MIGWA KASANZA

Kangu Migwa Kasanza (circa 1870-August 28, 1953) was a chief of the Lunda-Pende chiefdom of Kangu, located 100 km (60 mi) southeast of Kikwit.

Migwa Kasanza was appointed chief after the death of former chief Kangu Kumbi Lumbombo in April 1929. He received customary investiture in 1929 and was decorated with a medal and officially invested by the colony on May 15, 1930.

Although Chief Migwa sympathised with partisans of the Pende revolt, which broke out in the region between the Lutshima and the Kwilu rivers in May 1931, he could not actively support the rebels because soldiers of the Force Publique (colonial army) impressed him into service as a porter. Because Migwa was mistreated and publicly humiliated during the military operations, for the rest of his life he remained very suspicious of European authority.

When Migwa was accused of being disloyal to the government, the district commissioner of the Kwango, Van der Hallen, on February 24, 1932, took measures to revoke Migwa’s official duties and banish him to the Banningville area (now Bandundu). Since Migwa never received official notification of this measure, he continued to exercise his functions. Finally, other Belgian officials intervened on his behalf, obtaining a cancellation of Van der Hallen’s order. Van der Hallen, in fact, had been suspended from his duties because of the numerous abuses he had engaged in to repress the Pende revolt. On October 24, 1936, Migwa Kasanza was reconfirmed in his official functions.

Chief Kangu Migwa Kasanza tried to collaborate with the Belgian authorities. Nevertheless, he disliked certain humiliating tasks, such as collecting taxes and supervising corvée (forced labour) for the colonial authorities. In the 1940s, when the tensions of the 1931 revolt had calmed, Chief Kangu Migwa Kasanza, refused to continue in the role of capita (sub-chief). In 1940, he objected to collecting taxes or to overseeing the rubber harvest. In retaliation, the government withheld his salary after May 8, 1940.

In 1944, Chief Migwa Kasanza supported the Lupambulu sect, active at that time in the Pende region. He protected Lupambul members whom the Belgians wanted to arrest. Hoping to discipline the chief, the territorial administrator, Bomans requested higher authorities to banish Migwa and several other leaders of the Lupambulu sect from the Pende lands. Because of Migwa’s numerous past services, however, the affair was quashed. But ever afterward the Belgian authorities at Gungu characterised Migwa as “cunning” and untrustworthy. From that time these authorities favoured his internal rivals who they hoped could sap his power.

When the sector of Gungu was created on April 20, 1948, government officials did their best to prevent Migwa from retaining any power. In selecting African officials for the new sector, they favoured members of rival families. Therefore, Chief Migwa Kasanza spent the remaining years of his life defending the Kangu Lunda rights on the lands they had inherited from their ancestors, lands that certain “client” clans, whom they had allowed to settle there around 1903, sought to appropriate.

SIKITELE GIZE a SUMBULA