From early 1990 the government began moving toward a multi-party political system, which culminated in presidential elections in which Pascal Lissouba defeated Bernard Kolelas and Sassou Nguesso and acceded to the presidency. In September 1997 President Lissouba appointed Bernard Kolelas as Prime Minister, while Sassou refused to take up five ministerial posts offered to his party. “My son was a serious man,” said Matounga, 65. “They wanted to destroy everything,” she said. Every day, she said, her youngest child, a six-year-old girl, gets thinner and thinner. This conclusion would seem to be borne out by the fact that leaders of the Ninja militia within the Republic of Congo signed a ceasefire agreement with the Sassou Nguesso government in late 1999 that was denounced by Kolelas. It offers medical and law programs, among others and is the only public university. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely. After the elections, the Pool region saw fighting broke out between rebels and the government. Fifty-three villagers were rounded up and taken to Ninja rear bases in the Pool region adjoining Plateaux" (Vancouver Sun, 6 July 1999). . ), 0% of total installed capacity (2015 est. (Philip Kleinfeld/IRIN). Although as many as 4,000 former militia were reportedly integrated between 1994 and 1996, militia activities continued" (AI, Mar. “There were no Ninjas,” said Nkodia. In June 1997, when President Lissouba, fearing a coup d'etat, sent Cocoyes to arrest Sassou and disarm his Cobras, fighting spread throughout the capital-Brazzaville was divided into three zones each controlled by one of the militias. In October 1998 a court "indicted 100 members of Congo's former government with a sweeping list of offenses including assassinations, tortures, rapes, fraud and theft" (CNN, 16 Oct. 1998). In 1960 after gaining independence, the French Region known as the Middle Congo became the Republic of the Congo. Both sides, particularly the Government, targeted densely populated areas with heavy shells and rockets. "Rebel militiamen, particularly the "Ninjas" and "Nsiloulou" based in the southern Pool region, also committed summary executions. It belonged to his brother, who used to be part of the group but had demobilised in 1998. Nkouka protested his innocence but was put on a military helicopter and never seen again. Congo-Brazzaville is one of the largest oil producers in the region, but declining prices for global crude have drained state funds while public debt has risen to 110 percent of GDP. Brazzaville-population is estimated to be 1.8 million A court in Congo-Brazzaville has sentenced the former mayor of the capital to five years in prison for corruption. The site is secure. From 1970 to 1991, the area was a Marxist-Leninist state known as the People’s Republic of the Congo. The countless victims of atrocities and human rights violations in the Great Lakes region need more than just words. The Ninjas emerged from the upheaval of the early 1990s when the country’s first multi-party elections took place after 13 years of rule by Sassou Nguesso’s Marxist-Leninist Congolese Labour Party. The information on this page is out of date. 1 January 1999: Ninja fighters "seized two villages in the Republic of Congo, barring 2,000 townspeople from leaving their homes." Natural gas is increasingly being converted to electricity rather than being flared, greatly improving energy prospects. Governments in the region should swiftly implement the Nairobi recommendations. At first she thought the attack would be over quickly: just as soon as the pilots had found and destroyed the residence of the rebel leader they were hunting. Scientific socialism was the constitutional ideology. Sassou won 90 percent of the vote in controversial 2002 elections. IRIN was granted rare access to the region, and was able to document the toll of the 20-month conflict. Rebels denied the displaced persons access to information about conditions in Brazzaville and punished families or villages of those who sought to return. Many residents have not been allowed to leave the area – where Ninjas are suspected of hiding – since the crisis began. Independence was earned on August 15, 1960 as the Congo Republic. However, according to Amnesty International, "Serious human rights abuses . But the following day the government began major military operations against Ntumi and remnants of the group, whose fighters had been based in the forests of Pool, to the west of Brazzaville. According to Amnesty International, "Hundreds of unarmed civilians and captured combatants were extrajudicially executed by government forces and allied militia." As with the government, leaders of armed opposition groups were not known to have taken any measures to prevent further killings of civilians or to instruct those under their command to respect international humanitarian law" (AI, Amnesty International