Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1967 — dissident coup attempt
Event Summary
On 5 July 1967 a second mercenaries' mutiny broke out at Kisangani, formerly Stanleyville, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, exactly a year after the first, against the government of General Joseph Desire Mobutu. Led by the Belgian settler Jean Schramme and including about 100 former Katangese gendarmes and around 1,000 Katangese, along with other European mercenaries, the revolt was apparently triggered by news that the exiled former prime minister Moise Tshombe, whose comeback the mutineers favored, had been kidnapped in an aircraft hijacking and imprisoned in Algeria. The mutineers seized Kisangani and other eastern towns and held out against the much larger Congolese National Army.
Suspected mercenaries in Kinshasa were arrested, tortured, and killed by government forces in reprisal. The rising was contained, and by November 1967 Schramme's mutineers crossed into Rwanda and surrendered, ending the challenge to Mobutu's consolidating dictatorship.
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
49007051967
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's government suppressed the mercenaries' mutiny, which ended with their surrender in Rwanda.
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
Wikipedia
New York Times
Los Angeles 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 →