The Zaire rebellion of 1964-7
The
rebellion in eastern Zaire in 1964 swept away Central Government
authority in five out of 21 provinces and in parts of eight more. The
guiding spirit of the rebellion was Pierre Mulele, Lumumba's Minister
of Education, who returned to Zaire in July 1963 after two years' exile
which included guerilla training in Communist China.
Mulele went home to Kwilu province expressly to organize a rural
peasant revolt against 'foreign imperialists' and their 'local agents'
the Kinshasa Government. Mulele found it easy enough to gain support
for an airbed uprising, for several reasons:
Prime Minister Adoula's indefinite adjournment of parliament in 1963 which removed one more outlet for opposition; the impending withdrawal of UN forces which would give more authority to President Kasavubu; the tradition of Lumumbaism in the north-east; recent army and police terrorism in that area against the supporters of Lumumba's ally Gizenga; the support of local chiefs, of impoverished fruit-cutters on European-owned plantations and of the growing number of young unemployed school-leavers.
Prime Minister Adoula's indefinite adjournment of parliament in 1963 which removed one more outlet for opposition; the impending withdrawal of UN forces which would give more authority to President Kasavubu; the tradition of Lumumbaism in the north-east; recent army and police terrorism in that area against the supporters of Lumumba's ally Gizenga; the support of local chiefs, of impoverished fruit-cutters on European-owned plantations and of the growing number of young unemployed school-leavers.
The rebellion began in January 1964 when Muleleist insurgents attacked government outposts, mission stations and plantation installations. A number of Europeans were killed; the rest were evacuated by UN troops. By the end of January much of Idiofa and Gungu districts were under siege.
On 5 February Army Chief of Staff Colonel Eleya was ambushed and
killed. Army reinforcements poured in and won control of the towns and
main roads and had gained the upper hand by April. The Muleleists
suffered from lack of modern arms and access to external supplies.
The rebellion revived under the leadership of Gaston Soumialot, another
Lumumbaist but also now a Marxist, who had had guerilla training in
Congo-Brazzaville. Soumialot set up a camp in Zaire near the Burundi
border in the name of the Brazzaville-based Conseil National de
Liberation (CNL). His Armee Populaire de Liberation (APL) began
operations in April 1964 and in May it seized the town of Uvira on Lake
Tanganyika. Then it captured Fizi town and the Bembe rallied as an
ethnic community to the rebellion. The APL routed two army battalions
in Bembe country. The rebellion spread in May when north Katanga and
its provincial capital Kalemie joined the insurgents, largely because
ex-BALUBAKAT youth had rebelled against Tshombe's CONAKAT regime in
Katanga. The Baluba rising against Elisabethville was reinforced when
Soumialot sent APL units under General Olenga from Fizi to Kalemie.
CHRISTOPHER GBENYE who headed the secessionist and pro-communist Congo Republic in Kisangani.
CHRISTOPHER GBENYE who headed the secessionist and pro-communist Congo Republic in Kisangani.
To the north, Stanleyville (Kisangani) was captured by the rebels who
then advanced in various columns to points about 250 miles west of that
city. Wherever they advanced, APL forces received mass support from the
local populations. By September 1964 nearly half of the country was in
CNL/APL hands. In that month Christopher Gbenye, the CNL President,
arrived in Stanleyville from Brazzaville and proclaimed a revolutionary
government.
But the ride had turned again in favour of the Central Government, this
time with Tshombe as Prime Minister (from July). Government forces in
Bukavu had already held out (in August) against an assault by 6000 APL
troops under Olenga.
Ethnicism had to some extent helped the growth of the rebellion but the
same factor now powerfully hindered its further expansion as the APL
attempted to advance westwards into country that had not originally
supported Lumumba or Gizenga in the I960 elections. Furthermore, the
revolutionary government was rent by disputes over policies and tactics
between Gbenye, Soumialot, Mulele and Olenga; they had had insufficient
time to organize an effective administration or to reorganize the
economy; and many of the activities of their subordinates were
characterized by the corruption, nepotism and arbitrariness that they
blamed on the Kinshasa regime. Most. important of all, the APL proved
to have inadequate arms, training and supplies to resist the central
government offensive of October and November, whereas the Tshombe
regime was liberally supplied with American arms and led into action by
Belgian officers. Government forces closed in on Stanleyville and took
the city in the wake of an operation by Belgian paratroopers, using
American aircraft and British logistical support, who rescued European
hostages being held at the airport by APL soldiers.
