Laurent-Désiré Kabila

The Tajideens came to Congo in 1997 when the late Laurent-Désiré Kabila toppled Mobutu Sese Seko...

He is only the third Congolese – after the late Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and President Laurent-Désiré Kabila – to receive that honour...

He organised the rebel group that brought Laurent Kabila to power in the civil war of 1996-97 and became his business advisor using experience gained in South Africa working for Equator Bank and the mining equipment manufacturer Bateman...

When Laurent Kabila was murdered in January 2001 Katumba took his son Joseph under his wing becoming Minister in the Presidency responsible for state assets (while serving on the board of Australia’s Anvil Mining until 2004)...

Reverend Daniel Ngoy Mulunda the CENI Chairman is a cousin of Kabila's late father Laurent-Désiré Kabila suggesting a conflict of interest...

The CENI Chairman is the Reverend Daniel Ngoy Mulunda a cousin of the late President Laurent-Désiré Kabila father of the current President who signed up last accompanied by over 3 000 dancing and cheering supporters...

Angola helped the late Laurent-Désiré Kabila to power in Kinshasa in 1997 and then supported his son President Joseph Kabila against his rival Jean-Pierre Bemba in 2007...

Luanda is said to favour Vital Kamerhe a former ally of Joseph Kabila’s and the Honorary President of the National Assembly founder and leader of the Union pour la nation congolaise who served under the late President Mobutu Sese Seko and Laurent Kabila...

That will make the residual support for him in mineral-rich Katanga – birthplace of his assassinated father President Laurent-Désiré Kabila – all the more important...

Under the late President Laurent-Désiré Kabila Munene was Deputy Minister of the Interior; he fled to Congo-Brazzaville where he was arrested in January...

Congo’s President Laurent-Désiré Kabila and Rwanda’s Kagame were then in close alliance; Kabila blocked Garretôn from pursuing his own investigations...

Other ‘crimes against humanity’ included massacres of Hutu refugees by the APR and the forces of the Congolese government of President Laurent Kabila...

They include Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza a former Governor of Katanga who is now chairman of the provincial assembly for leading the persecution of Kasaians in 1993 and a former Foreign Minister under the late Laurent Kabila Abdoulaye Yerodia Ndombasi who stirred up hatred against Tutsi in 1998...

This is uncomfortable for Kabila who in the 2006 election took three-quarters of the province’s vote and whose father the late President Laurent-Désiré Kabila was born in Katanga (Joseph is said to have been born in a rebel camp in South Kivu)...

Then a further moral twist: After rebel forces led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila chased Mobutu from power in 1997 his finance minister Mawampanga Mwana Nanga was told by the IMF and the Bank that acceptance of the Mobutu loans as legitimate debt was key to re-establishing Congo-Kinshasa as a responsible member of the international financial system...