Bundu dia Kongo

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Bundu dia Kongo is a politico-cultural movement founded in June 1969 by Ne Mwanda Nsemi. The movement is mainly based in the Bas-Congo province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The movement focuses on defending, protecting, and promoting values, rights, and interests of Kongo people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The movement advocates for the establishment of a federal government system in the Democratic Republic of the Congo while seeking to eradicate social and economic injustices long imposed to Kongo people by the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The movement is lead by Ne Muanda Nsemi. The movement has several thousands followers in Kinshasa and in the Bas-Congo province. The movement, for decades, has have a relatively strong sustainable impact on the Kongo people. The movement main concern is the social transformation, through cultural regeneration, of African societies. The movement also focuses on the resistance against pre-conceived destruction of Kongo people history, their fundamental values, and their identity through their knowledge of their spiritual patrimony.

[edit] Clashes with the police

In 2002 the police shot to death 14 followers of Bundu dia Kongo in a demonstration.

In January and February of 2007 the followers of Bundu dia Kongo demonstrated against alleged corruption in the provincial elections, which lead to violent clashes with the police and the military in Matadi, Muanda, Boma and Songololo. The clashes resulted to the death of 134 people, mostly civilians but also several policemen.

In late February and early March 2008, the followers of Bundu dia Kongo clashed with the police in and around Luozi and Seke-Banza. According to the police, the clashes resulted in the death of 25 people (22 of them in Luozi) and many wounded. Nsemi, who said that he had called for calm and a neutral investigation, alleged that the police had killed 80 people in Luozi and 40 in Seke-Banza.^[1] Later, in May, corpses of 40 people were unearthed in five mass graves in Sumbi, in the territory of Seke-Banza.^[2] Also a police car and several houses (including the meeting house of Bundu dia Kongo) were burned in Luozi and a nearby village of Lufuku.

Later in March 2008, the government banned Bundu dia Kongo.^[3]