President Kagame and João Lourenço of Angola are among heads of states attending the national mourning in DRC to pay respects to late Etienne Tshisekedi.
They held talks yesterday, one day before his burial scheduled today in Nsele commune.
The body of longtime Congolese opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi arrived Thursday evening in Kinshasa as his son Felix, now the nation’s president waited at the airport.
The younger Tshisekedi then accompanied the body during a formal procession that stopped at his home and at the headquarters of Tshisekedi’s political party, the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), where party supporters waited to pay their respects.
The slow journey through the streets marked the end of a long battle to repatriate the remains of Tshisekedi, who was 84 when he died in Brussels, Belgium, in February 2017.
His death came at the height of tensions between former president Joseph Kabila and the Congolese opposition, particularly the UDPS; the first attempt to bring his body home was in March 2017 but each time the plans were frustrated by conflicts over the details of his repatriation, funeral, and burial.
That changed after Felix Tshisekedi was inaugurated earlier this year, and the family was greeted with a hero’s welcome from the Congolese people.
Étienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba (14 December 1932 – 1 February 2017) was a Congolese politician and the leader of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), the main opposing political party in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
A long-time opposition leader, he served as Prime Minister of the country (then called Zaire) on three brief occasions: in 1991, 1992–1993, and 1997.
Tshisekedi was the main Congolese opposition leader for decades. Although he served in the government of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in various positions, he also led the campaign against Mobutu and was one of few politicians who challenged the dictator.
Tshisekedi and his UDPS party boycotted the 2006 elections organized in Congo on claims that elections were fraudulent and were systematically rigged in advance.
He was a candidate for President of Congo in the 2011 elections that many national and international observers, notably the Carter Center, have said lacked credibility and transparency.
Having officially lost to incumbent Joseph Kabila, Tshisekedi nevertheless declared himself the “elected president” of Congo.
Policemen and Kabila’s presidential guards were subsequently stationed at every corner that gives entrance to Tshisekedi’s residence, placing him under unofficial house arrest
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