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Fate Of DR Congo President Still Unclear
KINSHASA (News Agencies) - Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo moved fast Wednesday to fill a power vacuum after President Laurent Kabila was shot in his palace, leaving him critically injured or - according to several reports - dead.
Kabila's son Joseph, barely 30 years old and the DRC's army chief of staff, took over the vast country, run ragged after three-and-a-half years of civil war that has drawn in half a dozen African nations.
Earlier, officials in neighboring Zimbabwe, whose troops have propped up Kabila in his fight against opposition forces, said the president died early Wednesday while being flown there for medical treatment.
But the DRC's ambassador to Zimbabwe, Kikaya Bin Karubi, said Kabila was alive and in a critical state in Harare.
"Obviously he is in a very critical condition, but he has not passed away yet," Karubi told Zimbabwe state television.
"As we speak there is a team of Congolese doctors who are attending to him," the ambassador said.
The ambassador said a personal aide shot Kabila with a pistol, and that an investigation was underway to determine the motive.
Reports from abroad, mainly citing foreign embassies in Kinshasa, said the president had been fatally shot by one of his presidential guards after a row with generals.
DRC officials acknowledged that the hefty leader was shot in an attack at his Marble Palace.
But the officials here refused to confirm reports from Zimbabwe, European capitals and a junior DRC defense minister speaking in Libya that Kabila later died from his wounds.
Rivals in the region said Kabila's reported death could pave the way for an end to the bloodletting in the former Zaire.
Kabila was widely viewed as the main obstacle to a peace deal.
But Belgium's foreign minister hinted that the DRC could be torn apart even further.
"I think that anything is possible," Louis Michel told state television in Brussels, when asked what kind of repercussions Kabila's death might have.
"It is clear that the power void is a risk," he said.
Belgium, the former colonial power, was the first to announce that Kabila had been fatally shot on Tuesday.
In Tripoli, the DRC's minister-delegate for defense, Godefroid Tcham'lesso, accused Rwanda, Uganda and Congo-Brazzaville of assassinating the president.
Rwanda and Uganda, which along with Burundi back anti-Kabila forces, immediately denied the charge.
"Assassination is not our style at all. Therefore, the question of Rwanda being part of the alleged assassination of President Kabila doesn't arise," Rwandan government spokesman Joseph Bideri said.
The military commander of the Rwandan-backed wing of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), an opposition group fighting the Kinshasa regime, said people in his entourage killed Kabila.
On the sidelines of the Franco-African summit in Yaounde in Cameroon, Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe said an urgent meeting would be convened to review the situation in the DRC.
Along with Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola back Kabila in the war, which has served as an template for foreign businesses to plunder the DRC, rich in diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt and timber.
The attack on Kabila, and the longstanding conflict in the DRC, was expected to dominate the 21st Franco-African summit Thursday and Friday.
Meanwhile, Kinshasa was calm as cabinet ministers held an emergency meeting.
Markets were closed and the streets were empty, except for an official convoy escorted by armored vehicles that drove through the city in the afternoon.
The army, meanwhile, maintained a discreet presence. Small groups of people gathered wondering what was going to happen, some expressing surprise that the soldiers were not running amok.
Amid the confusion fuelled by conflicting claims over Kabila's fate, officials in Kinshasa were quick to dispel fears of a power vacuum.
"To ensure continuity in the management of state affairs and safeguard property and people, the government ... decided to entrust control of government action and the military high command to General Joseph Kabila," government spokesman, Dominique Sakombi, also information minister, said in a statement.
In the United States, officials said they were baffled by conflicting reports about the fate of Kabila but were still operating under the assumption that he had been killed.
Richard Holbrooke, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, warned belligerents in the DRC not to exploit Kabila's reported death to expand their positions.
"It is essential that the foreign forces who occupied large parts of the Congo halt their offensive action," Richard Holbrooke, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said.
"They should not seek to take advantage of the events in Kinshasa to expand their presence," he added.
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