Among the insurgents was Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who would overthrow long-time dictator Mobutu 30 years later.

Kabila was assassinated in January 2001 by one of his bodyguards, and was succeeded by his son Joseph.

He partly succeeded in February 2001 when a further peace deal was brokered between Kabila, Rwanda and Uganda leading to the apparent withdrawal of foreign troops.

A new election was held on 29 October 2006, which Kabila won with 70 % of the vote.

On 6 December 2006 the Transitional Government came to an end as Joseph Kabila was sworn in as President.

On December 2011, Joseph Kabila was re-elected for a second term as president.

On 20 December, Kabila was sworn in for a second term, promising to invest in infrastructure and public services.

The latter was intended to be fairly short-lived, but Mobutu's power plays dragged it in length, to ultimately 1997, when the forces-led by Laurent Kabila eventually toppled the regime, after a 9-month-long successful military campaign.

As stated above, the government of former president Mobutu Sese Seko was toppled by a rebellion led by Laurent Kabila in May 1997, with the support of Rwanda and Uganda.

Kabila referred to it as " the first giant step forward " in what was referred to as an " all new era ".

Laurent-Désiré Kabila ( November 27, 1939 – January 18, 2001 ) was President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from May 17, 1997, when he overthrew Mobutu Sese Seko, until his assassination by one of his bodyguards on January 18, 2001.

Kabila was born to a member of the Luba tribe in Baudoinville, Katanga Province, ( now Moba, Tanganyika District ) in the Belgian Congo.

When the Congo gained independence from Belgium on June 30, 1960 and the Congo Crisis began, Kabila was a " deputy commander " in the Jeunesses Balubakat, the youth wing of the Patrice Lumumba-aligned General Association of the Baluba People of Katanga ( Balubakat ), actively fighting the secessionist forces of Moise Tshombe.

Within months, Lumumba was overthrown by Joseph Mobutu, and in 1962, Kabila was appointed to the provincial assembly for North Katanga and was chief of cabinet for Minister of Information Ferdinand Tumba.

In Guevara's opinion, Kabila ( then 26 ) was " not the man of the hour " he had alluded to, being too distracted.

This, in Guevara's opinion, was the reason that Kabila would show up days late at times to provide supplies, aid, or backup to Guevara's men.

In Guevara's view, of all of the people he met during his campaign in Congo, Kabila was the only man who had " genuine qualities of a mass leader " but castigated him for a lack of " revolutionary seriousness "

Laurent Kabila was assassinated in the DRC ( Congo ) in 2001, and was succeeded by his son, Joseph Kabila.

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

Kabila was assassinated in 2001 and was succeeded by his son, Joseph Kabila.

Kabila had been assassinated.

President Laurent Kabila ( who had overthrown Mobutu in 1997 ) was assassinated in 2001, and was succeeded ten days later by his son, Joseph Kabila.

Following failed peace talks between Mobutu and Kabila in May 1997, Mobutu left the country, and Kabila marched unopposed to Kinshasa on 20 May.

The country's first democratic elections in four decades were held on 30 July 2006 with a run-off between current president Kabila and his rival Bemba held on 29 October 2006.

The younger Kabila continued with his father's Transitional Parliament, but overhauled his entire cabinet, replacing it with a group of technocrats, with the stated aim of putting the country back on the track of development, and coming to a decisive end of the Second Congo War.

Laurent Kabila, the new-President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, sent hundreds of troops into Brazzaville to fight on Lissouba's behalf.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame met with the Democratic Republic of the Congo's President Joseph Kabila in Goma on 6 August 2009.

Zaire, then in 1965, Mobutu Sese Seko took over, and despite massive corruption, desperate economic failure, and the attempted military uprising of 1991, he held on until the eve of his death in 1997, when the president, Laurent Kabila.

Joseph Kabila Kabange was born on June 4, 1971 at Hewabora, a small village in the Fizi territory of the South Kivu province, in eastern Congo.

Following the AFDL's victory, and Laurent-Désiré Kabila's rise to the presidency, Joseph Kabila went on to get further training at the PLA National Defense University, in Beijing, China.

Joseph Kabila rose to the Presidency on 26 January 2001 after the assassination of Laurent-Désiré Kabila, becoming the world's first head of government born in the 1970s.

According to widely disputed provisional results announced on August 20, Kabila won 45 % of the vote ; his main opponent, vice-president and former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, won 20 %.

The irregularities surrounding the elections results prompted a run-off vote between Kabila and Bemba which was held on October 29.

These results were confirmed by the Supreme Court on November 27, 2006, and Kabila was inaugurated on December 6, 2006 as the country's newly elected President.

He named Antoine Gizenga, who placed third in the first round of the presidential election ( and then backed Kabila in the second round ) as prime minister on December 30.

He was introduced as Crown Prince in September 1983 and was crowned king on 25 April 1986, aged 18 years and 6 days, and thus making him the youngest reigning monarch until the ascension of King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck of Bhutan on 14 December 2006 ; he was also the youngest head of state until Joseph Kabila took office on 26 January 2001 as President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

* January 16 – Laurent-Désiré Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ( b. 1939 )

* 16 – Laurent-Désiré Kabila, 61, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ( 1997 – 2001 ), assassination.

On May 16 the multinational army headed by Kabila battled to secure Lubumbashi airport after peace talks broke down and Mobutu fled the country ( he died on September 7, 1997, in Morocco ).

A bodyguard shot and wounded Laurent Kabila in an assassination attempt on 16 January 2001 in the presidential palace in Kinshasa.

On May 16, 1997, the multinational army headed by Kabila battled to secure Lubumbashi airport in the southeast of the country after peace talks broke down and Mobutu fled the country.

However, the RCD gradually tore in two from November 1998 until 16 May 1999, as it became clear that Rwanda and its supporters goals were limited to replacement of Kabila.