Kinshasa tense as Kabila lies in state

Sketchy details of the assassination of Congolese President Laurent-Desire Kabila emerged over the weekend as his body was returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from Zimbabwe on Saturday. The body was flown first to Lubumbashi in his home province of Katanga, before arriving in the DRC capital Kinshasa on Sunday. A state funeral is planned for Tuesday. The Congolese authorities appealed for calm in the run-up to and during the funeral, saying "no disruptions will be tolerated" and warning that the government would "make use of all its available forces". Residents of Kinshasa told IRIN on Monday that tension in the city was mounting. Kabila's body is lying in state at the People's Palace until the funeral, and thousands of people are reportedly lining up to pay their last respects. Although details of the assassination are filtering through, a question mark still hangs over the identity of the perpetrators and the motives. In an official version of events, Communications Minister Dominique Sakombi said Kabila was shot three times by one of his bodyguards as he was meeting government officials, but he denied reports that the president was discussing a reshuffle of the military high command with top generals. Sakombi also maintained that Kabila was pronounced "clinically dead" last Thursday in Zimbabwe, rather than dying from his wounds in Kinshasa on the day of the shooting on Tuesday 16 January. He refrained from giving a detailed explanation of events as an official investigation is underway. But the 'EastAfrican' weekly, citing sources close to the Kinshasa government, on Monday claimed Kabila had been "fine-tuning a major purge of top army officers", which was to have been announced on the fatal Tuesday. The alleged reshuffle was apparently prompted by recent heavy defeats suffered by the DRC army and its allies in Katanga province at the hands of Rwandan-backed rebels. The bodyguard who killed him, named as "Rashid" and possibly hailing from eastern DRC, was shot dead, as were several other people, the 'EastAfrican' said. Adding to the confusion, a group called the 'Conseil national de la resistance pour la democratie' (CNRD) claimed responsibility for killing Kabila. In a statement sent to the French news agency, AFP, the "young resistants" of the CNRD, said: "We are in total agreement with the heroic act of our brother in arms, Rachidi, who sacrificed his life to kill Kabila, the bloodthirsty monster." The CNRD is a former component of the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL) which marched on Kinshasa in 1997 and brought Kabila to power. The CNRD leader was General Andre Kisase Ngandu, a former ally of Kabila who fell out with him and who disappeared in mysterious circumstances ahead of the AFDL arrival in Kinshasa. The CNRD statement further claimed that on 15 January "47 young patriots were executed without trial in the presence of Kabila. It's the straw that broke the camel's back". Observers described the situation in DRC as "extremely unstable", saying the days following Kabila's funeral will be "very unpredictable". "The new leaders must listen to the people as soon as possible," one regional analyst said. "Not from a superficial or political point of view, but by taking far-reaching decisions which will unite the people." Kabila's son Joseph is due to be sworn in as the new president following his father's funeral.