(Redirected from Denis Sassou-Nguesso)
'Denis Sassou Nguesso' (born 1943) is a
general and the president of the
Republic of the Congo from 1979 to 1992 and from 1997 to date.
Biography
A member of the
Mbochi tribe, Sassou Nguesso was born in Edou in the
Oyo district to the north of the country.
He joined the army in 1960 just before the country was granted independence. He was marked for prominence and received military training in
Algeria and at Saint Maixent,
France before returning to join the elite
paratroop regiment.
He had
socialist leanings and supported the opposition to
Fulbert Youlou in ''Les Trois Glorieuses'' of August 1963. Despite this he was part of the military coup of
1968 that brought
Marien Ngouabi to power and was an early member of the PCT (''
Parti Congolais du Travail'') when it was founded in December 1969.
In 1970 Sassou Nguesso was made Director of Security and a minister in the new presidential council. When Ngouabi was assassinated Nguesso played a key role in maintaining control, briefly heading the Military Committee of the Party (CMP, ''Comité Militaire du Parti'') that controlled the state before the succession of Colonel
Joachim Yhombi-Opango. Sassou Nguesso was rewarded with a promotion to colonel and the post of vice-president of the CMP. He remained there until
February 5,
1979 when Yhomby-Opango was forced from power in a technical coup accused of corruption and political deviancy. On
February 8 the CMP chose Nguesso as the new president and at the Third Extraordinary Congress of the PCT his position was rubber-stamped.
Presidency
Sassou Nguesso surprised many observers who saw only a military strongman by revealing a strong commitment to
Marxism as well as a streak of practical politics. He negotiated
IMF loans and allowed foreign investors from France and the Americas to operate in the vital
oil and
mineral extraction operations. He also travelled to
Moscow in
1981 to sign a twenty-year friendship pact with
Leonid Brezhnev.
He was re-elected as president at the 1984 Congress of the PCT for a further five years and he was not slow to moderate the Marxist policies of the government as the situation demanded. He was president of the
OAU from 1986-1987. In late 1987 he faced down a serious military revolt in the north of the country with French aid.
Following the 1989 Congress, Sassou Nguesso saw the collapse of the
communist states of Eastern Europe and, under pressure from the French, began to prepare the process of bringing the country to
democracy. In December 1989 he announced the end of government control of the economy and declared a partial
amnesty for political prisoners. Into the following year he attempted to improve the failing economic situation and reduce the outrageous levels of corruption. From August 1990 political parties other than the PCT were allowed and Sassou Nguesso undertook a symbolic state visit to the
United States of America, laying the grounds for a new series of conditional IMF loans later that year. In February 1991 the process towards democracy was decided and in June Sassou Nguesso stepped slightly aside and
André Milongo was appointed interim president of the CSR until the scheduled elections of 1992.
1992 elections
In the elections of June-July 1992 the PCT won only 19 of 125 seats on the National Assembly, UPADS (''Union panafricaine pour la démocratie sociale'') was the largest party with the MCDDI (''Mouvement Congolais pour la démocratie et le développement intégral'') another strong force. In the presidential elections of August the contest was between
Pascal Lissouba (UPADS) and
Bernard Kolelas (MCDDI), Lissouba won in the second round with 61% of the vote, Sassou Nguesso was eliminated in the first round after polling only 17%.
Lissouba began his rule dogged with accusations of voting irregularities and he had to act with increasing repression to maintain his power. From November 1993 to the end of that year clashes between supporters of Kolelas and Lissouba left almost 1500 people dead. In 1994 Sassou Nguesso prudently left the country for Paris, not returning until 1997 in order to contend the presidential elections scheduled for July.
Return to Presidency
Sassou Nguesso declared that he was willing to allow a return to democracy and began a three-year transition process in 1998, but renewed fighting with opposition groups led to the collapse of the endeavour. With the government forces in ascendency and following peace agreements in 1999, elections were re-scheduled for 2002, although not all rebel groups signed the accords. On
March 10 Sassou Nguesso won with almost 90% of the vote; his two main rivals Lissouba and Kolelas were prevented from competing. The only remaining credible rival,
André Milongo, withdrew candidacy three days before the election day after finding out the election was rigged. A new
constitution was agreed upon in January 2002 which granted the president new powers and also extended his term to seven years as well as introducing a new
bicameral assembly. While the 2002 elections were hailed as being free of violence, they conferred little legitimacy on Sassou Nguesso's regime due to the lack of meaningful participation by opposition parties.
