Cyrille Adoula

Cyrille Adoula (* September 13, 1921 () in Leopoldville; ? † May 24, 1978 in Lausanne) was 1961-1964 Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Early years

Adoulas year of birth is uncertain, according to various statements, he was born in 1921 or 1923. He belonged to the tribe of Mongola. After attending a Catholic mission school he attended the Institute of St. Joseph, where in 1941 he graduated. He worked for several companies in Leopoldville (Kinshasa ), the capital of the former Belgian colony, before he was hired as the first African from the central bank of the Belgian Congo. He joined a Belgian trade union and became its Secretary General responsible for the Congo.

Politician

Before independence

In 1958 he was one of the signatories of a Memorandum to the Belgian Governor General, which called for after a speech by again appointed to power Charles de Gaulle in neighboring Brazzaville for Belgian Congo political reforms.

In 1958, he was next to Patrice Lumumba of the founders of the Mouvement National Congolais Party (MNC ), and was in 1959 the delegation of the party in the talks on the future of the colony in Brussels. In July 1959 there was a split within the party, as some as a moderate force politicians - including Adoula - of Lumumba parted and under the leadership of Albert Kalonji an alliance with the Association des Bakongo pour l' Unification, et l' expansion de received la Défense de la Langue Kikongo ( ABAKO ) by Joseph Kasavubu. In the common organization of several federal parties, he became Vice President in December 1959. After his return from the Brussels conference he separated again by Kasavubu, because this was too focused on his interests of the Bakongo. In the spring of 1960, he founded the union Fédération Générale des Travailleurs du Congo ( FGTK ), the member of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions ( IFGB ) was. He took over the position of General Secretary of his union.

After independence,

After the country's independence was President Kasavubu and Lumumba prime minister. After Lumumba's fall, he was Minister of the Interior in the cabinet of new Prime Minister Joseph Iléo in September. In the following months he represented his country several times before the United Nations. He also participated in the negotiations with Antoine Gizenga, who had broken away from the central government and established in Stanleyville a short-lived counter-government. In the summer of 1961 the Parliament of the general government was to resume work after several months of paralysis.

On 2 August 1961 he was appointed by the prime minister and Kasavubu confirmed despite the dominance of the followers of the murdered in January Lumumba by both houses of Parliament. Together with Antoine Gizenga he represented the Congo in September at the Conference of Non-Aligned Countries in Belgrade. Some of the represented States there had been endorsed Gizengas counter-government. With the conquest of Katanga by UN troops in December and the temporary escape Moise Tshombe, the central government had one and a half years after independence, the country again largely under control. Gizenga and Kalonji, the latter short-term " diamond Emperor " by Kasai, were arrested in January 1962. 1963 took over Adoula the office of Foreign Minister.

In the aftermath Adoula tried to give Congo a new federal constitution. Various rebellions in several provinces, including the re Secession of Katanga under Tshombe until early 1963 weakened his government. On June 30, 1964, he resigned as head of government. His successor appointed President Kasavubu Moise Tshombe, who returned from his exile in Spain. Tshombe Cabinet also belonged to Kalonji as Minister of Agriculture, while Gizenga was still for about a year under house arrest.

More career

1965 ended a coup Joseph- Desiré Mobutu Kasavubu presidency. Adoula was ambassador to the U.S. and later in Belgium and in the European Community. Mobutu's government, he was from 1969 to 1970 as Foreign Minister, before retiring from politics. He died on 24 May 1978 in Lausanne, Switzerland.