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image by
Eugene Ipavec, 09 Aug 2006
The flag of the MLC has changed. The flag has a blue
background, featuring the letters MLC on yellow on the left, plus the
map of Congo outlined in yellow and a yellow ant. See the MLC
official website at
http://www.mlc-congo.net/
Esteban Rivera, 09 Aug 2006
![[MLC flag]](../images/c/cd}mlc.gif)
image
by Jarig Bakker, 10 Jul 2004
Flag of "Mouvement de Libération du Congo"
(Congolese
Liberation Movement) is from
http://www.managingbusiness.com/mlc/
(no longer available, ed.)
Dov Gutterman, 25 May 2002
The party's official website, provides more details
on the party and its emblem. On some pages of the website,
the party is called "Mouvement pour la Libération du Congo",
but the party's statutes include only "Mouvement de Libération
du Congo".
The MLC is the result of the transformation on 05 April 2003 of the
former "MLC - Mouvement Politico-Militaire", an
armed movement founded on 30 September 1998 to oppose former
President Laurent-Désiré Kabila's government and supported by
Uganda, into the "MLC- Parti Politique", a political
party. The transformation is mentioned in the party's
statutes (Art. 1), adopted on 29 January 2006, as well as at the
party's official headquarters in Kinshasa (Art. 3), the capital of the
country. The militia of the MLC, the Armée de Libération du
Congo (ALC) was (or, at least, should have been) transferred,
together with ammunition, to the regular army of the Democratic
Republic of Congo (Art. 3).
On 30 June 2003, the MLC joined the Transitional Government of
the Democratic Republic of Congo with its President, Jean-Pierre Bemba
(aka the "chairman", a relative of the former President Mobutu
Sese Seko), being appointed Vice-President of the country. In
2006, Bemba competed in the Presidential election. His residence was
attacked by the Presidential Guard in August 2006 and he lost the
second round of the election against the incumbent Joseph Kabila with
42% of the votes. In spring 2007, Bemba's personal guard,
which was still not incorporated into the national army, was defeated
by the national army. Bemba left the country for Portugal in April 2007
and was arrested in Brussels on 24 May 2008, upon request of the
International Criminal Court.
The party's statutes describe the party's emblem as follows:
Chapter II ("On the ideology, the motto and the emblem") says: Article
9. The emblem of the MLC is a yellow "ant" placed in the middle of a
blue field of the flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
<http://www.mlc-congo.net/statut.htm>
The statutes of the MLC-Mouvement
Politico-Militaire, adopted on 30 June 1999, describe the
emblem and the flag of the party as follows:
Chapter V. Of the emblem, the flag and the motto.
Article 8. The emblem of the MLC shall be the ant. It is the
symbol of organization, of abnegation and courage, of solidarity, of
social cohesion, of energy and of work.[...]
Article 9. The flag of the MLC shall be blue with a red diagonal stripe
fimbriated yellow and a yellow star in the upper hoist. It
represents the adherence of the Congolese people to national unity, to
territorial integrity and to prosperity. [Note the use of current
national flag used in 1963-1971 and readopted in 2006.]
[...] <http://www.congonline.com/Forum1/Forum04/MLC06.htm>
Bemba's militias are nicknamed the "fourmis"
(ants), hence the prominence of the symbol in the party.
Ivan Sache, 24 Jun 2008
![[UFERI flag]](../images/c/cd}uferi.gif)
sent
by Rob Raeside, 12 Jul 2004
From the intermittent series on maps on flags provided by Mason
Kaye.
This is the flag of UFERI, (L'Union des Fédéralistes et
Républicains Indépendants - Union of Independent Federalists
and Republicans). Seen on Belgian TV on August, 1992 (hence Zaire - not
Dem. Rep. of Congo). Outline image provided - coloured by me. I guess
this
was seen as a vertical flag. Yellow map of Zaire in center.
Disc
is red, half circles are blue. Red circular border. White background,
blue
writing: UFERI - NOTRE ESPOIR (our hope).
Source: Michel Lupant.
Rob Raeside, 12 Jul 2004
![[MPR flag]](../images/c/cd}mpr.jpg)
image
by Guy De Boeck, 18 Sep 2005
I was living in Congo when the name and flag of the country
changed.
An MPR flag (Mobutu's only allowed party) already existed. It had the
same flag
as what became the Zaire flag, but without the yellow circle:
thus
green with an arm holding a torch with a red flame. And that stayed the
flag of the party.
As long as the unique party remained, the cockade worn by its members
was that same design : the torch on a green background, on an oval
little
jewel made of copper. For dignitaries, it was better carved, and
protected
by transparent plastic.
Lots of books, reviews or papers from the Mobutu period also wore that
sign : a green band with the arm and the torch.
I cannot imagine where the so called "party flag" designed by Mr
Martins
according to Mr. Bliss has been found or fancied.
If that design has something in common with Mobutu and his party, then
the only period it could be related to is the period 1965 - 1967, when
he founded an organization called CVR (Corps des Volontaire de
la Republique
= Corps of Republican Volunteers). But the green and torch flag
appeared
in the same time as the "Manifeste de la N'sele", at
the foundation
of the MPR party.
(N'sele is the name of a village, where Mobutu gathered number of
politicians
to elaborate that manifest).
Guy De Boeck, 18 Sep 2005
That is the real MPR party flag : the same as the former
national
one, but without the yellow circle and with a bigger arm. This flag
existed
BEFORE the Zaire flag.
