Interim government named in DR Congo

Kabila urged all warring sides to "draw a line"

The President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila, has named a transitional government to lead the country out of a civil war in which millions have died.

Posts in the new cabinet - due to take DR Congo to democratic elections in two years time - have been divided between the current government of Mr Kabila, rebels groups, the political opposition and civil society organisations.

The move is a key part of the December peace deal ending five years of war, in which more than two million people have died either in combat or through starvation and disease.

The mistrust is still there - you can't make that disappear with a magic wand

Moise Nyarugbo
RCD rebel group

It follows Sunday's agreement between the government and rebel groups to form a unified army, removing the main obstacle to setting up an interim government.

'Bright future'

The members of the news administration were named in a presidential decree on the 43rd anniversary of Congo's independence from Belgium.

DR Congo has been ravaged by years of war

President Kabila urged the country's warring sides to "draw a line between the past and the present, and look toward a bright future".

The new government comprises 36 ministries.

Under the deal, Congo's main rebel groups - the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) and the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) - will each have seven ministries, and so will the current government.

The RCD takes the key ministries of defence and economy, while CLM will have the foreign and budget ministries.

Mr Kabuli's government retains - among others - ministries of the interior, security, finance, industry and energy.

Rebels welcomed the announcement, but it was just the beginning on the long road of rebuilding the country.

"The mistrust is still there - you can't make that disappear with a magic wand," Moise Nyarugbo from the RCD was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

"We have to work together to establish confidence between the different parties," Mr Nyarugbo added.

War-torn country

DR Congo was plunged into war in 1998 when Uganda and Rwanda invaded to back rebel groups fighting to overthrow then-President Laurent Kabila.

The foreign troops have withdrawn but fighting between rival rebel groups has continued in north and eastern Congo.

A French-led international peacekeeping force is trying to stop the bloodshed in the north-eastern town of Bunia, where about 500 civilians have died in the last two months.