CONGO-POLITICS: Former Militia Members Stage Uprising

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nana Rosine Ngangoue

BRAZZAVILLE, Feb 7 1997 (IPS) - When trouble broke out in Congo about five years ago over an election dispute, political parties battled it out using militias each had formed and about 2,500 Congolese paid for that with their lives.

Since then, dissatisfied militia members have frequently sown instability in parts of Congo, either by committing acts of banditry or by rebelling against their former bosses.

A mutiny in 1992 was followed by others in 1995 and 1996. Now, yet another has been staged since Saturday last by former members of the ‘Aubevillois’ militia, linked to President Pascal Lissouba’s Panafrican Union for Social Democracy (UPADS).

The ex-militiamen, who have been following courses at the Military and Development Training Centre in the town of Loudima, about 350 kms southwest of the capital, are demanding their immediate incorporation into the army with the rank of sergeant and the dismissal of the centre’s commanders.

They have taken over the Loudima railway station, thus interrupting train travel between Brazzaville and the port city of Pointe-Noire, Congo’s economic capital. They also turned off the Loudima electricity transformer, plunging southern Congo’s two main towns, Dolisie and Pointe-Noire into darkness.

The military, which said nothing about the mutiny until midweek, has sent about a dozen officers to Loudima to try to end the uprising.

“The Loudima rebellion must be the last one,” said army Chief of Staff Gen. Daniel Mabika. “The mission we have sent there must make the mutineers return to the barracks without any objections or pretexts.

“Our position should be a firm one because we do not allow mutinies in the army. The army’s problems are settled in the barracks.”

He then disclosed that the officers sent to Loudima managed to restart the transformer on Thursday and took three mutineers prisoner. “There have been no material or human losses,” he said. “However, during the journey from (Loudima) to Dolisie (50 kms from Loudima), a vehicle overturned and nine people, including an officer, were slightly injured.”

The mutineers comprise about a third of the some 500 young ex- militiamen who have been receiving training in Loudima prior to their full incorporation into the army.

According to Mabika, their demands are illegitimate.

“In 1993, these young people were in barracks in Brazzaville. We transferred them to the Military and Development Training Centre in 1995. Moreover, there is a decision that has to do with those young people in Loudima — Decision 888 of the 31st of August 1996 — which grants them military status. So they are unpardonable.”

“When you harm the national economy by turning off the electricity and interrupting transport, that becomes a coup d’etat,” he added. “So I could argue that they are staging a coup. They are going to be punished.”

According to Mabika, the mutineers face punishment under both the military and penal codes: they will spend 45 days in military detention after which they will be tried in civilian courts.

Under the 1995 accord, Congo’s parties had agreed to disband their militias: the Aubevillois: the ‘Zulus’ and ‘Ninjas’, who belong to opposition leader Bernard Kolelas’ Congolese Movement for democracy and Integral Development (MCDDI): and the ‘Cobras’, linked to former military head of state Denis Sassou Nguesso.

They also agreed that some of the paramilitary forces would be recruited into the army and, during last year, about 1,600 were, joining others who had been recruited even before the accord, including the Loudima group.

Most are still undergoing training prior to their confirmation as full-fledged members of the armed forces.

Gen. Raymond Damase Ngollo, a former defence minister, said here Wednesday that all the centres where the former militia members are being trained should be closed down to prevent more mutinies.

“You can’t have parallel armies or militias in a country that is under the rule of law,” said Ngollo, one of the candidates in the 1997 presidential elections to be held in July. “The militias cannot resolve the problem of insecurity in the country. On the contrary, they are a threat to the nation.”

The Loudima mutiny comes just a year after a February 1996 uprising by some 300 ex-militiamen who had just been recruited into the military. Demanding their full integration into the army and the payment of their stipends, they seized control of an armoured regiment. Five people died before that uprising ended.

Earlier mutinies took place in the towns of Aubeville in November 1992, and Dolisie, in October 1995 — involving the same militia that has rebelled in Loudima.

According to Gen. Mabika, the various mutinies are linked to the economic decline Congo has experienced over the years.

“It’s due to the weakening of our impoverished army,” he said. “Take a stroll in our barracks and you’ll see that the soldiers don’t even have beds. No country whose economy is depressed can upkeep an army.”