Joseph Kasa-Vubu, alternatively Joseph Kasavubu, was a Congolese politician who served as the first President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1960 until 1965.
A member of the Kongo ethnic group, Kasa-Vubu became the leader of the Alliance des Bakongo party in the 1950s and soon became a leading proponent of Congo's independence from Belgian colonial rule. He then became the country's first president in a coalition with Patrice Lumumba as prime minister. Less than a week after the country's independence in 1960, their government was confronted by the Congo Crisis, a series of secession movements and rebellions. During this time, Kasa-Vubu, a centrist, clashed with the leftist Lumumba when the latter ordered assistance from the Soviet Union, leading to a political deadlock. Kasa-Vubu then dissolved Lumumba's government, accusing it of having communist sympathies. Following Lumumba's execution in 1961, Kasa-Vubu presided over a series of weak governments while confronting subsequent rebellions by Lumumba's supporters. In 1965, he was overthrown in another coup by Joseph-Désiré Mobutu and died four years later.
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“I wanted to study the enemy on his home grounds.”
The new leaders of Africa https://archive.org/details/newleadersofafri0000unse/page/150/mode/2up Rolf Italiaander, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall 1690, p 147. Kasa-Vubu explains why in 1942 Leopoldville, he became a clerk at the Belgian financial administration.
