Alice Badiangana

Alice Badiangana also Alice Badiangaba or Alice Mbadiangana, later Alice Mahoungou (born 1939) is a trade unionist and politician from the Republic of the Congo. She was the first Congolese woman to be held as a political prisoner, and was s co-founder of the Congolese Youth Union and a leader of the African Women's Union of the Congo.

Biography Badiangana was born in 1939 and attended a Catholic primary school in Brazzaville, studying for additional courses. Her level of education enabled her to get a job at the National Social Security Fund. She joined the local section of her branch (the GCAT) of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), which was a union for workers in commerce and industry and had communist tendencies. Badiangana became the National Social Security Fund's union delegate. As a result of her connections with both organisations, in 1959 she travelled to Vienna for the World Festival of Youth and Students. Whilst with the UJC, Badiangana supported the independence movement for of Congo-Brazzaville.

Imprisonment In 1960, the Congolese government imprisoned 16 members of the CGAT and eight members of the UJC, under the pretext of a communist plot. Badiangana was the only woman. The CGT instructed one of its lawyers, Michel Bruguier, to defend the accused and demand their immediate release. They also benefited from the support of André Malraux, then the local representative of France, who intervened with President Fulbert Youlou to ask him to organize a trial.

Badiangana took part in the debates to build a new constitution under the new president, Alphonse Massamba-Débat. She was co-opted to sit on the central committee of the single party, the National Movement of the Revolution (MNR), set up in 1964. She also served as a Central Committee member of the Congolese Party of Labour (P.C.T) between 1972 and 1991. During the transition, she was one of five National Assembly members that were included in the National Conference (and the sole woman in the National Assembly delegation). She also served as second secretary of the National People's Assembly.

Legacy Badiangana's life and impact has been the subject of research by historian Scholastique Dianzinga.

In film Badiangana participated as narrator in the film Revolutionary(s) by Hassim Tall Boukambou (2001), which traced the political history of Congo-Brazzaville through the story of the revolution of August 1963.