Laurent-Désiré Kabila

SADC heads of state - from Namibia Zimbabwe Congo-Kinshasa and Angola - had planned to meet in Kinshasa to plan the coalition; but President Laurent Kabila's domestic problems forced cancellation...

A top-ranking minister in the Mobutu government has told Africa Confidential that at least two supply flights - with food and ammunition - flew from Ndjili International Airport Kinshasa to frontline government bases in eastern Zaïre on 1 November (almost two months after war started between Mobutu's forces and Laurent-Désiré Kabila's Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo)...

By releasing from house arrest his arch-opponent Etienne Tshisekedi after a ‘cordial' meeting in Lubumbashi in late May President Laurent-Désiré Kabila is trying to shore things up on the domestic front as many of his former foreign allies publicly show their frustration with his government...

Among recent disputes are those between fresh Katangese recruits trained up in Laurent Kabila's home village Manono and guerrilla fighters known as Hewa Bora (‘good wind' in Swahili and also the name of Kabila's jet)...

Now that alliance has been badly holed: Eritrea and Ethiopia are at war; Uganda Rwanda and Angola have lost faith in their protégé Laurent Kabila; South Africa has become more engrossed in its internal problems including that of the crashing rand a year before general elections...

Moi also blames Museveni for masterminding the overthrow of another old friend Zaïrean President Mobutu Sese Seko and has publicly slammed Kagame and President Laurent-Désiré Kabila...

President Laurent Kabila's government has narrowly escaped condemnation by the ACP- EU Joint Assembly which met in Mauritius on 21-24 April...

Also invited is Congo-Kinshsa's mercurial President Laurent-Désiré Kabila but Washington is less confident about his attendance...

Together with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni Congo-K President Laurent-Désiré Kabila and the Rwandan Vice-President and Defence Minister General Paul Kagame are the key figures in Central Africa's new balance of power...

On the Congo side of the frontier Laurent-Désiré Kabila's government is still far from from consolidating its military position...