Rodolphe Adada - Political Career

Political Career

Adada, an ethnic Mbochi and a mathematician by profession, was elected to the Central Committee of the PCT in 1972. Under Joachim Yhombi-Opango, he was appointed as Minister of Mines and Energy in the government named on 5 April 1977. He remained in the government under Sassou Nguesso, who took power in 1979. He remained in his post as Minister of Mines and Energy until 1984, when he was instead appointed as Minister of Mines and Oil. In the government named on 13 August 1989, he was moved to the position of Minister of Secondary and Higher Education, in charge of Scientific Research; he remained in that position until 1991.

After Sassou Nguesso returned to power in October 1997, he appointed Adada as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation on 2 November 1997. In the May 2002 parliamentary election, Adada was elected to the National Assembly as the PCT candidate in the first constituency of Ouenze, the 5th arrondissement of Brazzaville; he won the seat in the first round with 67.46% of the vote. After the election, he retained his post as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation, and La Francophonie in the government appointed on 18 August 2002.

In March 2003, Adada visited Bangui in the wake of François Bozizé's seizure of power in the Central African Republic. He met with Bozizé and effectively endorsed the takeover, saying that Bozizé was trustworthy because he had expressed a "vision" of "openness" and "reconciliation". In doing so, Adada ignored the African Union's official condemnation of the takeover.

Adada was to visit the People's Republic of China on behalf of Congo-Brazzaville, as announced by the Chinese government on their Ministry of Foreign Affairs website on 16 March 2004. He was promoted to the rank of Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in the government named on 7 January 2005.

On 8 May 2007, Adada was named Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the African Union for Darfur, in which capacity he was in charge of the peacekeeping mission there. On 31 May, Basile Ikouébé was appointed to replace him as Foreign Minister.

Speaking to the United Nations Security Council in April 2009, Adada said the violence in Darfur had been reduced to the point that the conflict there was "low-intensity". This claim outraged many of those involved in the Darfur situation.

The United Nations–African Union peacekeeping mission, UNAMID, announced on 25 August 2009 that Adada was resigning from his post and that his resignation would take effect on 31 August. UNAMID's deployment was characterized as "slow and difficult", and Adada had faced some criticism from diplomats who argued he was not effective. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon praised Adada, writing to him that he had "led UNAMID with distinction during its most challenging initial deployment phase and in an environment of unprecedented difficulty." Speaking to Agence France-Presse in an interview, Adada argued that he had been successful in his mission because massacres no were no longer occurring: "I would like to be judged, for UNAMID to be judged, on the number of deaths in Darfur." He said that he resigned as a matter of "personal choice". He reiterated his view that "there is no more fighting on the ground" and that continued violence was due to crime, not warfare. Adada also said that the Sudanese government had not fully cooperated with UNAMID, but that he had no choice but to work with the government, and he criticized the international community for not sending helicopters to UNAMID.

After Adada left his post in Darfur, Sassou Nguesso reappointed him to the Congolese government as Minister of State for Industrial Development and the Promotion of the Private Sector on 15 September 2009. At the PCT's Sixth Extraordinary Congress, held in July 2011, Adada was elected to the PCT's 51-member Political Bureau.

Following the July–August 2012 parliamentary election, Adada was moved to the post of Minister of State for Transport, Civil Aviation, and the Merchant Marine on 25 September 2012.