Petition to demolish monument of a Luxembourg engineer collects only 82 signatures

The petition’s authors are the anti-racist association Lëtz Rise Up. They don’t particularly like the monument to the Luxembourg engineer Nicolas Sito standing on Eglise Street, in the commune of Bascharage.

Nicolas Sito is a Bascharage native. He supervised the construction of the first railway in the Congo, occupied at that time by Belgium. The project avidly used forced labor. About 5 000 Congolese natives died in the process of the construction. Presumably terrible work organisation leading to accidents and severe overwork was the main cause. The exact death toll is not known. At the time the white colonial authorities did not consider it important enough to keep track of.

A monument to Sito has been standing in Bascharage since 1938. It was erected by members of the Luxembourg Colonial Circle.

This is not the first time supporters of decolonization have spoken out about the monument to the Luxembourg engineer. Two years ago, the art collective Richtung 22 placed the monument behind bars. Actionists put up a sign next to it: “In memory of the 5 500 colonial forced laborers who died during the construction of the railway line in the Congo. For a Luxembourgish culture of remembrance in which black lives matter.”

By August 26, the petition had garnered only 82 signatures. But Sandrine Gashonga, president of Lëtz Rise Up, is not discouraged. Sandrine says that the real purpose of the petition is not to gather signatures, but to inform the citizens of Luxembourg about the monument they are walking past. Nowadays, almost no one in the commune knows either Nicolas Sito or the tragedy of black workers.

Lëtz Rise Up propose to erect a memorial to the dead on the site of the monument.