Having already served as the
Chairman of the
Organisation of African Unity in 1986 to 1987, he was elected
Chairman of the
African Union, the OAU's successor body, in January 2006. His election was the result of a compromise reached to prevent the chairmanship from going to
Omar al-Bashir, President of
Sudan. Despite making frequent trips around the continent and around the world during his year-long tenure as AU chairman, Sassou Nguesso's achievements in the office were limited.
In January 2007, Sassou Nguesso's international reputation suffered a blow after a panel of judges in
France reopened an official investigation into the alleged role of Sassou Nguesso's government in the 1999 disappearance of 353 Congolese refugees.
[1]
Personal spending
In January 2007, journalists published accounts showed Sassou Nguesso's personal spending habits. On one five-night stay in April 2006 in
New York at the
Waldorf Astoria, the suite occupied by Sassou-Nguesso recorded £12,000 of room service charges during a five-night stay, and a total cost of £73,000
[2].
When Sassou Nguesso attended the
United Nations General Assembly meeting in September 2006, almost £14,000 of room service at the Waldorf Astoria was added to his bill during another five-night stay. His entourage, including several members of his family, occupied 44 rooms which together ran up a bill of £130,000. The bills on
September 19 included two bottles of
Cristal champagne charged at £400. This was pointed out by the British newspaper ''
The Sunday Times'' to be "comfortably more than the £106,000 that Britain gave the Republic of Congo in humanitarian aid in
2006."
[3]
The spending was run up in the year that the
World Bank, led by
Paul Wolfowitz, delayed the debt relief deal known as the HIPC (
Heavily Indebted Poor Countries) Initiative after learning that aides to Sassou-Nguesso had paid £100,000 in cash towards a September 2005 hotel bill totalling £169,000. The Congo-Brazzaville debt relief package was provided on the grounds that the Republic of Congo was too poor to meet its financial commitments.
As of June 2007, Nguesso, along with President
Omar Bongo of
Gabon, is being investigated by the French police due to claims that he has used millions of pounds of embezzled
public funds to acquire lavish properties in
France. He has been cited in recent years during French criminal inquiries into hundreds of millions of euros of illicit payments by
Elf, the former French state-owned oil group.
[1]
In July 2007, British NGO
Global Witness published documents on its website that appear to show that the President's son, Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso, may have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of money that may derive from the country's oil sales on shopping sprees in Paris and Dubai.
[4] The documents show that in August 2006 alone, Denis Christel, who is the head of Cotrade - the marketing branch of Congo's state oil firm SNPC - spent $35,000 on purchases from designers such as Louis Vuitton and Roberto Cavalli.
[5]
Crimes
President Sassou as been namely accused to be responsible for the disappearance of 350 Congolese refugees in 1999. Most of them were young men from the ethnic group Kongo who sought refuge in RDC. After being promised safe return in their home country by the UNHCR and the Congolese Government, these refugees proceded to return to Brazzaville only to meet their tragic fate. In relation to the 350 congolese refugee disappearance General Sassou's Director of the National Police, Jean Francois Ndengue was indicted on April 2, 2004 by the French Justice only to be release in the middle of the night after intervention of L'Elysse (the French Executif Headquarter under Jaques Chirac). His return was celebrated as a Triumph in Brazzaville Capital of the Republic of the Congo.
Sassou Nguesso is also known to be responsible for the murder of people who voiced opposition to his brutal governance methods. For example the poisoning of Xavier Katali, the failed assassination attempt against Lekoundzou(recent). The brutal murder of Cardinal Emile Biayenda, the murder of Head of State Massamba Debas and president Marien Nguouba (during the same month).
References
1. http://fr.news.yahoo.com/10012007/5/disparus-du-beach-la-justice-francaise-poursuit-l-enquete.html
2. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2036138,00.html
3. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2534564,00.html
4. http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/556/en/congo_is_presidents_son_paying_for_designer_shoppi
5. http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_get.php/439/en/denis_christel_sassou_nguesso_credit_card_bill.pdf
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