The Belgian role in Western intervention in Zaire emerges obviously
enough from the Story of the events of 1960 to 1964. But any comment on
the international-implications of the internal conflicts in Zaire in
these years should entail an analysis of the crucial role of the United
States. America's first major blunder in Zaire was an excessive
attachment to the principle of non-intervention. She refused to support
UN action to end Katanga's secession. But by 1964, with Tshombe in the
central government, American policy in Zaire was considerably
interventionist. The difference can be shown by juxtaposing the most
emotive event in Zaire during Kennedy's administration with the most
emotive during Johnson's. No event while Kennedy was alive aroused
greater African passions than the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. And
Lumumba's death arose out of a sin of omission by the United Nations
and, indirectly, by the United States- The UN, which had been called
to- Zaire by Lumumba, stood by while the man was taken way from
Leopoldville and entrusted to the tender mercies of his opponents in
Katanga.
The most emotionally charged event in Zaire during Johnson's
administration was the Stanleyville rescue operation. Lumumba had not
been considered worth rescuing, though UN forces were actually there on
the scene; but white hostages whose lives were in danger were a
different proposition. As Conor Cruise O'Brien pointed out, the
humanitarian sensitivity displayed by the West was, at bottom, a case
of racial solidarity. No rescue operation of that scale would have been
launched by the United States and Belgium if the hostages had not been
white.
PIERRE MULELE, the pro communist colleague of Gbenye; he was lured back to Zaire under "amnesty" and then executed.
PIERRE MULELE, the pro communist colleague of Gbenye; he was lured back to Zaire under "amnesty" and then executed.
On the African side there was a further clement in the rescue operation
which hurt many of them deeply. The Americans had appealed to President
Kenyatta. as Chairman of the OAU Conciliation Committee on the Congo,
to use his good offices on behalf of the hostages.
But it later appeared that the Americans appealed to Kenyatta only as a
stalling tactic and a diversion, while behind his back they and the
Belgians planned to drop troops on Stanleyville. Comparisons were made
between the rescue operation conducted by American aircraft and the
treachery of Pearl Harbor, when in 1941 Japanese planes attacked
America's main Pacific naval base before a declaration of war.
Americans bitterly resented such comparisons; there were, after all,
important moral and other differences between Pearl Harbor and the
Stanleyville operation. But what Pearl Harbor did share with
Stanleyville was an clement of duplicity. In the Stanleyville case, the
duplicity took the form of making polite noises and humanitarian
appeals to President Kenyatta, while Belgian paratroopers were putting
on their uniforms and American planes were ready on the runway.
The fall of Stanleyville completed the collapse of the main forces of
the 1964 rebellion, and the rebel leaders fled into exile. Resistance
was continued in isolated pockets of the countryside, such as the
inaccessible mountain homes of the Fulero-Dembe people.
Gradually these pockets of resistance were snuffed out by the Zairean
army reinforced by white mercenaries from South Africa, Rhodesia.
Belgium and Germany. The remnants of resistance were overcome in 1967.
The classic observation of Chou En-Lai, China's Premier, that 'Africa
is ripe for revolution', had not been borne out by the Congo rebellion.
There were too many disparities in Congo society for the rebellion to
succeed; and the rebels had no foreign allies.
In May 1997 Laurent-Désiré Kabila and his rebel army overthrew longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Kabila, shown here inspecting his soldiers, declared himself president immediately following Mobutu's ouster. Kabila was assassinated in January 2001.
In May 1997 Laurent-Désiré Kabila and his rebel army overthrew longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Kabila, shown here inspecting his soldiers, declared himself president immediately following Mobutu's ouster. Kabila was assassinated in January 2001.
National Movements and New States in Africa