Maurice Mpolo

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Maurice Mpolo
Minister of Youth and Sports of the Republic of the Congo
In office
24 June 1960 – 14 September 1960
PresidentJoseph Kasa-Vubu
Preceded byposition established
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
for Lac Léopold II
In office
1960 – 17 January 1961
Personal details
Born12 September 1928
Mouvement National Congolais

Maurice Mpolo (12 September 1928 – 17 January 1961) was a Congolese politician who served as Minister of Youth and Sports of the Republic of the Congo in 1960. He briefly led the Congolese army that July. He was executed alongside Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in Katanga in 1961.

Biography

Maurice Mpolo was born on 12 September 1928

Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) and participated in the Belgo-Congolese Round Table Conference in Brussels, Belgium on the organisation's behalf.[3]

Government career

The first Congolese government. Mpolo stands seventh from the right.

"Maurice Mpolo...was quick-tempered and daring, and his character gave the appearance of being hard. His youth had been very turbulent, and he had had much to suffer; among the young men of Léopoldville he was considered one of the tough ones. Shortly after leaving school, he had become a policeman, and was feared for the reputation he had then achieved as an intractable and merciless man to cross swords with."

Thomas Kanza's reflection on Mpolo[8]

With the independence of the

Joseph-Désiré Mobutu.[9] On 28 July, Mpolo was made a member of a cabinet committee established to handle Congolese relations with United Nations officials.[10] On 13 September, Lumumba declared him commander-in-chief of the ANC.[11]

On 14 September, Mobutu launched a coup which "neutralised" Lumumba's government and created a new one. Mpolo attempted to undermine it and rivaled Mobutu for control of the army.[9] On 23 September, Mpolo and Deputy Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga were arrested and plans were made to send them to secessionist Katanga. The United Nations (UN) put pressure on Mobutu to release them, which he did the following day.[12] On 7 October, Lumumba announced that he had formed a new cabinet that included Mpolo as Minister of Defence. Mpolo told the press that he believed all of the conflicted parties in the central government would eventually unite. Angered by this, Mobutu dispatched troops to Mpolo's house, but he was nowhere to be found.[13] Later that day Mpolo was able to return to his home unmolested and requested that the UN strengthen its guard at his residence.[14]

Arrest and death

In late November, Lumumba fled the capital to organise

Élisabethville, Katanga. Once there, they were brutally tortured at the hands of Moïse Tshombe and Godefroid Munongo, Lumumba's chief political rivals and the leaders of the secessionist state.[16] That night, one by one they were lined up against a tree to be executed by firing squad. Mpolo was the second to be shot.[17] The bodies were thrown into a shallow grave. The following morning, on orders of Katangan Interior Minister Godefroid Munongo who wanted to make the bodies disappear and thereby prevent a burial site from being created, Belgian Gendarmerie officer Gerard Soete and his team dug up and dismembered the corpses, and dissolved them in sulfuric acid while the bones were ground and scattered.[18]

On 17 January 2011, a mass of thanksgiving was held in memory of Mpolo and Okito at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Kinshasa.[19]

Notes

  1. Jacques Brassinne and Jules Gérard-Libois)[2] state that he was born on 4 March.[3]

Citations

  1. ^ Kashamura 1966, p. 86.
  2. ^ Gerard & Kuklick 2015, p. 262.
  3. ^ a b c d Heinz & Donnay 1976, p. 10.
  4. ^ a b c Omasombo & Verhaegen 2005, p. 385.
  5. ^ Omasombo & Verhaegen 2005, p. 391.
  6. ^ Kanza 1994, p. 111.
  7. ^ Brassinne 1989, paragraph 163.
  8. ^ Kanza 1994, pp. 111–112.
  9. ^ a b Gerard & Kuklick 2015, p. 198.
  10. ^ Hoskyns 1965, p. 160.
  11. ^ Gérard-Libois 1966, p. 143.
  12. ^ Gerard & Kuklick 2015, p. 115.
  13. ^ FBIS 1960, p. 100.
  14. ^ FBIS 1960, p. 101.
  15. ^ de Witte 2002, p. 93.
  16. ^ Gondola 2002, pp. 126–127.
  17. ^ de Witte 2002, p. 120.
  18. ^ Kinzer, Stephen (2013). The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War. New York: Times Books.
  19. ^ "50ème anniversaire de l'assassinat de Lumumba: Mpolo et Okito honoré" (in French). Radio Okapi. 17 January 2011. Retrieved 12 January 2017.

References

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