Paul Bihin

Paul Fernand Ernest Bihin OBE (born July 27, 1911 in Brussels ) was a Belgian diplomat .

Life

Paul Bihin was the son of René A. Bihin and Lucie W. Acker. He received his doctorate in law from the University of Brussels in 1936 and worked as a lawyer from 1936 to 1940 . From 1940 to 1944 he was Deputy Public Prosecutor.

After the German occupation of Belgium, Paul Bihin came to the Belgian government-in-exile in London via Spain , where he was paid as a deputy lay judge in the Belgian armed forces and served as assistant to the government-in-exile from 1943 to 1944.

Paul Bihin was close to the Office of Strategic Services and replaced Fernand Lepage in November 1944 as head of the Dienst voor de Veiligheid van de Staat until 1948.

diplomat

• In 1950, Bihin was chairman of the United Nations Indonesia Commission ,
• from 1958 to 1961 he was ambassador to Tehran ,
• from 1963 to 1966 ambassador to Brasília .

Kinshasa

From June 22, 1966 to November 20, 1969, Bihin was ambassador to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo . During his tenure, the government of Mobutu Sese Seko expropriated the Union Minière . In the Belgian-Congolese independence agreement in 1960, it was agreed that 17 percent of Union Minière - shares were transferred (24 percent of the voting rights) from the Belgian to the Congolese state. This transfer took place between 1962 and 1966. On May 28, 1966, the Congolese parliament passed the Loi Bakajika introduced by Bakajika Diyi Kamgombe Isaac-Gérard . This law states that the soil and subsoil are the property of the Congolese state. It guarantees the Democratic Republic of the Congo full and free rights of disposal over land rights, forest and mining concessions from June 30, 1960.

On June 7, 1966, Mobutu let the Loi Bakajika come into effect and decreed the transfer of the Union Minière's property into state property and the deletion of the Union Minière from the Congolese commercial register as an implementation provision . The management of Union Minière claimed that the regulation would give the Belgian-Congolese Treaty of February 6, 1965 and the Investment Protection Act contradict the Democratic Republic of Congo. From June 17 to 22, 1966, Edgar Van der Straeten and Jean Verdussen from the management of Union Minière traveled to Kinshasa and explained to Mobutu why a transfer of Union Miniere to the Congolese state was not legally possible. A transfer would be tantamount to a sale for which a tax of 35% of the transferred value would be due to the Belgian State. Then Mobutu called for the laying of the place of business of the Union Minière from Brussels to Kinshasa.

On December 8, 1966, Mobutu Paul Bihin declared that he considered the talks with the Union Minière to be over. The company was obliged to transfer its registered office to Kinshasa before December 31, 1966. On January 1, 1967, the Société Générale Congolaise des Mierais (Gécamines) under the direction of Pierre De Merre took over the property of the Union Minière in Katanga . The continuing management of Union Minière under Louis Wallef (* 13 Sept. 1901; † 1971, engineer UCL) and Maurice Van Weyenbergh (* 1900; † 1983, engineer UCL) knew of the difficulties of the low industrial integration of the mining company and the The Mobutu government lacked foreign currency, offered technical support and tax payments from business operations. The Mobutu government commissioned the Compagnie Lambert bank in Brussels to look for shareholders for the Gécamines . The Compagnie Lambert publicly called for the adoption of its mediation mandate on 1 February 1967, the recognition of the principle of compensation for expropriation and the participation of Union Minière on the shareholder group of Gécamines .

The Mobutu regime feared talent drain from Lubumbashi and panicked hostages . As a result, on January 31, 1967, Bihin presented to the government of Mobutu and "acted between diplomacy and education".

On August 14, 1967, the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution demonstrated with the participation of Mobutu in front of the US embassy in Kinshasa. The police were instructed not to intervene. The march passed the Belgian embassy. After stones hit the embassy windows, Mobutu stepped in and stopped. Mobutu appeared with Justin Bomboko in the diplomatic quarter that evening. He had a piece of a Belgian flag captured that morning with him.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ London Gazette, May 7, 1945
2. ↑ Christian E. Burckel, Who's who in the United Nations: the authoritative, illustrated, biographical dictionary of key persons associated with the United Nations , 1951-580 S., 50
3. ^ Ludo de Witte, Ann Wright, The assassination of Lumumba
4. ↑ Prevented 43 people connected with the Union Miniere du Haut Katanga Corporation - mainly women and children - from leaving Lubumbashi (formerly Elisabethville) on a regular Air Congo flight. Most of them were bound for Kinshasa on their way to Antwerp. The security forces acted on orders from the Central Government in the Kinshasa. Meanwhile, the Belgian Governmen on Jan. 31 requested the congo to let Belgian citizens leave the country if they wished and warned that a "political crisis" would result if the present ban on departures was maintained. Ambassador Mr. Paul Bihin was instructed to draw the Congolese Government's attention to "the gravity of measures taken against Belgian citizens in the Congo and to demand their cancellation". after M. Chhabra, Africa diary, Volume 7, for Africa Publications, India, 1967
5. ↑ In addition Burkard Freiherr von Müllenheim-Rechberg reported on August 17, 1967 from Kinshasa that during the riots against the Belgian embassy on August 14, 1967, President Mobutu "actually stayed for a while among demonstrators in MPR uniform and watched the goings-on with satisfaction [... ], before he stopped. According to a credible source, he and Bomboko in so-called Chinese costume went through the area again in the evening, both wearing small pieces of the Belgian flag that had been torn up in the morning under MPR badges. - Inspector General of the police confirmed to me in conversation that the police had been given instructions had to remain inactive during the assault on selected targets; the same applied to the army. - Regarding the organization of the riots: MPR had ordered ten buses that collected demonstrators from 5 a.m. and drove them to the crime scene. "See wire report No. 138; VS-Vol. 2540 (IB3); B 150, file copy 1967. Files on the Foreign Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Volume 1 p. 299 google concordanz p. 1186

predecessor	Office	successor
Fernand Lepage	Head of the Dienst voor de Veiligheid van de Staat November 1944 - June 1st. 1948	Ludovic Caeymaex
Sylvain Van de Weyer baron Maximilien d'Erp de Holt et Baerlo	Belgian ambassador to Tehran April 14, 1958–1961	Charles Loodts
1933–1935: Fernand Peltzer	Belgian ambassador in Brasilia 1963 - March 30, 1966	Christian de Saint-Hubert 2010: Claude Misson
Charles de Kerchove de Denterghem	Belgian ambassador in Kinshasa June 22, 1966 - November 20, 1969	Jan Vanden Bloock