Mulele proved to be a capable leader and scored a number of early successes, although these would remain localised to Kwilu. 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. 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. In 1963, the Conseil National de Libération (CNL) was founded by Gbenye and Soumialot in Brazzaville, capital of the neighbouring Republic of the Congo. It was in exile that the rebellion began to take shape. Gizenga was arrested and imprisoned on Bula-Mbemba and many of the Lumumbists went into exile. These talks ultimately did not deliver the Lumumbist government that had been intended. 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.
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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 although, as with Lumumba, there is some dispute over the true political inclinations of the Lumumbists. In 1961, this change in power led Antoine Gizenga to declare the creation of a rebel government in Stanleyville. 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. The rebellion can be immediately traced back to the assassination of the first Prime Minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, in January 1961. 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. By November 1965, the Simba rebellion was effectively defeated, though holdouts of the rebels continued their insurgency until the 1990s. 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. However, the insurgency suffered from a lack of organisation and coherence, as well as tensions between the rebel leadership and its international allies of the Eastern Bloc. The Simba rebels were initially successful and captured much of eastern Congo, proclaiming a ‘people’s republic’ at Stanleyville. The rebellion was contemporaneous with the Kwilu rebellion led by fellow Lumumbist Pierre Mulele in central Congo. 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 Simba rebellion of 1963 to November 1965, also known as the Orientale revolt, was a rebellion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo which took place within the wider context of the Congo Crisis and the Cold War.
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