Cléophas Kamitatu was born on 10 June 1931 in Kilombo-Masi, Masi-Manimba Territory, Kwilu Province, Belgian Congo.

[3] Kamitatu led the PSA's delegation to the Congolese Round Table Conference in early 1960 to discuss the Congo's political future.

[3] Kamitatu hoped to overhaul the local economy by altering traditional agricultural practices and tightening tax collection, though these proposals were not well received in the Kwilu region.

Kamitatu protested their activities and accused them of committing rape and violence against local citizens, threatening to lead his province into secession.

[8] In March 1961 Kamitatu was sent to Stanleyville to negotiate on behalf of the central government with Gizenga's rival state, the Free Republic of the Congo.

[11] He briefly served as Foreign Minister under Évariste Kimba's short-lived government until Mobutu seized power definitively in November 1965.

On 18 June 1966 a special tribunal sentenced Kamitatu to five years in prison for complicity in a supposed plot to kill Mobutu.

As the country underwent democratization in the early 1990s, Kamitatu became a top member of Joseph Ileo's Parti démocrate et social chrétien (PDSC).