Conseil national de libération (Congo) Commandement des forces armées populaires. Etat major général records, 1959-1988, 1959-1988

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Summary

Creators:
Weiss, Herbert F. and Conseil national de libération (Congo). Commandement des forces armées populaires. Etat major général
Abstract:
Includes materials such as government records, correspondence, reports, orders, battle plans, and lists; all relating to military and political aspects of a rebellion in the Kwilu region of the Congo in 1964. Materials were collected and organized by Herbert F. Weiss, a scholar and professor of the City University of New York. Also includes indexes and summaries created by Weiss. A portion of the collection is also available on microfilm (21 reels). Sound use copy of sound recording available.
Extent:
20 manuscript boxes, 1 reel of magnetic tape (6.1 Linear Feet)
Language:
In French and Likeleve
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Etat major général records, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives

Background

Scope and content:

Includes materials such as government records, correspondence, reports, orders, battle plans, and lists; all relating to military and political aspects of a rebellion in the Kwilu region of the Congo in 1964. Materials were collected and organized by Herbert F. Weiss, a scholar and professor of the City University of New York.

The Kwilu Rebellion documents were collected by Weiss after the materials were abandoned by a section of the Conseil national de libération (CNL) general headquarters unit near Gungu towards the end of 1964 or early 1965. A majority of the documents are dated in the spring and summer of 1964, the period of the highest amount of rebel activity. Documents created by the rebellion were individually numbered when filed and originally kept bound into rolls with bits of flexible root. Some papers were held together with handmade wood needles. The documents were created in the local language, Likeleve, and French. Included are Weiss' translations into French of these documents.

The records contain additional Kwilu administration documents, generally government documents, correspondence, and reports, arranged chronologically in two groups, general documents and specific subject related documents.

Additional translations into French, summaries, and indexes of the original Kwilu Rebellion documents and some Kwilu Administration documents, created by Weiss are also available. Additional materials included were given to Weiss by Professor Benoit Verhaegen, another noted academic working on aspects of the Kwilu Rebellion.

Bundundu Government documents were collected by Weiss in 1972 with the backing of the State/Party, the MPR, for use in a more general analysis of the Province than the focused Kwilu Documents. The documents from various levels of the administration (colonial and post-colonial) focused on the province (Leopoldville Province until shortly after independence and later variously Kwilu Province and Bandundu Province) where the Kwilu Rebellion occurred.

Sound recordings include interviews with individuals involved in the Kwilu Rebellion, Constant N'dom, Felix Mukulubundu, and W. Mwatha. Constant N'dom, a high-school student when the Kwilu Rebellion broke out, was recruited and assigned to the Direction Générale, the highest administrative organ of the rebellion. After the rebellion, he married and moved to Belgium, later returning. In 2006 elections, he joined the opposition to J. Kabila and was elected member of Parliament from the Kwilu region. The late Felix Mukulubundu came from the Kwilu, where he actively participated in the CNL. He was assigned to head a training camp for Congo partisans located not far from Brazzaville, a project that was rapidly abandoned. Thus, Mukulubundu never actively participated in the rebellion in the Congo.

Biographical / historical:

The Kwilu Rebellion

The recently independent Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of Congo) experienced a wave of unrest in 1964, sparked by a rebellion in its Kwilu province under the leadership of Pierre Mulele. In the Kwilu province, a solid group of Mulele followers formed among members of his own ethnic group, the Mbunda, as well as among Antoine Gizenga's kinsmen, the Pende, both of whom had long been the target of government repression.

The Kwilu rebellion began in January 1964, when Mulelist insurgents attacked government outposts, mission stations, and company installations. Troops were immediately sent to the area, and by April a measure of stability had been restored to the area. However, the rebels did establish control over an entire region for a period of nearly two years, ending in December 1965. The initial success of Mulelism encouraged a series of further uprisings, which brought the central government to the brink of collapse.

Although the Kwilu rebellion was ultimately reduced by a combination of military force and regional economic stagnation and thus failed in its objective, it has attracted considerable scholarly attention because it illustrates the origination and evolution process of social movements in the postwar third world.

Additional Sources:

Hermann Kinder and Werner Hilgemann, The Anchor Atlas of World History, 2, Garden City, New York, 1978, p. 268.

Mark Traugott, "The Economic Origins of the Kwilu Rebellion," Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 21, No. 3. (Jul., 1979), pp. 459-479.

Renee C. Fox, Willy de Craemer, and Jean-Marie Ribeaucourt "The Second Independence: A Case Study of the Kwilu Rebellion in the Congo (in Millennial Overtones in Rebellion)," Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 8, No. 1. (Oct., 1965), pp. 78-109.

Acquisition information:
Materials were acquired by the Hoover Institution Library Archives in 1976.
Arrangement:

The collection has generally been kept in the original order of the creator.

Physical location:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Microfilm use only. Materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.

Terms of access:

For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Etat major général records, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives

Location of this collection:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6003, US
Contact:
(650) 723-3563
hooverarchives@stanford.edu
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