Denis Sassou Nguesso
Encyclopedia
Denis Sassou Nguesso is a Congolese
politician who has been the President of Congo-Brazzaville since 1997; he was previously President from 1979 to 1992. During his first period as President, he headed the single-party regime of the Congolese Labour Party (PCT) for 12 years. Under heavy pressure, he introduced multiparty politics in 1990 and was then stripped of executive powers by the 1991 National Conference, remaining in office as a ceremonial head of state. He stood as a candidate in the 1992 presidential election
but was defeated, placing third.
Sassou Nguesso was an opposition leader for five years before returning to power at the conclusion of the June–October 1997 civil war, in which his rebel forces ousted President Pascal Lissouba
. Following a transitional period, he won the 2002 presidential election
, which lacked meaningful opposition participation; he was again re-elected under controversial circumstances in the 2009 presidential election
.
Sassou Nguesso is backed by a variety of political parties, the most important of which is the PCT. He is the President of the PCT Central Committee.
tribe, Sassou Nguesso was born in Edou in the Oyo district to the north of the country.
He joined the army in 1960 just before the country was granted independence. He was marked for prominence and received military training in Algeria
and at Saint Maixent, France
before returning to join the elite paratroop regiment.
He had socialist leanings and supported the opposition to Fulbert Youlou
in Les Trois Glorieuses of August 1963. He was later part of the 1968 military coup that brought Marien Ngouabi
to power and was a founding member of the Congolese Labour Party (Parti Congolais du Travail, PCT) in December 1969.
In 1970 Sassou Nguesso was made Director of Security and a minister in the new presidential council. When Ngouabi was assassinated in March 1977, Nguesso played a key role in maintaining control, briefly heading the Military Committee of the Party
(CMP, Comité Militaire du Parti) that controlled the state before the succession of Colonel Joachim Yhombi-Opango
. Sassou Nguesso was rewarded with a promotion to colonel and the post of vice-president of the CMP. He remained there until February 5, 1979 when Yhombi-Opango was forced from power in a technical coup accused of corruption and political deviancy. On February 8, the CMP chose Nguesso as the new President, and at the Third Extraordinary Congress of the PCT his position was unanimously approved on March 27, 1979.
Sassou Nguesso surprised many observers who saw only a military strongman by revealing a strong commitment to Marxism
as well as a streak of practical politics. He negotiated loans from the International Monetary Fund
and allowed foreign investors from France and the Americas to operate in the vital oil
and mineral
extraction operations. He also traveled to Moscow
in 1981 to sign a twenty-year friendship pact with the Soviet Union
.
Sassou Nguesso was re-elected for a five year term as President of the PCT Central Committee and President of the Republic at the party's Third Ordinary Congress on July 27–July 31, 1984; he was sworn in for his new term on November 10, 1984, and on this occasion he announced the release of Yhombi-Opango. He was not slow to moderate the Marxist policies of the government as the situation demanded. He was Chairman of the Organization of African Unity from 1986 to 1987. In late 1987 he faced down a serious military revolt in the north of the country with French aid.
At the PCT's Fourth Ordinary Congress on July 26–31, 1989, Sassou Nguesso was re-elected as President of the PCT Central Committee and President of the Republic. Subsequently he saw the collapse of the socialist states of Eastern Europe and, under pressure from the French, began to prepare the process of bringing the country to capitalism
. In December 1989 he announced the end of government control of the economy and declared a partial amnesty
for political prisoners. Into the following year he attempted to improve the failing economic situation and reduce the outrageous levels of corruption. From September 1990 political parties other than the PCT were allowed and Sassou Nguesso undertook a symbolic state visit to the United States of America
, laying the grounds for a new series of conditional IMF loans later that year.
In February 1991, a national conference began; the opposition gained control of the conference, and the conference's declaration of its own sovereignty was not challenged by Sassou Nguesso. The conference, which concluded in June 1991, chose André Milongo
as Prime Minister during the transitional period leading to scheduled elections in 1992. Milongo was given executive powers, leaving Sassou Nguesso as effectively a figurehead
president. Sassou Nguesso's power was so limited by the Conference that he was barred from travelling outside of Congo without the transitional government's approval. He was also subjected to serious criticism and allegations during the Conference, including a claim from some delegates that he was involved in Ngouabi's 1977 assassination. His eventual response to the criticism on 26 April was "repentant rather than defiant" in tone.
, the PCT won only 19 of 125 seats in the National Assembly; the Pan-African Union for Social Democracy
(UPADS) was the largest party, with the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development
(MCDDI) another strong force. In the August 1992 presidential election
, Sassou Nguesso was eliminated in the first round, in which he placed third with 17% of the vote; although he performed strongly in the north, he fared poorly in the rest of the country. The second round was held between Pascal Lissouba
(UPADS) and Bernard Kolelas
(MCDDI); Sassou Nguesso backed Lissouba, who won in the second round with 61% of the vote, although he and the PCT quickly went into opposition after the PCT received fewer positions in government under Lissouba than it had anticipated.
