Travel  |  Business World  |  Women's World  |  Entertainment

Change Your Life!

Kabila's son to be sworn in as president soon

News
Sports
Chat
Travel
Dhaka Today
Yellow Pages
Higher Education
Ask a Doctor
Weather
Currency Rate
Horoscope
E-Cards
B2K Poll
Comment on the Site
B2K Club

January 20, 2001 

KINSHASA, JAN 19 (AP) - Acting head of state Joseph Kabila will be sworn in as president shortly, replacing his father who was shot dead in his palace in this deeply troubled Central African nation, Congolese officials said Friday.

Communications Minister Dominique Sakombi said the younger Kabila was named interim head of government while his father was still alive, but now "assumes the permanent responsibilities as head of the government and the army."

Sakombi, who spoke in a telephone interview, did not say when the swearing in would take place.

Congolese authorities only confirmed President Laurent Kabila's death on Thursday, two days after the shooting, despite numerous reports by foreign officials that he died of his injuries soon after 30 minutes of intense gunfire at his residence in the capital, Kinshasa.

Sakombi provided few details in a statement broadcast on state-run television, saying only that Kabila, 59, died at 10 a.m. Thursday.

"Congo is in mourning," said Sakombi. "He gave entirely the best years of his life for the freedom of the Congolese people."

Cabinet officials thrust Kabila's son into power Wednesday, naming him temporary head of government to fill the power vacuum that has threatened to throw this vast nation into even more turmoil.

Footage of the younger Kabila was shown on state television after the announcement, meeting with ambassadors who came to express their condolences. But Joseph Kabila, who already was head of the country's armed forces before the attack on his father, made no statements.

Initial reports indicated he might have been wounded in the shooting, but he showed no signs of injury at the meeting.

The announcement of Kabila's death came as no surprise in the streets of Kinshasa, Congo's dirty and pothole-ridden capital, where most residents barely survive amid staggering levels of poverty and unemployment. Most people here believed that he died the same day as the shooting.

The installation of his son as replacement angered many Congolese, who believe he is half-Tutsi. Many in Kinshasa despise the Tutsis, who now dominate the government in neighboring Rwanda - Congo's main enemy.

"We are not a monarchy," said 24-year-old Madeleine Mapolo, a student. "Kabila is dead. It's not for his son to replace him. Elections must be organized by a government of national unity."

"We have lost a great head of state," said Dieudonne Mondene, a photographer in Matonge, the heart of Kinshasa's poorest neighborhoods. "We don't know Joseph Kabila. We don't know what he will do."

Many expatriates also appeared fearful. Foreign families crowded around one of the first flights leaving Kinshasa after the shooting with husbands tearfully waving off wives and children.

Residents of the capital returned to the streets Thursday for the first time since the shooting, and some stores opened. But when soldiers deployed throughout Kinshasa before the evening announcement, people rushed home.

Sakombi urged the Congolese to remain calm "despite the dramatic situation," and particularly appealed to the security forces to "keep their discipline." He declared 30 days of national mourning.

The main rebel group said it would take no military action until Kabila's son makes his next move and called on him to implement a peace accord that has never gotten off the ground amid continued fighting.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he hoped the peace process in Congo "would not be derailed further" and that "the political and security situation in the country and the region would not be destabilized further."

"We hope he is going to accept the peace accord. If not, we will continue to defend ourselves," said Kin-Kiey Mulumba, spokesman of the Congolese Rally for Democracy.

Congo's civil war, launched by rebels discontented by Kabila's rule in 1998, has swelled into a regional conflict, with Rwanda and Uganda backing the rebels, and Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe supporting Kabila's troops.

Kabila had resisted direct talks with the rebels and the deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force, envisioned under a July 1999 peace deal approved by all sides.

Dikanga Kazadi, Cabinet director in southeastern Katanga province, told The Associated Press that the president's body was in Zimbabwe - though it was not clear if he had died en route there, or if his corpse had been taken there after his death.

The body was to be flown to Katanga's capital, Lubumbashi, on Saturday, and brought on Sunday to Kinshasa for a state funeral on Tuesday, Kazadi said.

Details of Tuesday's attack at the palace were still murky.

A member of Kabila's security entourage said Tuesday on condition of anonymity that a bodyguard shot the president in the back and right leg.

Kabila's hold over the army had grown increasingly tenuous in recent months, with some troops reportedly threatening to revolt over pay demands. Young recruits often make less than dlrs 10 a month.

Kabila came to power in May 1997 in a Uganda- and Rwanda-sponsored rebellion against the late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. He was initially welcomed as an improvement over Mobutu's decades-long rule, which left the nation in ruins.

But he quickly alienated many allies. The rebels launched their drive against him in August 1998. They reached the outskirts of Kinshasa before being turned back.