Moïse Tschombé

Moïse Tschombé in 1963

Moïse Kapenda Tschombé , also Tshombé (born November 10, 1919 in Musumba , †  June 29, 1969 in Algiers ) was a Congolese politician.

Early years

Tschombé was born in the province of Katanga as the son of a wealthy businessman, the family belongs to the royal family of the Lunda people . After completing his schooling with American Methodists , he learned bookkeeping. After the death of his father, he took over the inherited businesses. As a businessman, he went bankrupt three times and then went into Congolese national politics.

Before independence

From 1951 to 1953 he was a member of the Katanga Provincial Council. In July 1959 he co-founded the CONAKAT (Conféderation des Associations du Katanga) , an organization that represented the interests of the Lunda tribe. As president of this association, he traveled to Brussels in December 1959 to campaign for free elections in the Belgian Congo . As a moderate politician, he had the support of the Belgian colonial administration and the influential mining company Union Minière du Haut Katanga (subsidiary of Société Générale de Belgique , the then most important Belgian group with extensive interests in Central Africa).

He agreed with the ABAKO leader , Joseph Kasavubu , in order to achieve a federal system for a future independent Congo . Future relations with the previous colonial power Belgium remained controversial . Tschombé advocated continued close relations and toured Belgium and, at the invitation of the American government, the USA . In the first all-Congolese elections in May 1960, shortly before independence on June 30, 1960, his party won 8 of the 137 seats at the national level, but provided 25 of the 60 MPs in the provincial parliament of Katanga, which elected him president of the province. Negotiations with the new Prime Minister of the central government Patrice Lumumba about participation in the government failed in July 1960.

separatist

After the independence of the Congo, Tschombé, with the support of Western secret services, Belgian officials and the Union Minière, declared on July 11, 1960 - only eleven days after the independence of the Congo - the secession of the Katanga , which is very rich in natural resources ( copper , cobalt and uranium deposits ) . Katanga then formed a federation with the province of South Kasai, which had also fallen away from the central government . In 1961 the Kasavubu-supported Chief of Staff Mobutu delivered the deposed Prime Minister Lumumba to Chombé in Katanga, where he was murdered shortly afterwards. Tschombé claimed that Lumumba was shot while trying to escape, but this version was not believed. The circumstances of Lumumba's death were only cleared up in 2002: he had been tortured and, with the knowledge of Belgians and Americans, had been verbally abused and spat upon by Tschombé before his murder. The Katanga "independence" defended Tschombé at this time with the help of white mercenaries against UN troops and the troops of the central government. It was not until 1963 that he had to admit defeat. After the end of the Katanga secession, Tschombé went into exile.

Prime Minister

President Kasavubu called him back from exile in 1964 and appointed him prime minister on July 10th. As a result, Tschombé succeeded in stabilizing the internal situation in the Congo. During this phase he also visited the Federal Republic of Germany , where he met with Federal President Heinrich Lübke and other high-ranking politicians, but was also confronted with demonstrations against the assassination of Lumumba, his cooperation with the former colonial power Belgium and international mining companies as well as the use of Mercenaries judged.

After he had managed to end the renewed civil war, he reached a new assistance agreement through his good connections to the old colonial power Belgium, whereupon Belgium transferred numerous companies that had previously belonged to Belgium to the Congo, his popularity in the Congo reached a high point and he won a very large parliamentary majority in the parliamentary elections in 1965. Kasavubu then saw his position in jeopardy and deposed him as Prime Minister on October 13, 1965, Évariste Kimba succeeded him in office. Shortly afterwards, Mobutu also overthrew Kasavubu. As in 1963, Tschombé went into exile in Spain.

Exile and death

After Tschombé supporters and mercenaries penetrated from Zambia in 1967 into Katanga, which has since been renamed Shaba , but were defeated by government troops, Tschombé was sentenced to death by Mobutu in absentia for high treason. Tschombé was soon kidnapped under unexplained circumstances on board a private plane en route to Tunis and brought to Algeria.

When the city ​​of Bukavu was occupied by mercenaries , the return of Chombé was to be blackmailed. The mercenary army was wiped out by Mobutu's troops after a few weeks. A court first ordered his extradition to the Congo, but he remained in captivity or house arrest. After Tschombé's unexpected death in 1969, the Algerian government wanted to prevent rumors and had the deceased examined by an international team of doctors who confirmed heart failure. He was buried in the Etterbeek cemetery in Brussels.

His son André Tschombé , also a politician, had been in custody in Kinshasa since May 6, 2005 . He is said to have intended another secession of Katanga. He was released on August 18 of the same year.

In popular culture

• in the film Lumumba (2000) by Raoul Peck , Tschombé is played by Pascal N'Zonzi .
• in the film Jadotville (Ireland / South Africa 2016; English title: Siege of Jadotville ) Tschombé is played by Danny Sapani .

See also

• Mike Hoare (mercenary)

literature

• Burkard Freiherr von Müllenheim-Rechberg : Abduction and death of Moïse Tshombe: the end of a hope for the Congo , LIT-Verlag, Münster 1978, ISBN 3-8258-3940-0
• Christopher Othen: Katanga 1960-63. Mercenaries, Spies and the African Nation that waged War on the World , The History Press, Brimscombe Port Stroud, 2015, ISBN 978-0-7509-6288-9
• David Van Reybrouck : Congo: A Story . Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-518-42307-3
• Peter Scholl-Latour : Murder on the great river - A quarter of a century of African independence . DVA 1986, ISBN 3-421-06307-9

Web links

• Collection of speeches by Congolese politicians with three recordings of Chombés (MP3, French)
• Archive Moïse Tshombe, Royal Museum for Central Africa (French)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wars in Congo-Kinshasa (formerly Zaire) since 1945 , Working Group on Research into the Causes of War
2. ^ Moïse Tschombé in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved January 7, 2015.
3. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from December 25, 2005 in the Internet Archive )