Dieudonne Kayembe Mbandakulu Tshisuma (born April 9, 1945) was the Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since June 12, 2007, he has the rank

Military rank

Military rank is a system of hierarchical relationships in armed forces or civil institutions organized along military lines. Usually, uniforms denote the bearer's rank by particular insignia affixed to the uniforms...

 of Lieutenant General

Lieutenant General

Lieutenant General is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages where the title of Lieutenant General was held by the second in command on the battlefield, who was normally subordinate to a Captain General....

.

Dieudonne Kayembe was born on April 9, 1945 at Lubumbashi

Lubumbashi

Lubumbashi is the second largest city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, second only to the nation's capital Kinshasa, and the hub of the southeastern part of the country. The copper-mining city serves as the capital of the relatively prosperous Katanga Province, lying near the Zambian border...

, Haut-Katanga District

Haut-Katanga District

Haut-Katanga District is a district located in the Katanga Province, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo....

. He attended primary school at the Athénée de Lubumbashi, which he followed with secondary schooling at Mbuji-Mayi

Mbuji-Mayi

Mbuji-Mayi serves as the capital of Kasai-Oriental Province in the south-central Democratic Republic of Congo. It is the third largest city in the country, following the capital Kinshasa and second largest city Lubumbashi but ahead of Kisangani and Kananga. The city is the DRC's third-largest,...

 in Kasai-Oriental

Kasai-Oriental

Kasai-Oriental is one of the ten provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It borders the provinces of Kasai-Occidental to the west, Équateur to the northwest, Orientale to the northeast, Maniema to the east, and Katanga to the south. Kasai-Oriental is one of the richest diamond producing...

 Province. He later entered the prestigious École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr

École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr

The École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr is the foremost French military academy. Its official name is . It is often referred to as Saint-Cyr . Its motto is "Ils s'instruisent pour vaincre": literally "They study to vanquish" or "Training for victory"...

 officer academy, in France. After he finished that training, he was admitted to a branch school, specifically the Cavalry School at Saumur, still in France.

Since that time pursuing a military career, Kayembe entered, later on, after passing the entrance exam, the Command and General Staff College

Command and General Staff College

The United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas is a graduate school for United States Army and sister service officers, interagency representatives, and international military officers. The college was established in 1881 by William Tecumseh Sherman as a...

 at Fort Knox

Fort Knox

Fort Knox is a United States Army post in Kentucky south of Louisville and north of Elizabethtown. The base covers parts of Bullitt, Hardin, and Meade counties. It currently holds the Army Human Resources Center of Excellence to include the Army Human Resources Command, United States Army Cadet...

, in the United States.
Following his training in that school he received his staff officer’s brevet.

Career

After the arrival in power of Laurent Kabila in May 1997, then-Colonel Kayembe was named deputy director of the Defence Minister’s office, and promoted to Brigadier General.

He was named successively Vice-Minister of Defence and (then ?) of Reconstruction. Chief of Staff of the HQ of the Congolese Armed Forces in 2002, he later assumed the functions of Director-General of the Military Detection of Unpatriotic Activities (DEMIAP

DEMIAP

DEMIAP was the military intelligence organization of the Democratic Republic of the Congo...

), the Congolese military intelligence service.

On June 12, 2007 he was raised in grade to Lieutenant General and named eighteenth Chief of Staff of the FARDC by President Joseph Kabila, supreme commander of the armed forces.

He was replaced in 2008 by General Didier Etumba.

Citations and notes

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