Laurent-Désiré Kabila (November 27, 1939 – January 18, 2001) was President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from May 1997, when he overthrew Mobutu Sese Seko until his assassination in January 2001. He was succeeded by his son Joseph Kabila.

He was born a member of the Luba tribe in Jadotville (Likasi) in the Belgian Congo, Katanga province. He studied political philosophy in France and attended the University of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania.

When the Congo gained independence in 1960, Kabila was a youth leader in a party allied to Patrice Lumumba. Lumumba was overthrown by Joseph Mobutu within months. Kabila and other supporters of Lumumba fled into the jungles of eastern Zaire. In 1964, Kabila helped organise a revolt in the Ruzizi region.

Che Guevara assisted Kabila for a short time in 1965. Guevara had appeared in the Congo with approximately 100 men who planned to bring about a Cuban style revolution. In Guevara's opinion, Kabila (then 26) was "not the man of the hour" he had alluded to, with Kabila being one who was more interested in consuming alcohol and bedding women. This, in Guevara's opinion, was the reason that Kabila would show up days late at times to provide supplies, aid, or backup to Guevara's men. The lack of cooperation between Kabila and Guevara led to the revolt being suppressed that same year.

In 1967 Kabila founded the People's Revolutionary Party (PRP). With the support of the People's Republic of China the PRP created a secessionist Marxist state in South Kivu province, west of Lake Tanganyika. The PRP state came to an end in 1988 and Kabila was believed dead.

Kabila returned in October 1996, leading ethnic Tutsis from South Kivu against Hutu forces, marking the beginning of the First Congo War. With support from Burundi, Uganda and the Rwandan Tutsi government, Kabila pushed his forces into a full-scale rebellion against Mobutu as the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL). By mid-1997, the ADFL had made significant gains and following failed peace talks in May 1997, Mobutu fled the country, and Kabila entered Kinshasa on May 20. Kabila made himself head of state, created the Public Salvation Government and renamed the country the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kabila had been a committed Marxist, but his policies at this point were a mix of capitalism and collectivism. While some in the West hailed Kabila as representing a "new breed" of African leadership, critics charged that Kabila's policies differed little from his predecessor's, being characterised by authoritarianism, corruption, and human rights abuses. Kabila was also accused of self-aggrandizing tendencies, including trying to set up a personality cult, with the help of Mobutu's former Minister of Information, Dominique Sakombi Inongo.

By 1998, Kabila's former allies in Uganda and Rwanda had turned against him and backed a new rebellion of the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD). Kabila found new allies in Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola and managed to hold on in the south and west of the country and in July 1999 peace talks led to the withdrawal of most foreign forces.

However, the rebellion continued and Kabila was shot during the afternoon of January 16, 2001 by one of his own staff, Rashidi Kasereka, who was also killed. The assassination was part of a failed coup attempt which was crushed and Kabila, who may have been still alive, was flown to Zimbabwe for medical treatment. His death was confirmed there on 18 January, and his body was returned to Congo on January 26, 2001.

The investigation into the assassination led to 135 people being tried before a special military tribunal. The alleged ringleader, a cousin of Kabila Colonel Eddy Kapend, and 25 others were sentenced to death in January 2003. Of the other defendants 64 were jailed, with sentences from six months to life, and 45 were exonerated.