Report 2000, 2000, p. 82). Sitting in a dark, leaky room, 52-year-old Ermeline Kouelolo said her family had not eaten in two and a half days. It sits in Central Africa and is bordered by Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola’s exclave province of Cabinda, Gabon, and the Gulf of Guinea. Europeans traded with Bantu kingdoms, offering manufactured goods. When the Franc Zone currencies devalued by 50 percent in January 1994, the currency inflated that year 46 percent. Congo-Brazzaville is an authoritarian regime led by Denis Sassou Nguesso. United States, Department of State (U.S. DOS), Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1994, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 1995). In the wake of a multi-year recession, the country reached out to the IMF in 2017 for a new program; the IMF noted that the country’s continued dependence on oil, unsustainable debt, and significant governance weakness are key impediments to the country’s economy. The drop in oil prices that began in 2014 has constrained government spending; lower oil prices forced the government to cut more than $1 billion in planned spending. “It can be dreadlocks, tattoos on their arms, a torn shirt, even a strange face,” said Monica Ngalula, who works for the Congolese Observatory of Human Rights. There are universities in the county, including Marien Ngouabi University. On 15 September, Ninja combatants reportedly killed several unarmed civilians, including the Sous-préfet of Goma Tsé-Tsé sub-region" (AI, Mar. A quarter century of experimentation with Marxism was abandoned in 1990 and a democratically elected government took office in 1992. 2 October 1997: Adrien Wayi, a journalist, was arrested, "blindfolded and taken to one of the houses forming part of Kolelas' headquarters in Bacongo, southern Brazzaville. Children often have to sit on the floor. Bantu tribes dominated the region and traded into the Congo River basin. New mining projects, particularly iron ore, which entered production in late 2013, may add as much as $1 billion to annual government revenue. SAMIR TOUNSI / AFP. ), 3.06% (male 66,962/female 84,666) (2017 est.). The fiscal deficit amounted to 11% of GDP in 2017. In the 1880s, the area was under French control. 1998: "Members of the 'Ninja' armed group killed unarmed civilians who refused to support them, particularly before and during clashes with government forces" (AI, Amnesty International Report 1999, 1999, p. 3-4). . Alternative Titles: Congo-Brazzaville, People’s Republic of the Congo, République Populaire du Congo, République du Congo. The first president was Fulbert Youlou. The political and economic issues have hurt the education system. The forum also concluded that leaders of the previous administration, including President Lissouba and Prime Minister Kolelas, had committed grave human rights violations, including acts of genocide, and should be brought to justice. Republic of the Congo, country situated astride the Equator in west-central Africa. In the south, average rainfall is 1,100 mm and over 2,000 mm in Congo’s center. 1999: "Deliberate and arbitrary killings of unarmed civilians were also committed by armed opposition groups. Angola 231 km, Cameroon 494 km, Central African Republic 487 km, Democratic Republic of the Congo 1,229 km, Gabon 2,567 km, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands, estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, higher death rates, lower population growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2017 est. A wounded man lying on a stretcher inside was killed by a Molotov cocktail the Ninjas tossed inside. The government blamed the attacks on a former militia group called the Ninjas, which had fought against Sassou Nguesso during civil wars in the 1990s and 2000s, but had largely demobilised. During October 1998 Ninjas killed five employees of the state-owned railway company (AI, Mar. While the ceasefire announcement has raised hope that the economic and humanitarian situation may improve in Pool, the root causes of the conflict remain largely unaddressed. According to another report, "In June 1999 the Ninja militia reportedly carried out a series of ambushes on members of the armed forces and civilians, including an attack on a civilian bus carrying returning refugees, in which 60 people were killed" (Newafrica.com, no date, p.1). Congo is linguistically and ethnically diverse, with 62 spoken languages. Only a small proportion of the non-government affiliated militia forces, however, were integrated into the regular army and it was an attempt by the government in May 1997 to disarm the militia group associated with Sassou-Nguesso, following inter-militia unrest, that led to "fierce conflict along ethnic and political lines involving militia groups and opposing factions within the regular armed forces" and to the second Congolese civil war (Newafrica.com, no date). inventory of registered aircraft operated by air carriers: annual passenger traffic on registered air carriers: annual freight traffic on registered air carriers: general cargo 27, oil tanker 2, other 11 (2017), Brazzaville (Congo); Impfondo (Oubangi); Ouesso (Sangha); Oyo (Alima), 9,202 (Rwanda) (2016); 31,688 (Central African Republic) (2017); 15,654 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2018), 108,000 (multiple civil wars since 1992) (2017), the Republic of the Congo is a source and destination country for children, men, and women, subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking; most trafficking victims are from Benin, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and, to a lesser extent, other neighboring countries and are subjected to domestic servitude and market vending by West African and Congolese nationals; adults and children, the majority from the DRC, are also sex trafficked in Congo, mainly Brazzaville; internal trafficking victims, often from rural areas, are exploited as domestic servants or forced to work in quarries, bakeries, fishing, and agriculture, Tier 2 Watch List - the Republic of the Congo does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so; the country drafted an action plan based on anti-trafficking legislation, which remains pending in the Supreme Court; the government made minimal anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts in 2014, failing to prosecute or convict suspected traffickers from cases dating back to 2010; serious allegations of official complicity continue to be reported; the government lacks a systematic means of identifying victims and relies on NGOs and international organizations to identify victims and NGOs and foster families to provide care to victims; the quality of care varied widely because the foster care system was allegedly undermined by inadequate security and official complicity (2015), Non-residential - Commercial & Retail - Vacancy, Nominal Fixed Investment (gross fixed capital formation), Real Fixed Investment (gross fixed capital formation). In January 1998 a forum for national unity and reconciliation was convened and approved a three-year transition period that would lead to presidential and legislative elections in 2001. The Republic of the Congo is also known as Congo Brazzaville, or Little Congo. The government’s inability to pay civil servant salaries has resulted in multiple rounds of strikes by many groups, including doctors, nurses, and teachers. The human rights situation: Human rights and news reports have documented grave rights violations committed by all three major contending parties in the Republic of Congo--the Cobras and regular security forces loyal to President Sassou Nguesso; the Cocoyes of former-President Lissouba; and the Ninjas of former-Prime Minister Bernard Kolelas. Vancouver Sun, "Congo Republic: Rebels loyal to ex-leader kidnap 53 people," 6 July 1999. Published 18 January 2014. Members of groups at both ends of the political spectrum purged ethnic majority neighborhoods of minority ethnic groups through the use of arson, looting, and assassination" (U.S. DOS, Country Reports 1994, Feb. 1995, p. 54-55). By August, fighting had spread to northern Congo" (AI, Mar. Among the victims were non-speakers of the Lari language, spoken by people from the region" (AI, Mar. “I was afraid he was going to be killed,” she said. We have seen no independent evidence to that effect" (UK, 3 Sept. 1998). Government, police, and military buildings were set alight in opposition strongholds and 17 people were killed, including three police officers. Thérèse Matounga’s son, Francie Nkouka, has been missing since October 2016, when he was arrested by soldiers in the village of Loumou. While the authorities claim to have conducted a “targeted” offensive against the Ninjas, IRIN found clear evidence of scorched-earth tactics. 25 years of journalism from the heart of crises. Oil has supplanted forestry as the mainstay of the economy, providing a major share of government revenues and exports. The French system is the country’s model. 2000). Disputed legislative elections in 1993 led to violent conflict between militias, representing party political and ethnic interests and formed to support the three major political leaders. 16 October 1998: "A court indicted 100 members of Republic of Congo's former government with a sweeping list of offenses including assassinations, tortures, rapes, fraud, and theft" (CNN.com, 16 Oct. 1998). (U.S. DOS, Country Reports 1998, Apr. 1999, p. 102)-to ensure a fair trial to political opponents has also been called into question. This story was updated on Monday 18 June 2018 with satellite footage obtained by Emmanuel Freudenthal. New mining projects, particularly iron ore, which entered production in late 2013, may add as much as $1 billion to annual government revenue.