François Lumumba
In this position, he attempted to unite various exiled opposition groups and to support rebellions against the Congoloese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.
[6] As it turned out, however, Kie was already pregnant by this time; soon after François' birth, his parents were forced to end their affair due to the arrival of Patrice's third wife, Pauline Opango, in Stanleyville.
François and his younger brother Patrice were brought to Egypt,[7] whose President Gamal Abdel Nasser was supportive of their father.
Under the protection of Nasser, the family was moved into a villa in Cairo's Zamalek district, while the Egyptian state paid their school fees.
[8] Nasser unexpectedly died in 1970, and his successor Anwar Sadat was much less supportive of the sympathizers and relatives of Lumumba, causing many –including François– to leave for Europe.
Using his family background, he unsuccessfully attempted to unite the infighting factions of the Mouvement National Congolais-Lumumba (MNC-L), the old party of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.
His uncle Albert Onawelho Lumumba became his most important rival for control of the MNC-L.[9] Though François enjoyed some limited successes, he was unable to overcome the factionalism.
[12] In 1982, a series of MNC congresses in Brussels, Paris, and Cologne acknowledged François Lumumba as the head of the reorganized party.
[1][a] According to researcher Michel Luntumbue, François remained one of the MNC-L main faction's leaders over the course of the 1980s,[15] though other individuals continued to challenge his position.
At the time, various groups existed which attempted to mobilize an insurgency against Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator of the Congo (then renamed "Zaire") since 1965.
[18] A Mai-Mai militia calling itself "Lumumbist National Resistance" kidnapped twenty foreigners in 2001 in order to raise international attention to the warfare in the Congo.
[11][24] By March 2006, Lumumba had to deal with conflicts within his party, as the position of MNC-L provincial president for Orientale Province was disputed.
In his position as MNC-L leader and son, François used the opportunity to express his hope that his father's nationalist spirit would help the Congolese to defend their country from enemies, considering the then-ongoing M23 offensive.