Lissouba began his rule dogged with accusations of voting irregularities and he had to act with increasing repression to maintain his power. From November 1993 to the end of that year clashes between supporters of Kolelas and Lissouba left almost 1500 people dead. In 1994 Sassou Nguesso prudently left the country for Paris. He returned to Congo on January 26, 1997 and intended to contest the presidential election scheduled for July.
, Yhombi-Opango's political stronghold, led to the outbreak of violence between his supporters and those of Yhombi-Opango. On June 5, 1997, government forces surrounded Sassou Nguesso's home in the Mpila section of Brazzaville
, attempting to arrest two men, Pierre Aboya and Engobo Bonaventure, who had been implicated in the earlier violence. Fighting broke out between the government forces and Sassou Nguesso's fighters, called Cobras, and led to the outbreak of a civil war. By October, Sassou Nguesso, who was aided at the end of the war by Angola
n troops, was in control of the country, and he was sworn in as President on October 25.
Sassou Nguesso declared that he was willing to allow a return to democracy and began a three-year transition process in 1998, but renewed fighting with opposition groups led to the collapse of the endeavor. With the government forces in ascendancy and following peace agreements in 1999, elections were re-scheduled for 2002, although not all rebel groups signed the accords. On March 10 Sassou Nguesso won with almost 90% of the vote; his two main rivals Lissouba and Kolelas were prevented from competing. The only remaining credible rival, André Milongo
, withdrew his candidacy three days before the election day, claiming that the election would be rigged. A new constitution
was agreed upon in January 2002 which granted the president new powers and extended presidential terms from five to seven years. While the 2002 elections were hailed as being free of violence, they conferred little legitimacy on Sassou Nguesso's regime due to the lack of meaningful participation by opposition parties. Sassou Nguesso was sworn in on August 14, 2002.
Having already served as the Chairman
of the Organisation of African Unity in 1986 to 1987, he was elected Chairman
of the African Union
, the OAU's successor body, in January 2006. His election was the result of a compromise reached to prevent the chairmanship from going to Omar al-Bashir
, President of Sudan
. Despite making frequent trips around the continent and around the world during his year-long tenure as AU chairman, Sassou Nguesso's achievements in the office were limited.
Sassou Nguesso was re-elected as President of the Central Committee of the PCT at the party's Fifth Extraordinary Congress in December 2006.
In January 2007, Sassou Nguesso's international reputation suffered a blow after a panel of judges in France
reopened an official investigation into the alleged role of Sassou Nguesso's government in the 1999 disappearance of 353 Congolese refugees.
Re-elected in the July 2009 presidential election with 78.61% of the vote amidst an opposition boycott, Sassou Nguesso was sworn in for another seven-year term at a ceremony in Brazzaville on 14 August 2009. He said that his re-election meant continued "peace, stability and security", and he called for an end to "thinking like ... freeloaders" in reference to international aid received by the country. Sassou Nguesso also made an important announcement at his inauguration, saying that he would set in motion an amnesty bill to pardon Pascal Lissouba, who had gone into exile after his 1997 ouster and was convicted of crimes in absentia. Sassou Nguesso said that he wanted the amnesty bill to be presented to Parliament by the end of 2009.
As Congo-Brazzaville prepared to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its independence from France in 2010, Sassou Nguesso noted that the country had far to go in fully realizing the dream of independence: "Our country will not be totally independent until our people are free of the yoke of poverty." He presided over a large parade in Brazzaville, featuring thousands of soldiers and civilians, to celebrate the anniversary on 15 August 2010.
General Assembly meeting in September 2006, almost £14,000 of room service at the Waldorf Astoria was added to his bill during another five-night stay. His entourage, including several members of his family, occupied 44 rooms which together ran up a bill of £130,000. The bills on September 19 included two bottles of Cristal champagne charged at £400. This was pointed out by the British newspaper The Sunday Times
to be "comfortably more than the £106,000 that Britain gave the Republic of Congo in humanitarian aid in 2006."
As of June 2007, Sassou Nguesso, along with President Omar Bongo
of Gabon
, is being investigated by the French police due to claims that he has used millions of pounds of embezzled public funds to acquire lavish properties in France
. He has been cited in recent years during French criminal inquiries into hundreds of millions of euros of illicit payments by Elf
, the former French state-owned oil group.http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1963997.ece
In July 2007, British NGO Global Witness
published documents on its website that appear to show that the President's son, Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, may have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of money that may derive from the country's oil sales on shopping sprees in Paris and Dubai. The documents show that in August 2006 alone, Denis Christel, who is the head of Cotrade - the marketing branch of Congo's state oil firm SNPC - spent $35,000 on purchases from designers such as Louis Vuitton and Roberto Cavalli. Attempts were made by Schillings Solicitors to suppress this information but the application failed (see law report at http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/inpractice/lawreports/view=details.law?GAZETTEINPRACTICEID=357873).
