Etienne Tshisekedi’s death in life and life in death!

Patience Kabamba (PhD), Utah Valley University, Orem, Utah

Zairian soldiers escorted Prime Minister Étienne Tshisekedi to his office in April 1997.CreditJack Dabaghian/Reuters

​Each country has its icons and heroes. They are figures of history who are the symbols of the nations. Generally, countries build monuments to celebrate their memories and their accomplishments. Etienne Tshisekedi was a human being who symbolized one of these rare historical trajectories of his country since the first state coup in 1964 by Mobutu Sésé Seko, Congo’s former president who reigned from 1965 to 1997.  Soon after his law studies at the University of Lovanium on the outskirt of Kinshasa, Tshisekedi was appointed “commissary” (minister) of Justice by then General Mobutu during his first coup d’Etat in 1964. Tshisekedi was therefore part of the first government of Mobutu who, a few years earlier, had organized the assassination of the former premier minister Patrick Lumumba in 1961. Thsisekedi worked as Mobutu’s Minister of Justice, Minister of Interior, an Ambassador to Morocco, and was part of many governments since the Mobutu’s second coup d’état in 1965. Tshisekedi was part of the political life of Kinshasa until he passed away at the age of 84. First, I will talk about Tshisekedi, the man. Second, I will lay out the ideology Tshisekedi has been fighting for during his entire political life. In the introduction as well as the conclusion I will give a brief understanding of the current situation of the Congo and the direction the country is heading. 

---

Read More