and events that causes the assassination of Patrice lumumba, independence leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo, this article analyzes the tension between memory and omission as a central process in the referential construction of the historic past national identity among the people of the Congo and Belgium. The duty of memory is conceived as an act of freedom and a pretext to acknowledge the international factors that have mediated the independence of this sub-Saharan African country.