SUMMARY
In the early 1990s, the Republic of Congo embarked on a democratization process. During the course of this process, ethnicity came to play an increasingly important role in the country, as elites sought to mobilize their ethnic constituencies to gain political power. In the intrastate conflict that erupted as a consequence (fought in 1993-94, 1997-99 and 2002), two successive governments carried out one-sided violence.
Throughout the years of fighting, the targeting of civilians reflected the ethnic nature of the conflict. Between 1993 and October 1997 Pascal Lissouba and his party the UPADS (Union Panafricaine pour la Démocratie Sociale, the Pan-African Union for Social Democracy) ruled the country. Hailing from the so-called Nibolek region in the southern part of the country, Lissouba was from a sub-group of the large Bacongo ethnic group. His main opponent in the conflict was Congo’s former president, Denis Sassou-Nguessou, and his militia, the Cobras, ethnicity-wise representing the northern part of the country. Thus, during this period, it was northerners that were the target of the government’s one-sided violence.
The bulk of the Lissouba government’s one-sided violence was carried out after the second phase of fighting started in June 1997. With Congo being one of the most urbanized countries in Africa, the population of Brazzaville, the capital, including all ethnic groups of the contending parties. After the initial fighting in 1993, neighborhoods in Brazzaville had been ethnically cleansed, whereby close to ethnically homogenous zones were created. These remained after the fighting had died down and when the conflict resumed in 1997 Brazzaville became a micro-cosmos of the conflict, with the city being carved into different war-zones, pitting the forces of the two sides against each other.
The pro-government forces initially controlled areas such as Mfilou, La Base, and central Brazzaville. In September 1997 the government was broadened to include the party MCDDI (Mouvement Congolais pour la démocratie et le développement intégral, the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development). Subsequently, the areas under the control of MCDDI’s Ninja militia, such as Bacongo and Makélékélé, were added to the government-controlled zone. Within this zone the government forces in general, and the government-controlled militias in particular killed unarmed civilians simply because they were suspected of being northerners, and thus perceived as supporters of the Cobras and Sassou. The militias set up barricades and road-blocks and stopped civilians to check their identity cards. People who did not have one were asked to speak in their first language in order to find out their ethnic group. Many members of the ethnic group of the opposing side were immediately killed.
In late October 1997 the country saw a change of government as the Cobras, supported by Angolan troops succeeded in toppling Lissouba’s regime. Representing the northern Mbouchi ethnic group, the new government under Denis Sassou-Nguessou turned against its opponent’s ethnic constituents, as the military forces of the former regime regrouped and resumed fighting. The bulk of the Sassou government’s one-sided violence was carried out in the context of the continued intrastate conflict, mainly fought in a rural setting from 1998 and onwards. The government often deployed both the Cobras and the armed forces jointly and these were responsible for summary executions of civilians as well as rape, looting, and other violent acts in both the Pool region, where they fought the Ninja and Ntsiloulou rebel groups and in the so-called Nibolek region, where they fought the Cocoyes.
Apart from targeting people suspected of supporting the rebel groups, there were also reports of reprisal killings and one-sided violence as a result of soldiers settling personal scores from before the conflict.
The government’s one-sided attacks ranged from small-scale, low-intensity assaults to large-scale massacres. While most killings took place in the countryside, the single largest attack on civilians was carried out in Brazzaville in December 1998. On 18 December Ntsiloulous had carried out an attack on the capital’s southernmost quarters Bacongo and Makélékélé and in its’ wake, Cobras went on a rampage. Reportedly hundreds of bodies littered the streets during the following weeks.
The Government of Congo first became active as a one-sided actor in 1993, when the one-sided violence resulted in more than 25 civilian deaths. The threshold was reached between November and December of that year, when around 80 civilians were killed in Brazzaville.
