The Simba rebellion, also known as the Orientale revolt, was a regional uprising which took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1963 and 1965 in the wider context of the Congo Crisis and the Cold War. The rebellion, located in the east of the country, was led by the followers of Patrice Lumumba, who had been ousted from power in 1960 by Joseph Kasa-Vubu and Joseph-Désiré Mobutu and subsequently killed in January 1961 in Katanga. The rebellion was contemporaneous with the Kwilu rebellion led by fellow Lumumbist Pierre Mulele in central Congo.
The Simba rebels were initially successful and captured much of eastern Congo, proclaiming a "people's republic" at Stanleyville. However, the insurgency suffered from a lack of organization and coherence, as well as tensions between the rebel leadership and its international allies of the Eastern Bloc. When the Congolese government launched a number of major counter-offensives from late 1964, spearheaded by battle-hardened mercenaries and backed by Western powers, the rebels suffered several major defeats and disintegrated. By November 1965, the Simba rebellion was effectively defeated, though holdouts of the rebels continued their insurgency until the 1990s.
Background
The causes of the Simba Rebellion should be viewed as part of the wider struggle for power within the Republic of the Congo following independence from Belgium on 30 June 1960 as well as within the context of other Cold War interventions in Africa by the West and the Soviet Union. The rebellion can be immediately traced back to the assassination of the first Prime Minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, in January 1961. Political infighting and intrigue followed, resulting in the ascendancy of Joseph Kasa-Vubu and Joseph-Désiré Mobutu in Kinshasa at the expense of politicians who had supported Lumumba such as Antoine Gizenga, Christophe Gbenye, and Gaston Soumialot.
In 1961, this change in power led Antoine Gizenga to declare the creation of a rebel government in Stanleyville. This rival government, dubbed the Free Republic of the Congo, received support from the Soviet Union and China as they positioned themselves as being "socialists" opposed to American intervention in the Congo and involvement in the death of Lumumba, however, the precise political orientation of the Lumumbists following his death remains an ongoing historical debate.
However, in August 1961, Gizenga dissolved the government in Stanleyville with the intention of taking part in the United Nations sponsored talks at Lovanium University. These talks ultimately did not deliver the Lumumbist government that had been intended. Gizenga was arrested and imprisoned on Bula-Mbemba and many of the Lumumbists went into exile.
It was in exile that the rebellion began to take shape. On 3 October 1963, the Conseil National de Libération (CNL) was founded by Gbenye and Soumialot in Brazzaville, capital of the neighbouring Republic of the Congo. The CNL was backed by pro-Lumumba leaders as well as "emerging local warlords" based in Orientale Province as well as Kivu in eastern Congo. However, whilst these plans for rebellion were being developed in exile, Pierre Mulele returned from his training in China to launch a revolution in his native province of Kwilu in 1963.
Mulele proved to be a capable leader and scored a number of early successes, although these would remain localised to Kwilu. With the country again seeming to be in open rebellion of the government in Kinshasa, the CNL launched its rebellion in their political heartland of eastern Congo.
Simba forces and ideology
To the extent that the [Simba] movement had an ideology, it was an mixture of nationalism, village Marxism, and magic.
Christophe Gbenye's forces were organized as the "Armée Populaire de Libération" (APL), though were generally nicknamed "Simbas", meaning a lion or big lion in Swahili. recruitment was often driven by local grievances including economic frustrations and dissatisfaction with current authority. The Simba's recruited from ANC mutineers, ethnic groups, and youth militants (jeunesse, French for "youth", used to refer to youth militias and youth supporters aligned with Lumumbist factions, some of which acted as an informal youth wing of the Simba forces), participating in auxiliary activities and irregular combat utilising traditional weaponry alongside ritualist medicines.
In general, the Armée Populaire de Libération was divided into regular units which were organized like the ANC (namely the unités d'operations and unités de garnison), and units which were more akin to irregular militias (barriéres). Although they were on average well motivated, the Simbas lacked discipline and their command as well as control was often chaotic. They were also critically underequipped, with many rebels relying on machetes and spears due to lacking guns.
The majority of the Simbas were young men and teens, although child soldiers also existed among the insurgents. The rebels were led by Gaston Soumialot, a former member of Gizenga's Parti Solidaire Africain (PSA), Gbenye, a prominent leader of the Lumumbist faction of the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC-L) and Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who had been a member of the Lumumba-aligned Association générale des Baluba du Katanga (BALUBAKAT), who came together to form a political coalition and military organisation known as the Conseil National de Libération.
Because of the range of political beliefs amongst the Simba rebels, attributing an ideology to the rebellion is very complex. Whilst the leaders claimed to be influenced by Chinese Maoist ideas, the Cuban military advisor Che Guevara wrote that the majority of the fighters did not hold these views. Some fighters also practised a system of traditional beliefs which held that correct behaviour and the regular reapplying of dawa (water ritually applied by a medicine man) would leave the fighters impervious to bullets. Rebel leader Martin Kasongo proclaimed that "no one can touch us. [Bullets] dissolve into water. You Americans can bring all your bullets and bombs. They'll be no use". Researcher Ato Kwamena Onoma described the Simba rebellion as "Lumumbist". The rebellion was backed by the MNC-L party. The CIA and the United States States Department described the rebellion as driven by opportunity, local grievance, and the continued the legacy of Lumumba's assassination.
