Joseph Kasavubu

Joseph Kasavubu (1962)

Joseph Kasavubu (also Kasa Vubu) (* 1910 - other information 1913 , 1915 or 1917 - at Tschela; † March 24, 1969 in Boma ) was the first President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1960 to 1965 .

Early years

Kasavubu came from Chela in the province of Léopoldville. His mother belonged to the Bakongo people . One of his grandfathers was a Chinese who came to the Congo as a laborer to build the railway. He attended a Catholic elementary school in Kizu and initially wanted to be a priest. From 1928 to 1936 he studied at a seminar in Mbata Keila, later theology and philosophy at the Kabwe seminary in the province of Kasai. He then decided to become a teacher instead of a priest and attended the training institute in Kangu (then the district and now the province of Lower Congo ). In 1940 he received his teacher’s exam and taught for the next two years. He then worked for the financial administration of the Belgian colonial government.

Politician

Political activities were in principle not allowed in the Belgian Congo, neither Africans nor the Europeans residing there. A legal field of activity, however, were associations of former students. Following Belgian practice, Congolese organizations used long abbreviations for even longer names. Kasavubu has been involved in such associations since the 1940s, he also became an influential member of the "Association for the Promotion of Social Interests of the Congolese" (UNICSO - Union des Intérêts Sociaux Congolais) .

ABAKO

Kasavubu joined the Association des Bakongo pour l'Unification, l'expansion et de la Défense de la Langue Kikongo ( ABAKO ), founded in 1950, and became its president in 1955. Originally founded by Edmond Nzeza-Landu as an association to promote the Kikongo language, the association became a de facto political party under Kasavubu. The settlement area of ​​the Bakongo in the lower Congo experienced a strong influx of immigrants from other regions of the Congo due to the upswing of the capital Léopoldville in the 1940s and 1950s, the assertion of the dominance of the Bakongo was therefore an important concern of ABAKO. In August 1956 , Kasavubu asked Belgium to allow political parties and give Congo independence. In the first city council elections, which were held in some cities in December 1957, ABAKO was able to prevail in Léopoldville. Kasavubu became mayor of Dendale. In April 1958 he renewed his demands for independence. With the founding of another party, the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) under the leadership of Patrice Lumumba , which, in contrast to ABAKAO, was not organized on a tribal basis, Kasavubu faced serious competition. After unrest in Léopoldville, the leadership of ABAKO - including Kasavubu - was arrested on January 8, 1959, and the organization was banned four days later.

Before independence

A few days later the Belgian minister for the Congo, van Helmrijk, who was currently in the Congo, arranged for Kasavubu and his colleagues Daniel Kanza and Simon Nzeza to be dismissed. Kasavubu was brought to Belgium for a few months, but was then able to return and from then on was considered a martyr of Congo nationalism. The independence of the entire Congo now took a back seat as a goal: ABAKO now called for a federal constitution with a weak central government and threatened to boycott future elections. Kasavubu formed an alliance with other regional parties, in which the Parti Solidaire Africaine (PSA) Antoine Gizengas and the group of Albert Kalonji from Kasai, split off from Lumumba's MNC, were represented . He became president of this group and traveled to Brussels for the all-party conference that began on January 20, 1960. There he could not enforce his ideas and left the negotiations prematurely. He was further weakened when a group split off under his deputy Daniel Kanza, so that Patrice Lumumba was ultimately able to take over the leadership of the Congolese independence movements. In the executive council of the Belgian governor Kasavubu received the position of finance minister.

elections

In May 1960 elections were held across the Congo. The strongest party was Lumumbas MNC with 33 of the 137 seats, Kasavubus ABAKO received only 12. In the province of Léopoldville, ABAKO was the second strongest party after the allied PSA Gizengas with 33 of the 90 members. The Belgian governor initially commissioned Kasavubu to form a government. When the latter was unable to organize a majority, the contract went to Lumumba. He succeeded in forming a government and became prime minister.

president

Kasavubu was elected President of the new National Assembly and took office on June 30, 1960 after the country gained independence from Belgium.

During the Congo crisis, however, the new government was confronted with the collapse of the state order ( mutiny of the Force Publique ) and regional secession movements such as in Katanga , and was also incapacitated due to the conflict between the rather conservative Kasavubu and his radical Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

On September 5, Kasavubu and Lumumba declared each other's dismissal, thus creating a stalemate that only ended when army commander Joseph-Désiré Mobutu came to power as a supporter of Kasavubu on September 14. Lumumba was later extradited to the secessionists in the southern Katanga province and killed in 1961. In order to achieve recognition of his government by the United Nations , Kasavubu traveled to New York in November 1960 , which was recognized. The price was a dispute within the Non-Aligned Movement , some of which together with the Eastern Bloc voted against it and clung to Lumumba.

Over the next five years Kasavubu led a number of weak governments and in July 1964 he appointed the former Katangan secession leader Moise Tschombé as prime minister so that he could use European mercenaries to fight radical left rebels in Stanleyville . He released him on November 13, 1965, shortly before he was overthrown himself. Mobutu seized power a second time on November 24, 1965, but this time he deposed Kasavubu and declared himself head of state.

His daughter Justine Kasavubu (born April 14, 1951 in Léopoldville) was part of the government of Laurent-Désiré Kabila .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Scholl-Latour: Murder on the Great River: A Quarter Century African Independence , dtv, 1991, p. 39, ISBN 3-423-11058-9

Web links

• Memory of Joseph Kasavubu (through followers of Kasavubu). Archived from the original on December 19, 2008 ; accessed on February 23, 2013 (French / English).