Jean Kestergat

Jean-Marie Thierry Alphonse Ghislain van der Dussen de Kestergat (8 April 1922 – 27 July 1992), better known under his pen name Jean Kestergat or JK was a Belgian journalist.

Early life

Jean Kestergat was the son of Marcel van der Dussen de Kestergat and Charlotte

Kestergat started his career in journalism as an intern at Le Phare in 1946. On 12 September 1946, he married Jacqueline Iweins d'Eeckhoutte [nl].^{[3][unreliable source?]} In 1950, he started to work at La Libre Belgique, where he would stay until his retirement in 1987. Initially, Kestergat reported on domestic Belgian matters, until he undertook his first foreign mission in 1957. The next year, he reported on the Belgian Congo for the first time, which would become his main subject for the rest of his career. In that context, he reported on the Shaba I and Shaba II wars in 1977 and 1978, as well as bilateral Belgo-Congolese (or Belgo-Zairean) relations under President Mobutu Sese Seko.

Jean Kestergat was the author of several novels, a biography of André Ryckmans [nl], as well as several works of journalism and contemporary history, namely on the politics of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Together with Jacques Brassinne de La Buissière, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the murder of the first Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, he wrote Qui a tué Patrice Lumumba? ("Who killed Patrice Lumumba?").^[4]

Publications

• ISBN 978-2-8011-0979-3
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• Jean Kestergat (1978). 25 miljoen Zuidafrikanen: het drama van de apartheid. Standaard.
  ISBN 978-90-02-13939-0
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• Jean Kestergat. André Ryckmans: présenté par Jean Kestergat ... Préface de Jean Ladrière. [Choix de lettres et notes politiques de André Ryckmans.]. Éditions du Centurion.
• Jean Kestergat (1965). Congo Congo: De l'indépendance à la guerre civile. La Table Ronde.
  ISBN 978-2-7103-9898-1
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• Jean Kestergat (1965). La Promenade africaine. Berger-Levrault (impr. Berger-Levrault).
• Jean Kestergat (1957). Petitbiquet. Julliard.
  ISBN 978-2-260-03333-2
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• Jean Kestergat (1985). Quand le Zaïre s'appelait Congo: l'aventure coloniale belge. P. Legrain.
  ISBN 978-2-87057-010-4
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