In addition to native Congolese, the Simba rebels included Rwandan exiles of the Inyenzi movement. These exiles had repeatedly attempted to retake their home country without success, most prominently during the Bugesera invasion of December 1963. Frustrated that Congolese authorities hampered their activities and radicalised by their repeated failures, Inyenzi based in the Congo joined the Simba rebellion because they hoped that a Simba-led government would support their own efforts in Rwanda. Rwandan exiles held prominent positions within the rebel hierarchy, with Jerome Katarebe serving as chef de cabinet. The Rwandan exiles held a reputation as good and disciplined fighters among the insurgents.
Early rebel expansion, late 1963 – July 1964
As the Kwilu rebellion spread and escalated, Soumialot obtained the support of the government of Burundi in recruiting thousands of troops along the Burundian-Congolese border. With these forces, he invaded South Kivu in late 1963. After taking control of most of the province, Soumialot's army overran the last local government holdouts at Uvira on 15 May 1964, followed by Fizi shortly after. Pro-Simba forces successfully revolted in the important harbor town of Albertville in late May, capturing Jason Sendwe, President of North Katanga Province. On 30 May 1964, a small ANC detachment led by Louis Bobozo retook the town, rescuing Sendwe and killing about 250 rebels. The government troops soon alienated the locals due to their brutal behavior. When another rebellion broke out in the town on 19 June 1964, Soumialot's forces exploited the resulting chaos and captured Albertville. The government forces fled, leaving Sendwe behind; he was subsequently murdered by either Simba rebels or, less likely, ANC soldiers, though the circumstances remain unclear and disputed.
Meanwhile, Christophe Gbenye and Nicholas Olenga rose in revolt in northeastern Congo, quickly expanding their army and territories. By June 1964, they held North Kivu, and southern Orientale Province. They did not coordinate their operations with Soumialot who distrusted Gbenye. A third rebel force, independent of Soumialot, Gbenye, and Olenga, rebelled in northern Katanga in early June. These insurgents considered themselves "true" Communists, and were led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila and Ildéphonse Massengo. They had no real connections to the other Simba factions. Kabila and Massengo's troops conquered the entire western shore of Lake Tanganyika, including Moba by late June. They then advanced into the Province of Maniema, and captured its strategically important capital Kindu on 22 July.
The local Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC) garrisons reacted with brutal counter-insurgency actions that failed to defeat the Simbas, but alienated the population of the eastern provinces. Furthermore, the Simba rebels often managed to intimidate well-equipped ANC units into retreating or defecting without a fight, thereby capturing much-needed weaponry for the insurgency. As the Simba rebellion in eastern Congo spread, the states of the Eastern Bloc took increasing interest. The Soviet Union implored neighboring nationalist regimes to aid the rebels. The Soviet leadership promised that it would replace all weaponry given to the Simbas in given time, but rarely did so.According to Lisa Namikas' research, Soviet support for the Congolese rebels was largely symbolic. In order to supply the rebels, the Soviet Union transported equipment via cargo planes to Juba in allied Sudan. From there, the Sudanese transported weapons into the Congo This operation backfired, however, as southern Sudan was engulfed in its own civil war. The Sudanese Anyanya insurgents consequently ambushed the Soviet-Sudanese supply convoys and captured the weapons for themselves.
When the CIA learned of these attacks, it allied with the Anyanya. The Anyanya consequently helped the Western/Congolese air forces to locate Simba rebel camps and supply routes, and destroy them. In return, the Sudanese rebels were given weapons for their own war. Angered by the Soviet support for the insurgents, the Congolese government expelled the Soviet embassy's personnel from the country in July 1964; the Soviet leadership responded by increasing its aid for the Simbas. Meanwhile, the Simbas continued to advance. By late July 1964, the insurgents controlled about half of the Congo. Utterly demoralized by repeated defeats, many ANC soldiers believed that the Simba rebels had become invincible thanks to magical rituals performed by insurgent shamans such as the Mama Onema. Amid these rebel successes, the United States government pressured President Kasa-Vubu to dismiss Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula, and install a new government led by Moïse Tshombe. The U.S. and Belgian leadership believed that Tshombe was supportive of their interests as well as a more effective leader, thereby being the ideal person to lead the Congo in the conflict against the Simba rebels. Tshombe had previously led the failed separatist State of Katanga which had received significant backing from the Belgian government. With few options left, Kasa-Vubu agreed and Tshombe returned from exile as the new prime minister on 30 July 1964.
The State Department in the United States regarded the Congo as a "pivot point" located perfectly between the now White-ruled southern Africa and the newly independent states towards the north. The United States consistently sought to maintain a pro-Western government in Léopoldville capable of securing the country's vast mineral wealth. The lead decision makers in Washington and Brussels acknowledged in private that the Simba rebel leaders were not associated with communism. Despite this, they viewed the Simbas as a threat to their strategic interest, motivating to increasingly intervene. Officially, the United States and Belgium justified their involvement by framing the Simba rebellion as Soviet- or Chinese-directed Communist insurgency.