Guy De Boeck, 18 Sep 2005
The National Alliance's Party for Unity (Parti de l'Alliance
Nationale pour l'Unité) is a centrist political party in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, founded in 2003. It has 190
candidates for the upcoming parliamentary elections in July 2006 and
has decided to support President Kabila in the forthcominh presidential
elections (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Alliance_Party_for_Unity).
Article 3 : La devise du PANU est : « UNITE – LIBERTE –DEVELOPPEMENT ».
son emblème est un drapeau de fond blanc, bordé de onze (11) étoiles
dorées représentant les onze provinces du pays, avec au milieu, une
flèche rouge orientée vers le haut, signe d'un mouvement ascensionnel
(see
http://www.panu-cd.com/statuts.htm) which is translated as :
"a white flag, bordered with 11 gold stars for the eleven provinces of
the country surrounding a red arrow pointing upwards" (rough
translation) see it as a shield at http://www.panu-cd.com/.
"Prometevsberg", 06 Aug 2006
image by Esteban
Rivera, 06 Aug 2006
The Parti du peuple pour la reconstruction et la démocratie (PPRD)
(Peoples Party for reconstruction and democracy) of President Joseph
Kabila
uses a yellow flag with the party symbol in the centre. This
is a blue map image of the
country with two stylized hands in red and yellow clasping each
other. The party acronym is found between the wrists and
above the symbol on the
yellow field.
"Prometevsberg", 06 Aug 2006
The PPRD was officially registered with the Ministry of the Interior by
Decree 031/2002 on 02 April 2002. The statutes of the party
should prescribe the emblem of the party in Article 12, but this is
left blank ("The emblem of the party shall be...) on the online version
of the statutes.
The party was founded by supporters of Joseph Kabila and members of his
government. It should follow the tracks of Patrice Lumumba, the Prime
Minister murdered in 1961, and Laurent-Désiré Kabila, Joseph's father.
Ivan Sache, 12 Aug 2006
Ruberwa explained the new flag as follows:
- the dove represents peace because " we are campaigning for peace.
We fought war for peace, this was the price to pay". "[...] The dove
shows
that even in a so-called peace time, we have to search for the real
peace,
that is the inner peace." Moreover the dove shall show that RCD is
today
a tolerant and no longer a violent party.
- the palm tree represents democracy.
- the "bonne gouvernance" (good governing) is "a
series of rules and
practices which give hope to our Republic and our citizens and
determination
to our youth". "All members of the RCD who would act again the "bonne
gouvernance"
will be sacked.
Source: a paper by Médard Muyaya in "Le Potentiel"
(Kinshasa,
28 July 2005)
Ivan Sache, 18 Aug 2005
image by Ivan
Sache, 24 June 2008
The party was founded on 10 August 2001 and officially registered by
Ministerial Decree #130 on 07 April 2005. There were no UNIR-MN
representatives among the 33 candidates who competed in the 2006
presidential election.
Photographs taken in 2004 during a TV-interview in Brussels, available
on the party's website, show the party's President, Frédéric Boyenga
Bofala, sitting in front of the party's flag. This flag is
vertically divided into "Congo modern" - "Zaire" - "Congo
ancien", that is the three components of the party's map
emblem (see below) transformed into a flag. The emblem and flag
reflects the party's acronym, "UNIR" which means in French "to unite".
In its statements, the party also uses the name "Congo-Zaire" for the
country which is also reflected in its flag.
The party flag shows, from left to right and arranged vertically, but
with equal yellow and red stripes; the country's current flag, the flag
of Zaire, and the second
flag of independent
Congo.
Ivan Sache, 24 June 2008
image sent by Esteban
Rivera, 06 Aug 2006
This is a flag of the Union pour la République-Mouvement
National (Union for the Republic-National Movement) (UNIR-MN)
taken from the party's official website at http://www.unir-mn.org/
It contains the party's map emblem comprising the national flags used
by the country in the centre of a white field.
Esteban Rivera, 06 Aug 2006
![[Unknown party flag]](../images/c/cd}mbtu.gif)
by António Martins, 22 Nov 1998, after image sent
by by Nathan
Bliss, 7 Jan 1997
My question here is what really is this flag, because is
surely not
Mobutu’s party flag. Not only it has no resemblance to the Zaire flag,
but also it features a map of Zaire / Congo-Kinshasa without
the southern
secessionist provinces of
Katanga/Shaba,
Southern
Kasai and what seems to be part of Kivu,
something Mobutu would never have endorsed.
António Martins, 22 Nov 1998
It seems to me that that the map is just a distortion in order
to fit
the flag (and the outspread hands). The long stretch into Zambia is
there,
as well as the hiccups in the frontiers between Congo and Zambia. In my
opinion it's
quite safe to assume that Nathan Bliss' image was a bit distorted and
that
the real flag had the real map of Congo (or Zaïre) on it in red. Many
political flags produced by expatriates have been proved to be
geographically
(or otherwise) incorrect.
Mobutu's party was the Popular Movement of the Revolution (Mouvement
Populaire de la Révolution), founded in 1967 as the principle
vehicle of the Mobutu regime. It was renamed in 1990 to Popular
Movement
for Renewal (Mouvement Populaire Renouveau - MPR).
Jarig Bakker, 09 Oct 2002