Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1966 — dissident coup attempt
Event Summary
On 30 May 1966 the government of General Joseph Desire Mobutu announced it had uncovered a conspiracy against the state, the so-called Pentecost Plot, and arrested the former prime minister Evariste Kimba and three former ministers, Jerome Anany, Alexandre Mahamba, and Emmanuel Bamba. The charges appear to have been fabricated by officers in Mobutu's pay to trap the four men, barely six months after Mobutu had seized power in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in November 1965. After a summary trial before a special military tribunal that deliberated for six minutes and rejected their denials, the four were condemned to death and publicly hanged on 2 June 1966 before a crowd said to number in the tens of thousands in the central square of Kinshasa.
The spectacle served to terrorize potential rivals and consolidate Mobutu's grip as he moved to abolish the office of prime minister and build the personal dictatorship he would hold for over three decades.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
49005301966
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: General Joseph Desire Mobutu used the alleged plot to eliminate rivals and consolidate his dictatorship.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Luttwak
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →