Cyrille Adoula

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Cyrille Adoula
Moise Tshombe
Personal details
Born13 September 1921
Mouvement National Congolais
(1958–1959)
Mouvement National Congolais-Kalonji (1959–1964)
Rassemblement des démocrates congolaise (1964)

Cyrille Adoula (13 September 1921 – 24 May 1978) was a Congolese trade unionist and politician. He was the prime minister of the Republic of the Congo, from 2 August 1961 until 30 June 1964.

Early life and education

Cyrille Adoula was born to middle-class

Léopoldville, Belgian Congo.[1] He attended a Catholic primary school in his youth and received secondary education at St. Joseph's Institute, graduating after five years of studies in 1941.[2] That year he began working as a clerk for various commercial firms. He did this until 1952 when he accepted a senior position at the Belgian Congo Central Bank, becoming the first African to hold a significant post there. In 1948 he became a member of the Conseil pour le Travail et la Prevoyance Sociale Indigene.[a][3]

Career

In 1954, Adoula joined the

AFL–CIO unionist Irving Brown.[5]

Entry into national politics, 1958-1960

In October 1958 a group of Léopoldville

Mouvement National Congolais (MNC). Diverse in membership, the party sought to peacefully achieve Congolese independence, promote the political education of the populace, and eliminate regionalism.[6] Adoula became party vice president.[7] While Lumumba became increasingly strident and nationalistic, Adoula remained relatively moderate. In 1959, he and Albert Kalonji made an unsuccessful attempt to oust Lumumba from the party and formed their own faction, MNC-Kalonji.[3]

With the independence of the

Coquilhatville.[8] Though elected by the Équateur provincial assembly with the support of Parti de l'Unité Nationale,[c] he identified himself as an independent.[9][d] He requested that his membership of the International Congress of Federated Trade Unions be suspended so that he could devote his time to his new position. Nevertheless he remained well connected with trade unions and labour organisations.[4] In the Senate's first session on 17 June 1960 Adoula proposed a resolution which was unanimously adopted, calling for representatives of the Union of South Africa to be barred from attending the Congo's independence celebrations due to the country's Apartheid policy.[12] Patrice Lumumba became Prime Minister and offered Adoula a ministerial position in his government but the latter refused to accept it. Adoula expressed his dissatisfaction with the ultimate composition of the government and told Lumumba that he had erred in choosing to be Prime Minister of a cabinet, which faced heavy criticism from different circles.[13]

The Congo fell into disorder shortly after independence, as the army's mutiny and the secession of the

Joseph Mobutu, who forced a new government upon Kasa-Vubu. Adoula began attracting interest from the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a liberal, anti-communist alternative to Lumumba.[8]

As prime minister, 1961-1964

Cyrille Adoula with United States President John F. Kennedy in 1962

In early 1961, the United States began to push for an Adoula-led government. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk directed CIA agents to ensure that Adoula would become the next Congolese prime minister.[15] The CIA acted in concert with other Western intelligence agencies in bribing Congolese parliamentarians to support Adoula.[7] On 1 August Adoula was appointed formateur of a new government by Kasa-Vubu. The following day he presented his government to Parliament with himself as Prime Minister. Like Lumumba had before him, Adoula also gave himself responsibility over the national defence portfolio.[16] The government was delivered a vote of confidence in the Chamber, 121 votes to none with one abstention, and the Senate voiced its support via acclamation.[17]

Adoula managed to balance his cabinet with many former Lumumba supporters.[8] Antoine Gizenga became deputy prime minister.[18] Still, as his tenure progressed, Adoula faced a growing amount of opposition from the nationalist elements of MNC-Lumumba and Gizenga's faction of the Parti Solidaire Africain.[19] He also never garnered much popular support across the country.[20] As 1961 drew to a close, several Lumumba sympathisers withdrew from Adoula's government and Gizenga retired to Stanleyville.[21] Gizenga's persisting counter-government in the east represented the first major challenge to Adoula's authority.[19] In January 1962, Adoula was able to successfully arrest Gizenga. He subsequently removed the remaining Lumumba supporters from his government, thereby excluding the largest political force in the country from power.[21]

During his

inaugural address following his investiture, Adoula had declared that his government would "take adequate measures permitting each region to administer itself according to its own profound aspirations". Legislative efforts to achieve the goal immediately began, but faced strong opposition from the Lumumbist bloc, which felt that the Katanga problem should be resolved before any discussion concerning the division of the provinces.[22]

Foreign policy

On an international level, Adoula pursued a policy of neutrality.

Pan-African image. As part of this, he supported decolonisation in southern Africa.[25]

Adoula denounced

Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, to close its Léopoldville offices and drove its leadership out of the city.[30]

Under Adoula, the Congo joined the Pan-African Freedom Movement for East and Central Africa.[31] He agreed to supply funds to various liberation movements in southern Africa and arranged for an office building dubbed the "House of African Nationalists" to be opened in Léopoldville for their use.[32] Despite this, the funds never proved forthcoming and the liberation movements struggled with logistics and organisation.[33]

Attempted post-secession reconciliation and communist rebellion

Following the defeat of Katanga, Adoula organised a new "Government of Reconciliation" in April 1963.[34]

From Gizenga's arrest in early 1962 until Parliament's adjournment in September 1963, most of the dissent Adoula faced from the left came in the form of obstructionist activities in the legislative process. In October the radical Comité National de Libération (CNL) formed in Brazzaville with the goal of overthrowing Adoula's government. By December a CNL-instigated revolt had emerged in Kwilu Province.[35] The larger Simba rebellion of 1964 saw much of the eastern Congo overrun by leftist guerrilla forces.[8] During the run-up to new elections in the summer, three new political coalitions in the country emerged. One of these was the Rassemblement des démocrates congolaise (RADECO), which consisted of 50 small organisations led by Jacques Massa.[36] Centrist in ideology, it failed to amass much popular support.[37] Adoula was elected as its president on 14 June.[36] Still unable to contain the leftist insurrections, Adoula was forced by Kasa-Vubu to resign.[8] He then voluntarily left the country.[38]

