Raymond Ramazani Baya

Raymond Ramazani Baya (born 1943) is a politician from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He served as the foreign minister of that country under the transitional government following his appointment to that post on July 23 2004, by vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba, who was allowed to appoint the foreign minister.

Ramazani was a long-time member of the regime of President Mobutu, most prominently as Minister of Information and as Ambassador to France. In 1996 he was involved in a road accident in France in which two children were killed. He then resigned as ambassador.

After the fall of Mobutu a year later, in 1997, Ramazani became dissatisfied with the new government of Laurent Kabila. He joined the Movement for the Liberation of Congo, a rebel group based in Gbadolite which was led by Jean-Pierre Bemba. In 2003 the group entered into a transitional government with other rebel groups and the Joseph Kabila government. Bemba became a vice-president and, among other things, was able to appoint the foreign minister. Antoine Ghonda became foreign minister, but Ramazani was by this time an important advisor on diplomacy to Bemba. He became foreign minister in 2004 when Ghonda was sacked. His time in that post ended in February 2007, at the beginning of President Joseph Kabila’s second term, when the government of Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga took office.