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Jose
ph Kabila, catapulted into the presidency of the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) early in 2001, will oversee a two-year
transition to elections after naming a unity government for the
vast central African country.
He was just 29 years old, although already a senior army officer,
when a bodyguard gunned down his father Laurent, who had seized
power from longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997.
The elder Kabila's aides, fearful that Kinshasa would erupt in
factional fighting, pushed the little-known son into the top
job.
He swiftly proved to have a mind of his own, along with a sober
personality, which contrasted with the raw power his father had
exuded.
Sworn in on January 26, 2001, he managed in the two years that
followed to unite many of the DRC's 50-million people behind him
and engineered the signing of peace treaties with Rwanda and
Uganda, which backed rebels in a war that had started in
1998.
Kabila's army was supported by troops from Angola, Chad, Namibia
and Zimbabwe, making the war Africa's most complex.
An estimated 2 500 000 people are estimated to have died in the
war, either directly in combat or indirectly through disease and
starvation.
Most of the victims are civilians.
Kabila spent most of his life in exile in Uganda and Tanzania while
his father directed a rebel band from abroad, and is still more at
home in English and Swahili than in Lingala, the main language
spoken in Kinshasa.
He also speaks good French, the DRC's official language.
The father of a daughter about four years old, he detests alcohol
and does not smoke, enjoys driving fast cars and likes watching
sport on television.
The second oldest of nine children, he began studying law at
Uganda's Makerere University in 1996, but interrupted his studies
to join his father's rebellion against Mobutu, launched in
September of that year.
He underwent military training in China after his father toppled
Mobutu in May 1997, then was appointed head of the army in
September 1998, a month after the latest war broke out.
He has largely dispelled suspicions of ruthlessness put around by
rumour-mongers who claimed he had been involved in the summary
arrests and killings for which his father had become known.
With a stated aim of wanting "to work for peace", Kabila has been
tireless in his travels and diplomatic efforts to relaunch peace
accords signed in Lusaka in 1999, and has dismissed some members of
his father's old guard.
He moved quickly to end a ban on activity by opposition political
parties, and unhooked the DRC franc from the dollar, a move, which
sent consumer prices shooting up but brought him into the good
graces of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which
have resumed cooperation with Kinshasa.
Days after enacting a peace accord on April 1 this year, Kabila
promulgated a new constitution in Kinshasa on April 6 and took an
oath of office under it.
On June 30, the day DRC celebrated 43 years of independence from
Belgium, Kabila named an interim government that will, in 24
months, longer if necessary, take the vast country through to
democratic elections - only the second since independence.
He shares power with four vice presidents drawn from the two main
rebel groups, the political opposition and the government.
The new government has 36 ministers and 25 deputy ministers.
Naming the government, Kabila urged the Congolese people to put
aside the ethnic differences that have divided the central African
country, and finally unite their vast nation.
"The country is emerging painfully from a war that has sorely
tested national cohesion," said Kabila on Monday.
"I call on you to commit yourselves to the nation... as political
affinities and regional divisions cannot take precedence over the
overall good of the country, no more than does belonging to a tribe
or an ethnic group".
"Reunification, the return to peace, the restoration of territorial
integrity and the reestablishment of the authority of the state
over national territory are not negotiable," he said. -
Sapa-AFP.