Later life, 1965-1978

Adoula in 1964

In a New Year's message at the beginning of 1965, Prime Minister

Moise Tshombe, Adoula's replacement, rejected conciliation with the rebels and called for their total defeat. Adoula dissented and put forth his own "African Plan" for the Congo in the weekly Jeune Afrique. He insisted that any long term solution for peace and stability required input from rebel leaders, emphasizing that since their defeat would require the use of European mercenaries, acting to suppress them would only increase the Congo's reliance on external forces. He also accused Tshombe of antagonizing opposition and called for the creation of a transitional government to oversee a settlement without him. Tshombe responded by blaming the conflict on Adoula, accusing him of weakening the central government and Balkanising the country by dividing the six original provinces into 22 new ones.[39]

In November 1965, Adoula returned to the Congo after Mobutu had seized power. He was accommodating of Mobutu's new regime and served as the Congolese

Ambassador to the United States and Ambassador to Belgium. In 1969 he became Foreign Minister.[8] He fell ill in May 1970. Mobutu took charge of the portfolio[40] and Adoula retired from politics.[8]

Personal life, beliefs and death

In 1978 Adoula suffered a heart attack and went to Lausanne, Switzerland for treatment.[14] He succumbed to an illness and died there on 24 May 1978.[8]

Adoula was an

anti-communist.[11] In December 1957 he explained his beliefs to Présence Africaine:[41]

"Being a Socialist, I am for the transformation of the present society into one benefiting the entire collectivity. And for this, I conceive the collectivization of the means of production and the lower echelon workers of the latter. In order to attain this goal, I only see one means: the struggle of the classes, the permanent class struggle until this result is obtained."

Legacy

In most written histories Adoula is portrayed as a weak, ineffective prime minister and a lackey of the United States government.[5]

Notes

  1. ^ Council for Labour and Native Social Security
  2. ^ General Federation of Belgian Labour
  3. ^ Party of National Unity
  4. ^ According to the British Survey, Adoula was only co-opted as a senator on a PUNA ticket due to his friendship with Jean Bolikango, leader of PUNA and a popular figure among the Bangala in Équateur Province.[10] Thomas Kanza wrote that the co-optation was achieved "with difficulty".[11]

References

  1. ^ Sandiford 2008, p. 18.
  2. ^ Segal 1962, p. 166.
  3. ^ a b c Akyeampong & Gates 2012, p. 95.
  4. ^ a b LaFontaine 1986, p. 220.
  5. ^ a b Klieman 2008, p. 179.
  6. ^ Hoskyns 1965, p. 27.
  7. ^ a b Waters 2009, p. 2.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h Akyeampong & Gates 2012, p. 96.
  9. ^ Area Handbook 1962, p. 386.
  10. ^ British Survey. Vol. 178–213. British Society for International Understanding. 1964. p. 3. Archived from the original on 16 January 2023. Retrieved 5 February 2018.
  11. ^ a b Kanza 1994, p. 168.
  12. ^ Passemiers 2019, p. 58.
  13. ^ Kanza 1994, p. 103.
  14. ^ a b Lentz 2014, p. 861.
  15. ^ Paterson 1989, p. 263.
  16. ^ Hoskyns 1965, p. 377.
  17. ^ Hoskyns 1965, p. 379.
  18. ^ Schmidt 2013, p. 69.
  19. ^ a b Young 1965, p. 345.
  20. ^ Gibbs 1991, p. 147.
  21. ^ a b Schmidt 2013, pp. 69–70.
  22. ^ Young 1965, pp. 547–548.
  23. ^ "Congo-Zaïre: l'empire du crime permanent, Adoula, l'homme du Conclave de Lovanium" (in French). Le Phare. 27 September 2013. Archived from the original on 30 March 2017. Retrieved 30 March 2017.
  24. ^ Oron 1961, p. 63.
  25. ^ Passemiers 2019, pp. 83–84.
  26. ^ Mountz 2014, p. 50.
  27. ^ Marcum, John (1969). The Angolan Revolution, Vol. I: The Anatomy of an Explosion (1950-1962). Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press (Cambridge). p. 65.
  28. ^ Guimaraes 2001, pp. 54, 63.
  29. ^ Mountz 2014, p. 153.
  30. ^ Guimaraes 2001, p. 71.
  31. ^ Passemiers 2019, p. 85.
  32. ^ Passemiers 2019, pp. 86, 89.
  33. ^ Passemiers 2019, p. 91.
  34. ^ O'Ballance 1999, p. 65.
  35. ^ Young 2015, p. 345.
  36. ^ a b O'Ballance 1999, p. 68.
  37. ^ Tshombe 1967, p. 20.
  38. ^ Waters 2009, p. 3.
  39. ^ O'Ballance 1999, p. 85.
  40. ^ "Political Appointments: Government Changes CONGO (DR)". Africa Research Bulletin. 1970. p. 1952. Archived from the original on 16 January 2023. Retrieved 24 September 2019.
  41. ^
    ISSN 0003-0236. Archived
    from the original on 16 January 2023. Retrieved 19 June 2018.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cyrille Adoula.
Political offices
Preceded by
Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

2 August 1961 – 30 June 1964 		Succeeded by
Moise Tshombe
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cyrille_Adoula&oldid=1217706178"