Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville)
The Republic of the Congo () was a sovereign state in Central Africa that was created with the independence of the Belgian Congo in 1960. From 1960 to 1966, the country was often known as "Congo-Léopoldville" (after its capital) in order to distinguish it from its north-western neighbour, also called the Republic of the Congo or Congo-Brazzaville. With the renaming of Léopoldville as Kinshasa on 1 June 1966, it was known as "Congo-Kinshasa" until 1971.
Joseph Kabila
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. Aged 29, he was considered young and inexperienced. He subsequently attempted to end the ongoing civil war by negotiating peace agreements with rebel groups backed by Rwanda and Uganda, the same regional armies who had brought Laurent-Désiré Kabila's rebel group to power three years before. The 2002 peace agreement signed at the Inter-Congolese Dialogue in Sun City, South Africa, which nominally ended the Second Congo War, maintained Joseph Kabila as President and head of state of the Congo. An interim administration was set up under him, including the leaders of the country's two main rebel groups as vice-presidents (two other vice-presidents were representatives of the civilian opposition and government supporters respectively).
On 28 March 2004, an apparent coup attempt or mutiny around the capital Kinshasa, allegedly by members of the former guard of former president Mobutu Sese Seko (who had been ousted by Kabila's father in 1997 and died in the same year), failed. On 11 June 2004, coup plotters led by Major Eric Lenge allegedly attempted to take power and announced on state radio that the transitional government was suspended, but were defeated by loyalist troops.