MULELE, PIERRE

Pierre Mulele (July 25, 1929-October 9, 1968) led a bloody insurrection in the Kwilu area from December 1963 to April 1964. Because of his role in the Kwilu uprising, Mulele gained the status of a semi-mythical revolutionary endowed with magical qualities. Thus, many later insurrection movements, even those in areas outside the Kwilu, were labelled “Mulelist.”

PHOTO CAPTION: Mulele Pierre. SOURCE: EA Library.

Pierre Mulele was born at Kulu-Matandu about 80 km (50 mi) southeast of Kikwit. He received his secondary education at Kinzambi, just north of Kikwit, and at Leverville, about 40 km (25 mi) northwest of Kikwit. Following secondary school, he entered the police force and, still later, he worked as a government clerk.

Mulele, who belonged to the Mbunda ethnic group, became involved in political activities as the Belgian Congo moved towards independence. In 1959, he was appointed deputy secretary-general of the Parti Soli-daire Africain (P.S.A.), a Kwilu-based organisation led by Antoine Gizenga from the Pende people. During the same year, Mulele traveled to Guinea where he met Gizenga’s future advisor, Blouin.

In preparation for the transfer of the colony’s government into African hands, Mulele took part in the April and May 1960 Round Table conference held in Brussels, Belgium, to discuss future economic affairs. When countrywide elections were held in May 1960, Mulele was elected on the P.S.A. ticket as a deputy to the national Parliament in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa).

The new Congo Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, who tried to select a broadly representative cabinet, appointed Mulele to the key post of minister of education and fine arts. After Lumumba’s government was dismissed by Kasa-Vubu, Mulele joined Gizenga in Stanleyville (now Kisangani) where Lumumba loyalists had gone in November 1960 in hopes of regrouping their forces and regaining control of the national government. One of Mulele’s first duties was to visit Cairo, where Gizenga expected to receive support from the Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser (in office 1956-70). Upon his return to Stanleyville, Mulele assumed ministerial duties in Gizenga’s government.

In the meantime, efforts were being made to reconcile the rival politicians from Léopoldville and Stanleyville. Thus, in July and August 1961, Pierre Mulele went to Léopoldville to sit in parliament which had been reconvened at Lovanium University. Attempting to form a new government for the paralysed nation, the parliament elected the moderate Cyrille Adoula, as a compromise candidate acceptable to both the Léopoldville and Stanleyville factions. Gizenga, however, who had been chosen vice premier, soon broke with Adoula, and returned to Stanleyville in October. Again Gizenga established an opposition government. And, again, Mulele traveled to Cairo to gain international recognition for Stanleyville. Gizenga, however, was arrested on January 20, 1962, and his regime came to an end.

Nevertheless, Mulele continued to oppose the Léopoldville government. In March 1962, Mulele traveled to the People’s Republic of China, where he studied revolutionary tactics for peasant societies. He also made a trip to his home area of the Kwilu, where he renewed contacts with the local people. Having spent much of 1962 and early 1963 abroad in Communist countries, Mulele returned to the Congo in July 1963, to begin organizing a popular uprising against Adoula’s government.

Traveling clandestinely to his home territory of Kwilu, he began preparing the local people for a guerrilla war. In his efforts, Mulele drew on Mbunda and Pende people, who earlier had supported the P.S.A., and who now felt alienated by the national authorities in Léopoldville. Appealing to rural people disappointed by the results of the 1960 independence, Mulele and his partisans promised a second independence that would benefit ordinary people and not just the powerful politicians. For the activists, who would lead the uprising, Mulele relied on the youthful generation, to whom he gave intensive ideological pre-paration. Once the rebellion began, terror reigned throughout the Kwilu, especially around the towns of Gungu, 100 km (60 mi) southeast of Kikwit, and Idiofa, 100 km (60 mi) east of Kikwit.

Also in 1964, rebellions led by other individuals trained in China broke out in the eastern part of the Congo. But as Benoit Verhaegen has observed in his book Rébellions au Congo, (“Rebellions in the Congo”), the Kwilu insurrection was very different from the other movements. This was because the Mulelist leaders meant to destroy the very basis of existing social, economic, and political organization, and rebuild a new society. According to Verhaegen, only in the case of the Kwilu can the term revolution be used instead of rebellion.

The new society Mulele intended to build was based on a Marxist model. To gain his end, Mulele sought to paralyse the country’s political, economic, and judicial machinery, thus his artisans seemed bent on destroying everything – bridges, schools, and hospitals – necessary for the normal operation of society.

A charismatic leader, Mulele claimed to have the gift of ubiquity and to be able to hear and reveal everything, even peoples’ hidden intentions. Although Mulele’s personality was in part responsible for his movement’s appeal, the insurrection made rapid progress because of the great dissatisfaction with national and provincial political leaders that was evident in the countryside.

Mulele soon discovered, however, that it was much easier to instigate an uprising than to complete a revolution. First, he was unable to control the movement he had launched because it had assumed such a large scope. Second, he was unable to satisfy the immediate needs of the people for food, medicine, and consumer goods. Finally, he met resistance when he tried to expand his following beyond the Mbunda and Pende ethnic groups. Soon his partisans directed tortures and executions against people who were not of Mulele’s ethnic group, as well as against those who did not endorse his movement. In order to prevent “genocide,” some early rebel leaders left Mulele to join the government forces. By April 1964, the national army had regained control over most of the Kwilu, although partisan pockets continued for months afterward. In fact, the threat of a Mulelist uprising remained until Mulele’s death in 1968.

After his militia fell before the government troops, Mulele took refuge in the forest, accompanied by some faithful collaborators. Then, on September 13, 1968, he re-emerged in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of the Congo, across the river from Kinshasa. Learning of Mulele’s presence, the government council of Kinshasa, in the absence of the head of state Mobutu, who at the time was on an official visit to Morocco, dispatched Foreign Minister Justin Bomboko to Brazzaville to persuade Mulele to return to the Congo.

By promising Mulele that he would receive the amnesty that the president of the Republic had granted to all political prisoners, Bomboko convinced the rebel leader, and also the government of the Congo (Brazzaville), that it was safe for him to come home. Thus, Mulele crossed the river with Bomboko on September 29, 1968.

On October 2, 1968, however, after Mobutu had returned from his Moroccan trip, he announced at a rally that he was categorically refusing amnesty to “war criminals” and, consequently, that Mulele would be tried. On October 3, the political bureau of the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution (M.P.R.) confirmed this decision. On October 8, a court martial appointed by presidential decree and composed of three anonymous army officers condemned Mulele to death. Although Mulele asked the head of state for a pardon, the plea was rejected and Mulele was executed at dawn on October 9.

Pierre Mulele stands as a symbol of the frustration and despair ordinary Africans felt after their dreams of a better life after independence were not realised as fully as they had hoped.

SIKITELE GIZE a SUMBULA