RIGHTS-CONGO: Home at Last

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Lyne Mikangou

BRAZZAVILLE, May 27 1998 (IPS) - When civil war broke out in Congo in 1993 following a dispute over election results, thousands of people were forced from their homes in areas where their ethnic groups were in the minority.

The war pitted supporters of then president Pascal Lissouba against those of then Brazzaville mayor and opposition leader Bernard Kolelas. Even after it ended in 1994, many people could not recover their homes, which had been occupied by squatters.

Now, half a year after yet another civil war, this time between supporters of Lissouba and his predecessor-turned-successor Denis Sassou Nguesso, Congo’s new government has moved to return the buildings to their proprietors.

During the 1993-1994 fighting, what started out as a political dispute rapidly degenerated into an ethnic confict pitting people from the three south-western regions of Niari (where Lissouba comes from), Bouenza and Lekoumou, known collectively as the Ni-bo- lek, against the Bakongo — people from the Pool region in south central Congo, considered Kolela’s fiefdom.

Official figures put the death toll for that war at 3,000 and, as the slaughter proceeded, people from the Nibolek fled the south Brazzaville neighbourhoods of Bacongo and Makelekele, where they were in the minority, while Bakongos had to run from neighbourhoods such as Diata, Mfilou and Moutabala.

Minorities in other parts of southern Congo also had to seek refuge in their home regions. Officially, a total of about 300,000 people (roughly an eighth of the 2.5 million Congolese) were displaced and their homes occupied, while some 10,000 houses were destroyed.

Soon after current strongman Sassou Nguesso seized power from Lissouba on Oct. 25 last at the end of a five-month civil war that also claimed thousands of lives, his government set up a commission to look into the issue of people displaced by the first civil war.

That commission, which published its findings on Feb. 15, stressed in its report that people who had been expropriated had the right to recover their property, and it called on those prevented from doing this to contact the City Hall or a special service set up by the state to manage disputes.

Since then, some proprietors have moved back home, such as the owner of the Oncle Sidi (Uncle Sidi) Hotel/Bar, near the town hall in Mfilou, who had lost his establishment to a member of Lissouba’s presidential guard.

“I really missed this property which is my livelihood and my retirement insurance,” says Uncle Sidi, the proprietor. After the 1993-1994 war he had gone to the hotel to try and get the new occupant to pay him rent, but the man threatened to have him killed if he went back. “I’ve finally been freed of my anxiety,” added Sidi, who was in the midst of refurbishing and repainting his establishment when IPS visited it.

Another Brazzaville resident, lawyer Nsounga Aloise, was also relieved to return home.

“I fled my home on 11 November 1993 because of the violence perpetrated by the Aubevillois (pro-Lissouba militias) when the first civil war broke out…,” he recalls. “My wife, my children and I went from place to place in Brazzaville during the five years Lissouba was in power. As I moved around, someone else, a fellow from the neigbourhood, occupied my house.

“I only set foot in my home again on the 14th of January 1998 as a result of the victory of Sassou Nguesso’s Democratic Patriotic Forces (FDP). The window panes and electricity had been stolen, but I got my house back. I had waited impatiently for that moment. The first night was like a nightmare. You cannot imagine what I felt.”

Like Nsounga and Uncle Sidi, both of whom are from the Pool, hundreds of people from the Nibolek have now returned to areas from which they had been forced out. One returnee was relieved to find his house intact. “Makelekele is our neighbourhood,” he said. “The four years we spent opposite the Parliament buildings were like hell to us. We are extremely happy to be back in our neighbourhood and to be with our neighbours.”

The area opposite parliament served as a camp for displaced persons.

However, some people have found it difficult to get their homes back. They have had to negotiate with squatters, some of whom have insisted on leaving the houses as they had found them when the first occupied them, i.e. without roofs, doors and windows.

In other cases, squatters have refused to move. One illegal occupant told IPS he would not budge no matter what happened. He said when he tried to get back his house in the southern district of Loutete, the person occupying it told him to go to hell.

“It is all well and good to give back houses in Brazzaville to their owners,” he said. “But will the same provisions be made in Niari so that people recover their belongings? That’s a guarantee that has to be given to us.”

In some such cases, proprietors have had to turn to the police. In Bacongo and Makelekele, the police authorities confirmed that they have received many complaints from the proprietors of illegally occupied houses. They said that in such cases they have tried to get the two sides to arrive at a negotiated solution — using force to evict squatters is prohibited until year end.

“A proprietor whose home has been wrecked may stay in the house he occupies until December 1998,” according to Alphonse Diatomba, an adviser to the mayor of Bacongo. The reason for this is to prevent children from being displaced in the middle of the school year.

Some observers hope, though, that the restitution of occupied houses will not be limited to the victims of the 1993-1994 conflict but will also apply to those who suffered in last year’s war.