Profile: Joseph Kabila

Many Congolese credited Kabila with ending the war

Joseph Kabila has what is arguably one of the most difficult jobs in the world - running the vast, chaotic, war-shattered country that is the Democratic Republic of Congo.

When he won presidential elections in 2006 at the tender age of 35 he had already been doing the job for almost six years on an interim basis, after inheriting the post following the assassination of his father, Laurent Kabila.

Winning DR Congo's first democratic elections in more than 40 years gave him the legitimacy to stamp his authority on the country and move out of his father's shadow.

Named as president at the height of a messy conflict involving numerous rebel groups and foreign armies, he helped steer the country through the end of the conflict and the potential hazards of the elections, which many feared could reignite the war.

Kabila is not shy, he is reserved Kikaya Bin Karubi

But in eastern DR Congo, which bore the brunt of the fighting and where Mr Kabila won by a landside, violence has continued.

This is despite the presence of the world's largest peacekeeping force and a January 2008 peace deal for the east.

Forces loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda, who claims to be protecting Tutsis from Rwandan Hutu rebels, continue to battle the Congolese army and more than a million people are displaced in the region where Mr Kabila was initially hailed for his contribution to peace efforts.

In the west, many people see Mr Kabila as a foreigner, working for foreign interests.

In 2006 they voted for former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, who played the nationalist card during the campaign to good effect.

Mr Kabila has become even more unpopular there as Mr Bemba fled the country last year because of treason charges linked to clashes sparked by his defeat.

Mr Bemba then ended up being charged by International Criminal Court for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Central African Republic (CAR) during his time as a rebel leader.

Foreigner

Mr Kabila was born in the Hewa Bora rebel camp in the mountain forests of eastern DR Congo, where his father was based as he led the struggle against former strongman Mobutu Sese Seko.

Eastern DR Congo has remained unstable

In order to avoid the attentions of Mobutu's intelligence service, he was sent over the border to Tanzania, where he grew up, pretending to be a member of Tanzania's Fipa ethnic group, our reporter says.

As a result, he speaks English better than DR Congo's official language, French, and he speaks East Africa's lingua franca, Swahili, better than the Lingala spoken in western DR Congo.

Some say Mr Kabila's mother was Rwandan - an inflammatory accusation in DR Congo, which has twice been invaded by Rwanda in the past decade.

He denies this and uses his father's nationwide popularity to burnish his Congolese credentials.

Wedding

Mr Kabila has made very few public speeches, despite being at the helm for more than eight years.

"Kabila is not shy, he is reserved. This is part of his Swahili cultural background," explains his one-time personal secretary, Kikaya Bin Karubi.

This reservation is in sharp contrast to the usual Congolese effusiveness.

Mr Bin Karubi adds that if Mr Kabila is not well known to the Congolese, it is mainly because he spends all week working hard in the office and some of his weekends cropping and doing motocross on his farm, Kingakati, on the outskirts of the capital.

Just before the 2006 elections, Mr Kabila opened the door to his private life a little, by marrying his long-time girlfriend Olive Lembe di Sita.

The couple have a daughter, born in 2001, named Sifa after Mr Kabila's mother.

Military man

His schoolmates at the Zanaji secondary school in Dar es Salaam nicknamed him "War bus" because of his enjoyment of war films and martial arts.

Still, they were all surprised when they saw the first pictures of him and his father fighting a real war, which ended when they seized power in DR Congo (then Zaire) and overthrew Mobutu in May 1997.

Few Congolese benefit from their country's mineral wealth

"We didn't even know he was Congolese," recalls one of them, who did not want to be named.

With his father installed as DR Congo's leader, Joseph Kabila was sent to China for military training and became army chief of staff before inheriting the presidency.

His experience as a general in the Congolese army helps him to keep direct control over a 7,000-strong army unit known as the Republican Guard, which allegedly includes a few Zimbabwean commanders.

The ground beneath DR Congo is fantastically rich, and to retain support Mr Kabila needs to ensure that this wealth is also enjoyed by those living in its cities, towns and villages.

Choice

DR Congo holds more than half of the world's cobalt, 30% of all diamonds, 70% of coltan - a vital ingredient in mobile phones - as well as huge deposits of gold, copper and various other minerals.

Joseph Kabila succeeded his assassinated father Laurent-Desire

The five-year civil war led to shady business deals to mine these resources, but Mr Kabila has not been directly implicated in any.

The same cannot be said of "the Kabila boys", his close circle of advisers.

One of them, Katumba Mwanke, a minister at the presidency, was forced to resign because of accusations in a 2002 United Nations report that he was profiteering from the war through deals made with Zimbabwean officials.

Yet, he remains close to the centre of power, acting as one of Mr Kabila's top advisers

After two years in office, Mr Kabila has been accused of doing little to tackle DR Congo's vices of corruption, poverty and insecurity.

Although he has restructured the mining sector, redistributing contracts.

But his detractors say little has changed and General Nkunda is flexing his muscles in objection to a $5bn (£3.1bn) deal that gives China access to the east's resources.

His supporters say that given the country is two-thirds the size of western Europe with just 300 miles of paved roads and where the state all but disintegrated under Mobutu and during the war, he needs more time.

However, even in his eastern heartland, the air of expectation is somewhat jaded.