On 16 January 2001, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, then-President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was assassinated in his office at the Palais de Marbre, Kinshasa by Rashidi Mizele (or Kasereka), an 18-year-old bodyguard who had fought as a child soldier (kadogo) in the First Congo War under Kabila's command. Mizele was later shot dead, while Kabila's son Joseph assumed presidency, a position he would hold for 18 years.
Background
Kabila had been responsible for the deaths of many kadogos. The immediate day before his execution, he had overseen the execution of 47 kadogos accused of plotting to kill him. This in turn deteriorated Kabila's reputation among his subordinates and put his life in jeopardy.
In November 2000, Kabila thought that he had discovered a plot against him, and had arrested, tormented, and killed soldiers loyal to Commandant Anselme Masasu Nindaga, who had days earlier made a speech at a reunion for 1,200 kadogos in Kinshasa. The conspiracy to murder Kabila began in early January 2001, when a group of kadogos traveled to Brazzaville and prepared Operation Mbongo Zero.
Assassination
The conspirators' scheme, known as Operation Mbongo Zero, outlined how they would infiltrate important buildings in the capital, such as the Palais de Marbre. Mbongo means "bull" in Swahili and "money" in Lingala. After gaining access to the palace, the perpetrators would approach the president with a revolver and fire at him. Rashidi Mizele was reported to have said "I will kill him".
Attack
On 16 January 2001, the assassin entered the president's office as Kabila was discussing with economics adviser Emile Mota about inviting French officials to a meeting he hoped would protect his presidency. Mizele bent over Kabila, pulled out a revolver and shot the president four times in the abdomen. He escaped the palace with other conspirators amidst gunfire.
Former Health Minister Leonard Mashako Mamba was next door to the office when Kabila was shot and arrived immediately after the shots were fired. Mwenze Kongolo had been waiting for admission to the palace at 1:45 pm and heard gunshots being fired inside the building. Other bodyguards rushed into the room and fired at Mizele, who was hit first in the leg, then twice more to make sure he was dead. After 15 minutes, Kabila was in a helicopter headed to a clinic in Gombe, Kinshasa. Curfew that day started at 6 pm, and after 8 hours, a motorcade set off from the clinic for the long drive to N'djili Airport, escorting the ambulance.
Kabila was rushed in a helicopter to Harare, Zimbabwe for medical treatment, but was declared dead on 18 January 2001 at 10 am.
Funeral
Kabila received a state funeral on 20 January 2001 when his body, placed in a gold-plated white coffin covered with the DRC flag, was flown first to his hometown of Moba and then to Lubumbashi, where it was displayed for a day before being moved to Kinshasa.
On 23 January, an ecumenical service of nearly three hours was held at the Palais du Peuple. During the prayers, religious leaders appealed for peace, unity, and love among Congolese people, and urged the nation's political leadership to maintain cohesion. In her funeral address, the representative of the Constituent Assembly–Transitional Parliament (Assemblée Consituante-Parlement de Transition; ACL-PT) declared that honoring Kabila's memory required "driving out of national territory the Rwandan, Burundian, and Ugandan aggressors", and demanding their "immediate and unconditional withdrawal". She emphasized that Kabila's life embodied an "ideal of loyalty", noting his vow never to betray the country, and proposed the construction of a monument inscribed with "je ne trahirai jamais" ("I will never betray"). A representative of the courts praised Kabila's "strong sense of justice" and his efforts to combat impunity on behalf of the Congolese people. Speaking for the government, Minister of the Interior and Security, Decentralization, and Customary Affairs Gaëtan Kakudji appealed to the UN, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), and the international community to accelerate implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions aimed at ending the war. He pledged governmental support to Joseph Kabila and called on all Congolese to unite in true and lasting reconciliation.
After the service, the coffin was carried out in a massive procession of several hundred vehicles and a crowd so large it overwhelmed protocol and security, accompanying it along a ten-kilometer route to the Palais de la Nation. At 15:35 GMT, Kabila was interred in the Mausolée de Laurent Désiré Kabila, located at the entrance of the Palais de la Nation on the site once occupied by a bust of King Leopold II of Belgium, while his composition "l'hymne aux opprimés" ("the hymn to the oppressed") played, a 21-gun salute was fired, and three Congolese Air Force Dassault Mirage jets flew overhead. The ceremony was attended by several international leaders, among them Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos, Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, Namibian president Sam Nujoma, Zambian president Frederick Chiluba, Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, Tanzania's vice president Ali Mohamed Shein, Kenya's deputy president George Saitoti, the Central African Republic's defense minister, Iran's foreign minister, Libya's Jamahiriya chief of staff Bashir Saleh, Algeria's deputy prime minister, Belgium's foreign minister Louis Michel, and Morocco's minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation, and Moroccan Expatriates.
