Table of Contents
Introduction
What do we know about Pierre Mulele? If you take a quick survey in the streets of cities in the big congo. By asking the question about who is “Mulele” or what is a “Mulele”?
you will likely be told that it is a thief.
Indeed, the artist and musician Férré Gola immortalized this Lingala expression “AZA NA YE MULELE” in one of his popular songs, which can be translated by: “He or she is a thief”. This made it possible to widely convey this expression.
However, the question that we can ask ourselves is who this Mulele is?
Even if he played a partition for independence.
The popular masses do not seem to include him in the list of Congolese national heroes.
Sounds like he was thrown into oblivion or simply relegated to second place in the hierarchy of heroes.
Here are four things that you should know about Pierre Mulele.
Congolese by father and mother, Pierre Mulele the rebel at heart.
If there are doubts about his date of birth.
Different corroborating sources indicate that he was born on August 11, 1929.
He was born from the union of Benoît Mulele, a nurse from the colonial era, and Agnès Luam.
it should be noted that Agnes was originally the slave of sir Benoit Mulele, their traditions allowed them to have slaves.
The same tradition stated that all born males are slaves of their father (Tradition from Mbunda ethnic in congo). So, the little Pierre Mulele from birth was considered as his father’s slave.
Fortunately, his father went to school and was one of the well-educated blacks in their region.
Benoit Mulele had other plans for little Pierre Mulele.
First of all, he teaches him the alphabet at home and allows him to go to school where he shines among his classmates.
Later he will join the Kinzambi seminary where he got in trouble and was fired in 1946.
Indeed, the Catholic fathers were afraid that Pierre Mulele would poison his comrades with his ideas.
He was only 17 years old at the time and does not hesitated to go against Catholic education.
Pierre Mulele was born with this rebellious spirit in his soul.
At that age, he already questioned the Catholic dogma that he called hypocrisy.
Very quickly, he added African politics and nationalism to his criticism.
very early, he was nicknamed “Moto Mabanga”, which simply means “Tough head”.
In his youth alone, here is the non-exhaustive list of events that contributed to this nickname:
• Organizing a strike with his comrades at the Kizambi seminary against the Catholic fathers
• Leaving Yaseke agricultural school just after spending a year just because he felt like wasting his time
• Attempting to take control of the military camp where he was posted after agricultural school
• Refusing to salute the Belgian flag, of which it did not recognize any legitimacy
• Getting 7 days in prison after brutalizing the sergeant who came to reprimand him
It should be noted that thanks to his freedom of speech, many of his comrades saw their conditions improve.
Pierre Mulele, Former Minister of Education and Arts
The first political inclinations came at the age of 24 after leaving the army.
he became a civil servant within the general direction of civil buildings.
in the same spirit of his youth, Pierre Mulele joined the association of indigenous staff of the colony. He is waging a merciless fight for equal rights between white and black officials.
he gave no credibility to the superiority theories of white workers over black workers for the same work.
As for his refusal to salute the flag a few years ago.
The passage of King Baudouin in 1955 was simply a non-event for this young man of 26 years.
Pierre Mulele will say that he did not feel like he was a subject of the King of Belgians.
He didn’t hesitate to call him “the first pain in the neck” to visit us.
Later, with his comrades, they will form the African Solidarity Party (PSA).
he first serves as vice-president and then becomes secretary-general.
Soon after the creation, the party quickly weakened with a divergence of opinion.
On the first hand, there was Cleophas Kamitatu Massamba a fervent Catholic Christian who took a rather moderate stance against the Belgian colonist.
On the second hand, there was the extremist wing embodied by Pierre Mulele and his party chairman Antoine Gizenga.
During the elections, the PSA came in 2nd position behind the National Congolese Movement (MNC) of Lumumba. Antoine Gizenga will become Deputy Prime Minister and Pierre Mulele Minister of Education and Arts
Pierre Mulele, a true resistant patriot
After the bomb that Patrice Emery Lumumba throws during the famous speech of June 30, 1960, and the multiple betrayals that will lead to his death, which you can discover in this article: “Lumumba in the lion’s den“.
Pierre Mulele was among the most aggressive against the cunning Joseph Désiré Mobutu. He saw him as a pawn of the settlers and an inveterate traitor.
Very quickly Pierre Mulele went into action.
At first, he wanted to organize resistance everywhere to free Patrice Emery Lumumba.
Unfortunately, he did not immediately gain the support of his friend Antoine Gizenga.
Antoine Gizenga prefers to give up the fight and take power.
However, he was far from suspecting a single moment that he was being manipulated by Mobutu.
After the assassination of Patrice Emery Lumumba, Antoine Gizenga realizes his mistakes and tried to take up guns again, but it was too late.
The future king of Zaire had him arrested a few months later and succeeded in taming the ardor of Antoine Gizenga.
In a second time, Pierre Mulele declared in 1962 that the Congo was entering a critical phase.
he increased his travels abroad in search of allies. Not having been able to find support from Russian.
He flew to China to complete his military and ideological training on the model of the Chinese revolution. It was the start of his fight for freedom, independence, and the unity of the Congo according to him.
he returned to the country with a false passport in 1963 and 1964 he launched his first military operation.
For 3 years the rebellions of Pierre Mulele gained ground but the Mobutu army was technologically stronger.
Mobutu will succeed in extinguishing the rebellion of Pierre Mulele until the last flame in 1967.
This is where Joseph Mobutu set up the most twisted trap in the history of the Congo. A real ruse that will lead to the death of Pierre Mulele.
Trapped like a mouse
While in Brazzaville with President Marien Ngouabi.
Pierre Mulele learned the news of an amnesty decreed by Mobutu.
He was led to believe that he would be presented by Mobutu himself with public honors as a national hero because of his close collaboration with Lumumba.
Politics being dynamic, for Pierre Mulele, it was a time of rest that would certainly allow him to reorganize his fight strategy after having suffered multiple defeats against Mobutu.
It was on October 2, 1968, the Mobutu gift was too good to be true.
Pierre Mulele underestimated the darkness of Mobutu’s soul and his greed for power.
Mobutu was not in the country. On his return, he had a meeting around 5 p.m.
He declares that Pierre Mulele will be judged as a war criminal and that was the end of Pierre Mulele.
So, therefore, he will never be judged. In the same night, Pierre Mulele and his companion Bengila were taken to a military camp where they were tortured in the most atrocious manner possible.
They started by cutting off their ears, their noses, then they removed their eyes and their genitals. to finally cut off their arms and legs before throwing everything else in the Congo River like livestock.
And it’s not all, later to permanently bury the hope of seeing new muleleists resurface.
Mobutu had Pierre Mulele’s mother Agnés Luam shotgunned in front of hundreds of villagers.
To make sure that the message remains engraved in people’s minds, the soldiers cut up the body of the poor woman and buried pieces separately.
In conclusion
We must remember that Pierre Mulele was not 40 years old when he died.
One thing is certain, the true fathers of independence paid the price for the freedom of our country with their lives. Pierre Mulele is one of those who lost his life in the fight.
May the memory of Pierre Mulele live