DRC: Last vice-president named
2003-05-07 11:41
Kigali - The main rebel group in Democratic Republic of Congo on on Wednesday named its secretary-general Azarias Ruberwa to the post of vice-president in a transition government.
"The vice presidnet from the Congolese Rally for Democracy is Azarias Ruberwa," rebel spokesperson Joseph Mudumbi said.
Ruberwa is the last of four vice-presidents to be named to the transition government set up under a pact signed in December and finalised last month.
The three other vice presidents are Jean-Pierre Bemba, head of the second largest rebel group, the Congolese Liberation Movement; Abdoulaye Yerodia Ndombasi, a former government minister under Kabila, representing the Kinshasa government; and Arthur Zahidi Ngoma, a legal expert and former Unesco worker, for the political opposition.
The main task of the transition government will be to take the vast central African country through to its first democratic elections in more than 40 years.
The government comprises representatives from the main DRC rebel movements, civil society, the political opposition and the government that has been in power in Kinshasa since war broke out in 1998.
It is led by President Joseph Kabila, who succeeded his father Laurent as head of state when he was assassinated in January 2001.
Ruberwa, 38, is a lawyer by profession and a practising Christian. An ethnic Munyamulenge, or Congolese Tutsi, he comes from the town of Minembwe, in the high plateau region near the city of Uvira, in the extreme east of Sud Kivu province near the border with Burundi.
He began his political career as the head of the office of then DRC foreign minister Bizima Karaha, who served under Laurent Kabila.