TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93CT1654> <title> Congo--History </title> <history> Compact ALMANAC--CIA Factbook Southern Africa Congo </history> <article> <source>CIA World Factbook</source> <hdr> History </hdr> <body> The early history of the Congo is believed to have focused on three tribal kingdom-the Kongo, the Loango, and the Teke. Established in the fourth century A.D., the Kongo was a highly centralized kingdom that later developed a close commercial relationship with the Portuguese, the first Europeans to explore the area. With the development of the slave trade, the Portuguese turned their attention from the Kongo Kingdom to the Loango. When the slave trade was prohibited by European powers in the 1800s, the Loango Kingdom was reduced to many small, independent groups. The Teke Kingdom of the interior, which had sold slaves to the Loango Kingdom, ended its independence in 1883 when the Teke king concluded a treaty with Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, placing Teke lands and people under French protection. Under the French, the area was known as Middle Congo. In 1910, Middle Congo became part of French Equatorial Africa, which also included Gabon, the Central African Republic, and Chad. During World War II, it was an important center of Free French activities. In 1944 at Brazzaville, Gen. Charles de Gaulle promised reforms in French Africa. These reforms, inaugurated by the French Constitution of 1946, conferred French citizenship on the inhabitants, decentralized certain powers, and initiated participation by local advisory assemblies in the political life of the overseas territories. More reforms followed with the enactment of the Overseas Reform Act (Loi Cadre) of June 23, 1956, which removed voting inequalities and provided for the creation of governmental organs permitting a measure of self-government. A constitutional referendum in September 1958 replaced the Federation of French Equatorial Africa with the French Community. Middle Congo, under the name Republic of the Congo, and the three other territories of French Equatorial Africa became fully autonomous members of the French Community. On April 15, 1960, it became an independent nation but retained close, formal bonds with the Community. The immediate post-independence era was dominated by President Fulbert Youlou, a defrocked Catholic priest, but in August 1963, he was deposed from the presidency in an uprising led by labor elements. All members of the Youlou government were arrested or removed from office. The Congolese military took charge of the country briefly and installed a civilian provisional government headed by Alphonse Massamba-Debat. Under the 1963 constitution, Massamba-Debat was elected president for a 5-year term; his term ended abruptly in August 1968, when Capt. Marien Ngouabi and other army officers toppled the government in a coup. After a period of consolidation under the newly formed National Revolutionary Council, then-Maj. Ngouabi assumed the presidency on December 31, 1968. On December 31, 1969, President Ngouabi proclaimed Africa's first "people's republic" and announced the decision of the national political party, the National Revolutionary Movement, to change its name to the Congolese Labor Party (PCT). On March 18, 1977, President Ngouabi was assassinated, and less than a week later, Archbishop Biayenda also was killed. Although the persons accused of shooting Ngouabi and Biayenda were tried and some of them executed, the motivation behind the assassinations is still not clear. An 11-member Military Committee of the Party (CMP) was named to head an interim government with Col. (later Gen.) Joachim Yhomby-Opango as president of the republic. Accused of corruption and deviation from party directives, Yhomby-Opango was removed from office on February 5, 1979, by the Central Committee of the PCT which then simultaneously designated Vice President and Defense Minister Col. Denis Sassou-Nguesso as interim president and directed him to take charge of preparations for the Third Extraordinary Congress of the PCT, March 26-31, 1979. This Congress elected Sassou-Nguesso President of the Central Committee and President of the republic. Under a congressional resolution, Yhomby-Opango was stripped of all powers, rank, and possessions and placed under arrest to await trial for high treason. Yhomby-Opango was subsequently released from house arrest in late 1984. He was then ordered back to his native village of Owando. The Third Ordinary Congress of the PCT in August 1984 reelected Sassou-Nguesso for a new 5-year term, expanded the Central Committee to 75 delegates, designated a politburo of 13, and set in motion the reelection of the National Assembly. The politburo was reduced to 10 members in 1986. In 1986, the Congolese Government signed a loan agreement for a structural adjustment program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Since that time, Paris Club debt has been rescheduled and loans negotiated with the African Development Bank and the French Caisse Centrale for a structural adjustment program. On July 9, 1979, a constitutional referendum and a single list election for national, regional, and local legislative assemblies were held. In August 1979, President Sassou-Nguesso declared a general amnesty for political prisoners. Since President Sassou came to office, there has been relative calm. However in 1982, there were two terrorist bombings that killed innocent people in Brazzaville. The perpetrators were tried and convicted in 1986. In 1985 and 1986, student demonstrations (secondary school students in 1985; university demonstrations in 1986) were swiftly put down by the local security forces with some resultant injuries. In July 1987, a coup plot was uncovered. One of the plotters, former Capt. Pierre Anga, resisted arrest and hid out with some partisans in his home village of Owando. In the subsequent crossfire, five individuals-including two security officials-were killed, and Anga escaped. Yhomby-Opango was returned to Brazzaville pending the results of an inquiry into what, if any, role he had in the coup plot. Political Conditions After the Ngouabi government took power in 1968, political power was centralized increasingly in the presidency, and the promulgation of the 1970 constitution further strengthened that trend. The PCT is the only legal party in the Congo. The government's objectives are broadly expressed in terms of Marxist Leninist principles, despite varying and sometimes conflicting interpretations within the country as to modes of application of this doctrine. With the constraints imposed by declining revenues, the government has imposed strict budgetary austerity and embraced a structural adjustment program that includes significant economic reforms, including the reduction of government production, distribution, and importation monopolies and the divestiture and/or abandonment of a number of inefficient parastatals. No nationalizations have occurred since 1974. Source: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, March 1988. </body> </article> </text>