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30-year jail sentence for Lissouba — accusations against Sassou in Brussels
Congo’s politicians never fail to astonish us. For the last ten years, they’ve been accusing each other of having committed crimes against the people and for having organized (with the complicity of powerful multinationals), economic and bloody misdeeds against Congo. The latest is the lawsuit against Lissouba in Brazzaville for having sold cut-price oil to the Americans. Sassou, on the other hand, is being charged in the Belgian courts. It’s like a game of ping-pong! Accusations are flying all over the place. First one, then the other!
The Brazzaville lawsuit
Firstly, the «Brazzaville Case» which was heard on 27-28 December, when Congo’s former president, Pascal Lissouba, was sentenced, in absentia, to thirty years hard labour plus a fine of twenty-five billion CFA francs to be paid into the State’s coffers. His lieutenants, the former ministers Moungounga Nguila, Yhombi Opango took the rap with twenty-year jail sentences.
What’s the background to the case? The accused are said to have sold off oil in 1993, to the American company, Oxy, for three dollars a barrel instead of fourteen. The grand total amounted to 150 million dollars. The French company, Elf, considered Congo’s oil riches as its preserve, and had refused Lissouba a guaranteed advanced payment for the «black gold». Lissouba needed the cash to pay the country’s labour force and the civil servants; also to provide bursaries for the students and pensions for the retired.
At that time, Congo stood on a knife-edge. Especially as funds were urgently needed to buy weapons for the war which was on the verge of breaking out.
Claudine Munari is Lissouba’s former principal private secretary. She says that all the preceding governments have been dabbling in the same shameful practices. And they’ve never been brought to court! Even the 1991 National Conference condemned these practices. The present lawsuit hasn’t done anything to clarify matters. Supporters of the former regime consider that all the present government is doing is to wash Lissouba’s dirty linen in public, and preventing him and his supporters from standing for office in this year’s elections.
What’s happened to the 353?
Political analysts also believe that the Brazzaville courtcase is an attempt to cover-up another distressing affair which has poisoned Congo’s political climate for some months — the 353 people who disappeared from the beach at Brazzaville, between April and May 1999, and for which responsibility could be laid at the door of Sassou Nguesso and his henchmen.
Here’s the background to what happened. A number of Congolese, mostly southerners from the Pool region, Bernard Kolelas’ electoral stronghold, (he was Lissouba’s last prime minister) had taken refuge in neighbouring Congo-Kinshasa to escape the 1998-1999 fighting in Congo-Brazzaville. During a lull in the fighting in the southern districts of Brazzaville, and following the government’s propaganda effort which presented these areas as being «pacified», people who had fled to Congo-Kinshasa were encouraged to return home. The journey was scheduled to take place between April and May 1999, thanks to a tripartite agreement between the government of both Congo’s and the Office of the High Commission for Refugees based in Kinshasa.
Hundreds of the refugees were accompanied to the port of Brazzaville and there, in the full light of day, in the presence of civilians and military personnel and openly in front of representatives from the High Commission for Refugees, they were taken away to unknown destinations, never to be seen again. On 30 July 2001, Christian Mounzéo, secretary-general of the Congolese Human Rights Monitoring Committee commented on Radio France Internationale: «People were taken away from the various reception centres, and the same took place in Pointe-Noire.» Mounzéo said he was astonished by the silence both from the High Commission for Refugees silence and the international community, over what had taken place.
Shaken by this business, the National Transition Council (Transition Parliament) established a commission of inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the whole affair. The Council also thinks it necessary to inquire into all the disappearances since 1992, when the first outbreaks of violence took place. Congo’s human rights organisations are against this procedure. Why? Because for them, it’s a cover-up of the 353 who disappeared from Brazzaville’s riverside. A human rights activist recalls: «These people were removed in front of everyone. They were especially picked out from among the crowd who returned from Kinshasa. The war was already over. Those who disappeared during the period 1992-1997, disappeared during a time of war. It’s difficult to know how these people died».
But something is happening. The victims’ families have brought an action against Sassou in Belgium’s courts. On 11 October 2001, three Congolese from the south of Congo, lodged a complaint in Belgium against Sassou and the TotalFinaElf company «for crimes against humanity». Crimes which are said to have been committed by Sassou’s forces during the June to October 1997 war, when Sassou’s supporters fought against Lissouba’s. The plaintiffs said that a number of their close relations were killed during this war. They’ve also included TotalFinaElf in the act of accusation, saying the company provided Sassou with weapons. Congo’s government, on the other hand, is doing its best to sweep everything under the carpet. François Ibovi, Congo’s transport minister, puts it this way: «It’s the same old story. Every time something important crops up, there are some people who take every opportunity to divert attention from what’s happening»...and this at a time when 1.5 million Congolese will find their way to the ballot boxes, for the first time in ten years.
From one to the other — a true ping-pong game!
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