Étienne Tshisekedi

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Etienne Tshisekedi (2011)

Étienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba (born December 14, 1932 in Luluabourg ; † February 1, 2017 in Brussels ) was a Congolese politician. He was Prime Minister of Zaire , now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on several occasions , and is considered the historical leader of the Democratic Movement of the Congo. He was the leader of the largest Congolese opposition party, the UDPS ( Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social ), which believes itself to be the real winner of the 2011 elections, which many observers believe were fraudulent.

Political career

Tshisekedi was born in Luluabourg, today's Kananga, in the province of Kasai-Occidental . He belongs to the Baluba , the largest ethnic group in the Congo. During his studies he joined Patrice Lumumba's Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) party in 1958 . In 1961 he graduated from Lovanium University in Léopoldville with a law degree and was the first Congolese doctorate in law. Before that, he was a member of the Collège des Commissaires , a provisional government, formed after Joseph Mobutu's first coup on September 20, 1960 , as a commissioner for justice. From 1961 to 1965 he was rector of the National College of Law and Administration École Nationale de Droit et d'Administration (ENDA). He also worked for the Central Bank of the Congo in 1964 . After Mobutu's second coup on November 25, 1965, which began his presidency, which lasted until 1997, he became Minister of the Interior in the government of Prime Minister General Léonard Mulamba , which took office on November 28, 1965. On August 16, 1968, after a cabinet reshuffle, he became Minister of Justice and, after the next cabinet reshuffle, on March 5, 1969, Minister for Planning, Research and Science.

In September 1969 he became ambassador to Morocco . After his return in February 1971, he was a member of parliament, temporarily as its vice-president. He also held positions in state-owned companies such as Air Zaire .

Opposition

From 1979 he emerged as a critic of Mobutu and has been incarcerated since then. Together with Faustin Birindwa , he founded the initially illegal party Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social (UDPS) on February 15, 1982 . A court sentenced Tshisekedi to 15 years in prison, but was released the next year. The constant change from prison, release and exile or house arrest was repeated in the years up to 1990. In 1987 the UDPS was forced to become part of the unity party Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution (MPR). In the following year the UDPS acted again from the underground.

prime minister

In 1990 Mobutu was forced to introduce a multi-party system. Tshisekedi became Prime Minister and Birindwa Minister of Finance for the first time on September 29, 1991. The government was dismissed by Mobutu on November 1, 1991. A national conference convened in 1992 named Tshisekedi again on August 15, 1992 as head of government. During his two terms in office, Tshisekedi complained that Mobutu was hindering his government. In the spring of 1993 Mobutu succeeded in getting Birindwa on his side and on March 29, 1993 appointed him the new Prime Minister. Tshisekedi did not accept his February release, so there were two governments by early 1994. Since Mobutu continued to control the security forces, the government was able to oust Birindwa Tshisekedi and his ministers from their posts.

Shortly before Mobutu was ousted from office by Laurent Kabila after several years of civil war , Tshisekedi was Prime Minister for a third time for seven days on April 2, 1997, albeit without real power as in previous terms. Since the rebellion sparked in the extreme east of Zaire by Kabila and supported by the USA and France was mainly based on the Tutsi tribes from which Tshisekedi's mother was descended from, he was accused of treacherous inactivity, and the uproarious mob demanded his resignation on the street.

Further career and death

Under Kabila, as under Mobutu, he was briefly imprisoned several times. At the end of 1999 he went into exile in Brussels and returned on April 23, 2001. Tshisekedi was still chairman of the UDPS and was in constant opposition to Laurent Kabila, who was murdered in January 2001, and to his son Joseph Kabila, who has been in office since then . In December 2005, he campaigned in vain to boycott the referendum for a new constitution. After 84.31% of the electorate voted for the new constitution in the first free vote in 45 years, he declared in January 2006 that his UDPS would not take part in the planned elections.

In 2011 Tshiskedi took part in the 2011 election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a presidential candidate and received 32.33% of the vote as runner-up.

He died in Belgium in 2017 from a pulmonary embolism . In 2018 his son Félix Tshisekedi took over the leadership role in the UDPS; in the controversial elections in 2018 he was elected president.

Etienne Tshikesedi's body was not buried for several years because the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo had for a long time prohibited the body from being transferred. Only with the appointment of his son as president of the country was the body transferred to his home country at the end of May 2019 and buried on June 1, 2019.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christophe Boisbouvier: Tshisekedi: un mythe est mort . Radio France Internationale , February 1, 2017, accessed February 2, 2017 (French).
  2. ↑ Dirke Köpp: Once more confusion and fraud in the Congo. dw.com on January 10, 2019, accessed on January 12, 2019
  3. ^ Congo's opposition leader finds final peace. dw.com on May 31, 2019, accessed on June 1, 2019
  4. ↑ June 1, 2019: The day DRC, Angola Africa buried veteran opponents - Tshisekedi, Savimbi. africanews.com, June 2, 2019, accessed June 2, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Tshisekedi, Etienne
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tshisekedi wa Mulumba, Étienne (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Congolese politician
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Kananga
DATE OF DEATH 1st February 2017
Place of death Brussels