Évariste Kimba

In February 1957 Kimba and a group of other young Katangese concerned about domination of their province by people from the neighbouring Kasaï region met to discuss the political future of Katanga. In 1958 they founded the Confédération des associations tribales du Katanga (CONAKAT), a regionalist political party.[8]

In the spring of 1960 Walter Ganshof van der Meersch was appointed the Belgian Minister of African Affairs and sent to the Congo to oversee its transition to independence.[9] Ganshof made Kimba his assistant chief of staff.[7] On 12 June the Provincial Assembly of Katanga elected him to the Senate on a non-customary CONAKAT list.[10][7] On 16 June the Katangese provincial government was formed and Kimba was appointed Minister of Commerce and Industry.[7] The Republic of the Congo became independent on 30 June.[11]

On 11 July 1960 Katangese Provincial President Moise Tshombe declared the secession of the "State of Katanga".[12] This was opposed by the regional Luba-dominated party, the Association Générale des Baluba du Katanga (BALUBAKAT), but Kimba allied himself with Tshombe[3] and maintained that the Katangese Baluba belonged to the Katangese "nation".[13] Tshombe made Kimba Katanga's Minister of Foreign Affairs.[14] In December he accompanied Tshombe to a conference with leaders of the national Congolese government in Brazzaville to discuss political reconciliation. The talks dissolved without any tangible progress being achieved.[15] Though the role of the full Katangese government diminished over time under Tshombe's leadership, Kimba still actively met with Tshombe and held press conferences.[16]

In April 1961 Kimba and Tshombe went to Coquilhatville for further talks with the central government on political reconciliation and revising the Congolese constitution. Unhappy with the conference, Tshombe attempted to leave on 26 April, but he and Kimba were arrested and imprisoned for six weeks.[17] They were released on 22 June and allowed to return to Katanga.[18] In exchange for their liberation, the two men signed an agreement with the Congolese government declaring that representatives from Katangese constituencies would appear in the next session of Parliament. They later repudiated the agreement.[19] In March and May 1962 the Katangese government held further talks with the central government in Léopoldville, the Congolese capital.[20] While Tshombe was gone, Kimba went on a tour of Luba areas in Katanga to rally their favour in support of the secession.[21] On 18 May the last round of the Léopoldville negotiations was due to take place, but Tshombe, stalling for time, stayed in Katanga and sent Kimba in his place.[20] Under military pressure from the United Nations Operation in the Congo, Tshombe declared the end of the Katangese secession in January 1963;[22] on 19 January he received UN officials at his residence and, in the presence of Kimba and some of his other ministers, declared that he would accept the UN's terms for Katanga's reintegration into the Congo.[23]

In the aftermath of the secession, Kimba had a falling out with Tshombe; Kimba preferred reconciliation with the central government, but Tshombe did not wish it at the time.[1] Tshombe went to Paris,[24] while in February 1963 Kimba became Minister of Education of the new province of South Katanga. From April until August he served as the province's Minister of Economic Affairs and Minister of Information.[7] In June he went to Léopoldville, to reach an understanding with the central government.[24] In September he attended a conference of moderate political parties in Luluabourg as an observer. On 18 September Kimba went to Europe for "health reasons". He returned to the Congo in January 1964. On 13 December he was elected president of the central committee of the Entente Muluba, an Élisabethville-based organisation.[7]

That year Tshombe was welcomed back into the country and made Prime Minister at the helm of a transitional government tasked with suppressing a leftist insurrection in the eastern Congo. After this was largely accomplished, general elections took place in 1965 and Tshombe's new coalition organisation, the Convention Nationale Congolaise (CONACO) won a majority of the seats in Parliament.[25] Kimba also contested in the election for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, and won on a BALUBAKAT list. Afterwards he took a brief trip to Paris.[7] Shortly before Parliament was due to reopen, the strength of CONACO faltered, and an anti-Tshombe coalition, the Front Democratique Congolais (FDC), was formed.[26] Kimba joined it in October.[7]

Kimba was overthrown in a coup launched by Joseph-Désiré Mobutu (pictured) in November 1965

In the months following the elections, the political rivalry between Tshombe and the President of the Congo, Joseph Kasa-Vubu, grew increasingly tense. At the first session of the new Parliament on 13 October 1965, Kasa-Vubu unexpectedly announced that Tshombe's transitional government had fulfilled its purpose. He named Kimba the new Prime Minister and tasked him with forming a government of national unity.[27][26] Kimba had little personal following or national reputation and thus was considered inoffensive to members of Parliament and of little threat to Kasa-Vubu's ambitions. Kasa-Vubu also hoped that by appointing another Katangese to the post, he would avoid aggravating persisting secessionist sentiment in Katanga.[3] Kimba's government was installed on 18 October,[28] representing 16 of the 39 political parties with members in Parliament.[29]

Kimba's government was more nationalistic than Tshombe's administration[30] and aimed to curb Western influence in Congolese affairs;[31] it was markedly less amicable towards Belgian interests.[30] The new cabinet sought to improve the Congo's relations with active countries in the Organisation of African Unity including Ethiopia and Ghana, and to distance itself from the members of the African and Malagasy Common Organisation.[31] The government opened negotiations with Congo-Brazzaville, and on 5 November Kimba announced that in its first step towards rehabilitating the Congo's ties with African states his government was renewing ferry traffic across the Congo river between Brazzaville and Léopoldville, which had been suspended for two years.[32] The following day he formally reestablished diplomatic relations with Congo-Brazzaville.[33][34][lower-alpha 1] He also reopened the Congo-Uganda border, which had been closed since February.[33] Kimba revised the composition of his government on 8 November.[35]

Tshombe's removal from power angered his supporters, and in the following weeks they competed with anti-Tshombe partisans for dominance in Parliament. On 14 November the Kimba Government was presented to the legislature for a formal vote of confidence. It was defeated, 72 to 76 in the Chamber of Deputies and 49 to 58 in the Senate.[36] The next day Kasa-Vubu renominated Kimba as Prime Minister, resulting in a political deadlock.[29] On 25 November, Army Commander-in-Chief Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, who had previously supported Kimba, launched a coup removing both him and Kasa-Vubu from power and assumed control of the presidency.[37] Colonel Léonard Mulamba was appointed to replace Kimba.[38]