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Published 26th January 2001

Vol 42 No 2


Congo-Kinshasa

Congo-Kinshasa: Kabila est mort, vive Kabila!

The plot to kill the President has created the country's first dynasty and left a door ajar for peace

After a series of unexplained delays, Joseph Kabila was due to be sworn in to succeed his father at the Presidency on 25 January and Congolese officials insist they have launched an investigation to find out who was behind the assassination. Congolese doubt official information, especially after the three-day-long 'non-death' of President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. They are sceptical about the official version claiming that Kabila's was killed by presidential bodyguard Rachidi Kasereka, a Nandi from North Kivu. Shot dead in the palace, Rachidi can't help the investigation. In his home region, at present under Rwandan occupation, many people believe there was a link between the President's murder and the arrest, in Kinshasa on 21 November, of Commandant Anselme Masasu Nindaga, former leader of the Mouvement Révolutionnaire pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AC Vol 42 No 1). This was one of the four organisations which joined up behind Kabila to form the Alliance des Forces pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL), which in 1997 swept to power in Kinshasa. Masasu Nindaga, from South Kivu, was Kabila's first Chief of Staff but was arrested in November 1997 and accused of plotting a coup with other Tutsi officers; eleven people died resisting arrest. Masasu was found guilty by a court martial and remained in the underground prison at Bulowo, Katanga, until Kabila declared an amnesty in April 2000. This time, according to Asadho, a human-rights organisation, he was taken to Lubumbashi and executed a few days after his arrest.


The pro-consuls decide

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Kabila's murder will increase foreign meddling in Kinshasa politics

Whoever the long-term successor to Laurent-Désiré Kabila may be, Angola wants to have a say in the choice. As soon as his murder was known, Luanda ordered Angolan rei...


The war moves north

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Burkina and Liberia's warlords take aim at President Conté's rickety regime

As the war slows down in Sierra Leone, it is heating up in Guinea. In essence, it's the same war. The Liberian and Burkinabè sponsors of the Revolutionary United Front are m...


Laurent's legacy

Change in Congo-Kinshasa may now concentrate minds onthe Arusha accord

The late President Laurent-Désiré Kabila left an unfinished mystery for Burundi. He had long supported Hutu rebel groups against Major Pierre Buyoya's government in B...


Brief honeymoon

President Kufuor's new team will have to take some tough decisions on the economy

The rest of the world congratulated Ghanaians for two well-run rounds of voting and a credible transition from one elected government to another. The New Patriotic Party's victory ...



Pointers

Ciao João

Speculation about the departure of General João de Matos, Chief of General Staff of the Forças Armadas Angolanas, suggests he may be Luanda's first casualty from the ...


Pharaoh speaks

Cairo is trying to coopt Western governments, Algeria and Saudi Arabia into a scheme to present President George W. Bush's new team with a detailed ready-made policy for dialogue w...