However, interim President Kabila urged Congolese to vote ' Yes ', saying the constitution is the country's best hope for peace in the future.

Under the Global and All-Inclusive Agreement, signed on 17 December 2002, in Pretoria, there was to be one President and four Vice-Presidents, one from the government, one from the Rally for Congolese Democracy, one from the MLC, and one from civil society.

President Bongo has remained involved in the continuing Congolese peace process.

* 2001 – Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila is assassinated by one of his own bodyguards.

* 1966 – Former Congolese Prime Minister Evariste Kimba and several other politicians are publicly executed in Kinshasa on the orders of President Joseph Mobutu.

One year later, President Ngouabi proclaimed the People's Republic of the Congo, Africa's first People's Republic and announced the decision of the National Revolutionary Movement to change its name to the Congolese Party of Labour ( PCT ).

Once in power, President Ngouabi changed the country's name to the People's Republic of the Congo, declaring it to be Africa's first Marxist-Leninist state, and founded the Congolese Workers ' Party ( Parti Congolais du Travail, PCT ) as the country's sole legal political party.

Fighting broke out again in June 1997 when Lissouba engaged militias loyal to former President Col. Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Congolese Labor Party ( PCT ) in Brazzaville, accusing the former president of an attempted coup.

In contrast to the relatively harmless speech of President Kasa-Vubu, Lumumba's reference to the suffering of the Congolese under Belgian colonialism stirred the crowd while simultaneously humiliating and alienating the King and his entourage.

When Congolese aircraft bombed the West Nile villages of Paidha and Goli on February 13, 1965, President Obote again increased military recruitment and doubled the army's size to more than 4, 500.

First, Lucas proposed forcing Aristide to accept early elections and be voted out ; second, he could be charged with corruption and arrested ; and finally, Lucas raised dealing with Aristide the way the Congolese people had dealt with President Laurent Kabila the month before.

Denis Sassou Nguesso ( born November 23, 1943 ) is a Congolese politician who has been the President of Congo-Brazzaville since 1997 ; he was previously President from 1979 to 1992.

During his first period as President, he headed the single-party regime of the Congolese Labour Party ( PCT ) for 12 years.

Many of the most popular musicians of the classic era had lost their edge or died, and President Mobutu's regime continued to repress indigenous music, reinforcing Paris ' status as a center for Congolese music.

Joseph Kabila Kabange ( known commonly as Joseph Kabila, born June 4, 1971 ) is a Congolese politician who has been President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since January 2001.

President Museveni declared that, if Congolese authorities did not disarm the LRA combatants, the UPDF would be sent across the border in pursuit.

Article 72 of the Congolese constitution states that the President must be a natural born citizen-or more accurately :-of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and at least 30 years of age.

She was the daughter of Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso.

They wanted to see a weak and divided Congo deprived of the source of its wealth in Katanga, which as President Nkrumah said, was developed by the blood, sweat and sacrifice of the Congolese people.

President Sam Nujoma had interests in Congo similar to that of Mugabe, with several family members deeply involved in Congolese mining.

The Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire ( AFDL or ADFLC ) was a coalition of Congolese dissidents, disgruntled minority groups and nations that toppled President Mobutu Sese Seko and brought Laurent Kabila to power in the First Congo War ( 1996-1997 ).

He is a member of the Congolese Labour Party ( PCT, or Parti Congolais du Travail ) and has held key positions under President Denis Sassou-Nguesso since 1997.

The current Congolese president, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, as well as many senior government officials, belong to this group.

After independence, Congolese politicians of many ideological shades attempted to capitalize on Matsoua's popularity, including Presidents Abbé Fulbert Youlou, Alphonse Massamba-Débat, and Denis Sassou-Nguesso, as well as insurgent leader Bernard Kolélas.

He is a cousin of Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso.

Sassou-Nguesso, presidential candidate of both the Congolese Labour Party and the FDU, won the presidential election of 10 March 2002 with 89. 4 % of the vote.

The Belgian Government made no effort to train Congolese commissioned officers until the very end of the Colonial period and there were only about 20 African cadets in training on the eve of Independence.

Armed with modern weapons and the chicotte — a bull whip made of hippopotamus hide — the Force Publique routinely took and tortured hostages, flogged, and raped Congolese people.

In a Congolese musical world dominated at the time by Franco Luambo and his remarkable band TPOK Jazz, Tabu Ley Rochereau's Afrisa, and by then-new musical groups like Les Grands Maquisards, Le Trio Madjesi, and even younger bands like Bella-Bella, Thu Zaina and Empire Bakuba, the young and talented Papa Wemba ( then known as Jules Presley Shungu Wembadio ), was one of the driving forces that by 1973 made Zaiko Langa Langa one of the most-performing dominant Congolese groups, featuring such popular numbers as " Chouchouna " ( Papa Wemba ), " Eluzam " and " Mbeya Mbeya " ( Evoloko Lay Lay ), " BP ya Munu " ( Efonge Gina ), " Mwana Wabi " and " Mizou " ( Bimi Ombale ) and " Zania " ( Mavuela Somo ).

Within a year Kabila had quarrelled with his former allies, and in 1998 the Rwandan government backed a Goma-based rebel movement against Kabila, the Congolese Rally for Democracy ( RCD, sometimes called RCD-Goma ) made of Banyamulenge people, related to the Tutsis.

All early political efforts were hampered because Belgium had made no plans for Congolese independence.

In response, “ the secretary general suggested the dispatch of UN technical personnel to the Congo to assist in restoring order and discipline within the armed forces .” Canadian National Defence assumed that the United Nations would ask for French-speaking military advisers, the army maintained a standby list of one hundred officers, including many who were bilingual and could be posted abroad on short notice .” Before Hammarskjold could put his plan into action, however, a second Congolese request arrived, sent directly to the secretary general from President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Minister Joseph Lumumba, “ the Congolese leaders asked for UN military forces to counter the violent Belgian intervention .” Again Canada offered combat troops stating that if the need arose for Canadian military intervention in the Congo Canada could also “ deploy one of three French speaking battalions made ready for UN Service .” The offer for combat troops was again refused, though Hammarskjold officially accepted the Canadian French-speaking officers.

The Belgian Government made no effort to train Congolese commissioned officers until the very end of the Colonial period and there were only about 20 African officer cadets at military schools in Belgium on the eve of Independence.

The first organized Congolese troops, known as the ( FP ), were created in 1888 when King Leopold II of Belgium, who held the Congo Free State as his private property, ordered his Secretary of the Interior to create military and police forces for the state.

Full of hatred for the United Nations and mindful of the inability of the new Congolese government to maintain order in the Congo, Welensky repeatedly pleaded with Macmillan for the recognition of the Katanga state and the deployment of Rhodesian forces.

The 1991 Sovereign National Conference ( CNS ) was a sign of the increasing coherence of the anti-Mobutu forces and came as the Congolese Banyarwanda were in a state of heightened tension.

The leaders agreed to form a federal state of Congolese provinces.

The new Congolese state under Kabila's rule proved to be disappointingly similar to Zaire under Mobutu.

The Republic of Congo is a one party dominant state with the Congolese Labour Party in power.

The coup began with a power blackout before taking over Congolese state radio and announcing that he intended to neutralise the transitional support.

By March 1963 however, after the visit of Colonel Michael Greene of the United States Army, and the resulting ' Greene Plan ,' the pattern of bilaterally agreed military assistance to various Congolese military components, instead of a single unified effort, was already taking shape.