Christian Malanga

Malanga was born to Chantal Kibonge and Joseph Itejo Malanga in the capital city of Kinshasa. His father was born and raised in Mangai. Malanga had one son with Brittany Sawyer, Marcel. Malanga was convicted in 2001 of assault with a firearm and was given a 30-day jail sentence and three years of probation. He also faced charges of domestic violence and disturbing the peace which were dismissed. Legal records also showed that he had been involved in a custody and child support dispute. In Utah he owned several small businesses until 2006, when he cofounded the DRC non-profit organization Africa Helpline Society. He worked directly with children at the on-site orphanage and with the organization's global outreach initiatives. Malanga used his experiences to simultaneously form his own non-governmental organization, Friends of America, during this time period. ==Early career==

Military service In June 2006, Malanga returned to the DRC to participate in military service, and in 2007 he achieved the rank of captain in the Congolese military. His principal duties during service included being brigade morale officer and command of a training company with responsibility for approximately 235 men under his command. Malanga Congo After his tour of military duty ended in 2010 Malanga started his own company, Malanga Congo, which hired 250 employees in several sectors to perform public works and contracting projects. These projects included creating and maintaining water purification and bottling plants and several mining operations. These businesses proved profitable enough to provide the platform from which he launched his political career that same year. ==Political career==

2011 parliamentary elections In 2011 Malanga attended a general assembly meeting of all political opposition leaders to select a candidate to challenge the then President Joseph Kabila. When the general assembly proved to be indecisive, Malanga decided to run in the parliamentary election as an independent opposition candidate. He was detained two days before the parliamentary elections by government security forces and held for more than two weeks. Upon his release he was offered a position as National Youth President. He declined the position. Malanga reported the situation to the U.S. Embassy and then returned to the USA where he lived with his family. He continued to raise awareness in Washington DC and throughout the US regarding the issues facing the Congo. United Congolese Party Malanga returned to the United States in 2012. He founded his own political party, the US-registered United Congolese Party (UCP). Malanga claimed that on 29 April 2017 at the basilica Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome he received the rank of knight of the order of Saints Peter and Paul directly from Pope Francis himself and that he had the support of the Catholic Church in Congo. New Zaire Government in Exile On 17 May 2017, Malanga created an alternative government, the New Zaire Government in Exile, in Brussels, Belgium. He declared himself to be the President of New Zaire. The Democratic Republic of the Congo previously used the name "Zaire" between 1971 and 1997, during the rule of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, and New Zaire uses the national flag from this period. The New Zaire Government in Exile maintained a website where it details plans including creating business opportunities and reforming Congo's security services. As of 25 May 2024, the website still refers to Malanga as President of New Zaire despite the fact that he died on 19 May 2024. In addition to Malanga, three other gunmen and two policemen were killed in the fighting. Due to the ability of the plotters to easily smuggle arms and ammunition into the DRC, as well as their ease at accessing important government buildings, the Lutte pour le changement assessed that Congolese intelligence was either involved in the coup attempt, or utterly inept. A number of foreign individuals, including at least three American citizens, and one French citizen, were involved in the coup alongside members of the New Zaire Government in Exile. During the coup, Malanga uploaded a video to his personal Facebook account inside the Palace of the Nation saying "Felix, you’re out. We are coming for you." ==References==