Aftermath
Government meeting and Joseph Kabila's appointment
On 17 January, an urgent meeting of government officials was announced through a radio-televised statement signed by Jean Mbuyu Luyongola, the First Deputy Director of the Presidency in charge of legal affairs. The announcement summoned all ministers, ministers of state, and vice-ministers to the African Union City, while urging the public to remain calm and continue their daily activities. Many analysts interpreted this meeting as an attempt by the authorities to define their stance after Kabila's death, which had not yet been officially confirmed. Communication Minister Dominique Sakombi Inongo later reported on RTNC, the national broadcasting network, that the Council of Ministers had appointed Major General Joseph Kabila, son of Laurent-Désiré Kabila, as head of government and supreme commander of the Congolese Armed Forces (Forces Armées Congolaises; FAC), making him the first head of state to be born in the 1970s.
On 18 January, RCD rebel commander Jean-Pierre Ondekane declared that his movement would not recognize Joseph Kabila as the new head of state, saying, "We will fiercely oppose this state of affairs". He argued that such a succession reduced the DRC to a monarchy characterized by hereditary leadership, and insisted that the leadership transition instead adhere to the provisions of the 1999 Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, which outlined the establishment of a transitional government until national elections could be held. Ondekane urged an emergency convening of the political committee involving the agreement's signatories and observers from the United Nations (UN) and the Organization of African Unity (OAU). On 19 January in Brussels, both armed and unarmed opposition groups demanded the consensual creation of a transitional authority in the DRC prior to the launch of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue envisioned in the Lusaka Agreement, rejected Kinshasa's right to manage the presidential succession, and appealed to the United Nations Security Council for the rapid deployment of United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) forces. Representatives of the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo – Congo Liberation Front (MLC/FLC), the Democratic Social Christian Party (PSDC), and various other opposition factions were present at the press conference, while Étienne Tshisekedi's UDPS and the RCD-Goma were absent. Albert Ndele, former governor of the National Bank of Congo, participated as a representative of civil society.
Assassin
Considerable uncertainty also surrounded the identity of the assassin: some accounts claimed the killer was one of Kabila's bodyguards; others pointed to the Vice Minister Dieudonné Kayembe Mbandakulu, whom Kabila had recently dismissed after accusing him of serious mismanagement. Still other reports suggested that Joseph Kabila himself may have been involved. Speaking on Belgian television, former Foreign Minister Bizima Kahara asserted from Goma, "without providing further details", that Major General Joseph Kabila was the one who shot his father. Multiple arrests were later made within the army, which was suspected of orchestrating the attack, with officials promising additional details following a government meeting. A group of kadogos were eventually detained and confessed to participating in the operation, claiming the killing was retaliation for Kabila's betrayal after he met with their longtime enemy, Paul Kagame. According to Justice Minister Mwenze Kongolo, the shooter was Rashidi Kasereka, who was later killed while attempting to flee the Palais de Marbre.
It has also been assumed that a bodyguard had shot Kabila. An investigation found 135 people who were accused of the killing of Kabila, including 4 children. Some sources stated 115 were accused. No one was found to be the killer of Kabila. The RFI had stated on the air a radio message in France of Kabila's death. Foreign Minister Louis Michel told RTBF that Kabila's death was not a coup d'etat but was rather "an argument that descended into violence". Michel had also stated that "[Kabila was] dead, killed by his own bodyguard, who had "apparently fired two bullets."
The assassin, Kasereka was in the Brazzaville-Kinshasa area before his death. 26 people, including Kabila's own cousin, Colonel Eddy Kapend, were sentenced to death, although they weren't under any capital punishment. 45 were proclaimed innocent and exonerated. 64 defendants were jailed. According to the German press agency DPA, the alleged summary had seen the execution of Commandant Masasu and 34 of his colleagues. The persecution of members of ethnic groups from eastern Congo continued.
In Goma, a spokesperson had confirmed that officers of the Congolese Armed Forces had staged a coup d'état against Kabila. Interior Minister Gaëtan Kakudji had denied this fact. Eddy Kapend made the following appearance on the Congolese television: “To the Army Chief of Staff, to commander of ground, air and naval forces and all regional military commanders: I order you to take charge of your units.” He continued, “Until further notice, no guns shall be fired for whatever reason.”
19 years later, on 8 January 2021, President Félix Tshisekedi pardoned 28 of the convicted inmates who served their sentences in 2005 from the Makala Central Prison in Kinshasa. The countries involved have been speculated to be Rwanda which had been rivals with the Congo for a long period of time, and Angola.
Reaction
Democratic Republic of the Congo
President Kabila's death appeared to catch much of Congolese society off guard, giving the impression of an unexpected incident rather than a carefully planned plot, an interpretation reinforced by the way his loyalists have tried to manage public reaction, repeatedly invoking "loyalty", as Colonel Eddy Kapend emphasized in his 16 January message. Speaking to international radio networks, several political actors, including MLC leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, RCD-Goma spokesperson Tryphon Kin-Kiey Mulumba, and FONUS president Joseph Olenghankoy, called for "true reconciliation of the Congolese people". The Congolese Socialist Union (Union Socialiste Congolaise; USC), a Brazzaville-based opposition party, strongly denounced the killing, arguing that an assassination could never resolve the national crisis. In the rebel-held Bukavu area, witnesses reported public celebrations following news of Kabila's death. Reports also indicated that Jean-Pierre Bemba stated his movement now had a chance to pursue peace and negotiate.