Republic of the Congo
The Republic of the Congo , sometimes known locally as Congo-Brazzaville, is a state in Central Africa. It is bordered by Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo , the Angolan exclave province of Cabinda, and the Gulf of Guinea.The region was dominated by...
politician who has been the President of Congo-Brazzaville since 1997; he was previously President from 1979 to 1992. During his first period as President, he headed the single-party regime of the Congolese Labour Party (PCT) for 12 years. Under heavy pressure, he introduced multiparty politics in 1990 and was then stripped of executive powers by the 1991 National Conference, remaining in office as a ceremonial head of state. He stood as a candidate in the 1992 presidential election
Republic of the Congo presidential election, 1992
Presidential elections were held in the Republic of the Congo in August 1992, marking the end of the transitional period that began with the February–June 1991 National Conference...
but was defeated, placing third.
Sassou Nguesso was an opposition leader for five years before returning to power at the conclusion of the June–October 1997 civil war, in which his rebel forces ousted President Pascal Lissouba
Pascal Lissouba
Pascal Lissouba was the first democratically elected President of the Republic of the Congo from August 31, 1992 to October 15, 1997. He was overthrown by the current President Denis Sassou Nguesso in the 1997 civil war....
. Following a transitional period, he won the 2002 presidential election
Republic of the Congo presidential election, 2002
A presidential election was held in the Republic of the Congo on 10 March 2002. This followed a civil war in 1997, which returned Denis Sassou Nguesso to power, and a subsequent transitional period, in which a new constitution was written and approved by referendum in January 2002.The election...
, which lacked meaningful opposition participation; he was again re-elected under controversial circumstances in the 2009 presidential election
Republic of the Congo presidential election, 2009
A presidential election was held in the Republic of the Congo on 12 July 2009. Long-time President Denis Sassou Nguesso won another seven-year term with a large majority of the vote, but the election was marked by accusations of irregularities and fraud from the opposition; six opposition...
.
Sassou Nguesso is backed by a variety of political parties, the most important of which is the PCT. He is the President of the PCT Central Committee.
Biography
A member of the MbochiMbochi
The Mbochi are a central African ethnic group whose population is concentrated in the northern region of the Republic of the Congo. The current Congolese president, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, as well as many senior government officials, belong to this group....
tribe, Sassou Nguesso was born in Edou in the Oyo district to the north of the country.
He joined the army in 1960 just before the country was granted independence. He was marked for prominence and received military training in Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
and at Saint Maixent, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
before returning to join the elite paratroop regiment.
He had socialist leanings and supported the opposition to Fulbert Youlou
Fulbert Youlou
Abbé Fulbert Youlou was a Brazzaville-Congolese Roman Catholic priest, nationalist leader and politician.-Early life:...
in Les Trois Glorieuses of August 1963. He was later part of the 1968 military coup that brought Marien Ngouabi
Marien Ngouabi
Marien Ngouabi was the military President of the Republic of the Congo from January 1, 1969 to March 18, 1977.-Origins:...
to power and was a founding member of the Congolese Labour Party (Parti Congolais du Travail, PCT) in December 1969.
In 1970 Sassou Nguesso was made Director of Security and a minister in the new presidential council. When Ngouabi was assassinated in March 1977, Nguesso played a key role in maintaining control, briefly heading the Military Committee of the Party
Military Committee of the Congolese Labour Party
The Military Committee of the Congolese Labour Party was a military Committee which briefly ruled the People's Republic of the Congo between 18 March 1977 and 3 April 1977.Membership in 1977*Col. Joachim Yhombi-Opango*Maj. Denis Sassou Nguesso...
(CMP, Comité Militaire du Parti) that controlled the state before the succession of Colonel Joachim Yhombi-Opango
Joachim Yhombi-Opango
Jacques Joachim Yhombi Opango is a Congolese politician. He was an army officer who became Congo-Brazzaville's first general and served as Head of State of Congo-Brazzaville from 1977 to 1979. He is currently the President of the Rally for Democracy and Development , a political party, and served...
. Sassou Nguesso was rewarded with a promotion to colonel and the post of vice-president of the CMP. He remained there until February 5, 1979 when Yhombi-Opango was forced from power in a technical coup accused of corruption and political deviancy. On February 8, the CMP chose Nguesso as the new President, and at the Third Extraordinary Congress of the PCT his position was unanimously approved on March 27, 1979.
Presidency
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
as well as a streak of practical politics. He negotiated loans from the International Monetary Fund
International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
and allowed foreign investors from France and the Americas to operate in the vital oil
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
and mineral
Mineral
A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...
extraction operations. He also traveled to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
in 1981 to sign a twenty-year friendship pact with the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Sassou Nguesso was re-elected for a five year term as President of the PCT Central Committee and President of the Republic at the party's Third Ordinary Congress on July 27–July 31, 1984; he was sworn in for his new term on November 10, 1984, and on this occasion he announced the release of Yhombi-Opango. He was not slow to moderate the Marxist policies of the government as the situation demanded. He was Chairman of the Organization of African Unity from 1986 to 1987. In late 1987 he faced down a serious military revolt in the north of the country with French aid.
At the PCT's Fourth Ordinary Congress on July 26–31, 1989, Sassou Nguesso was re-elected as President of the PCT Central Committee and President of the Republic. Subsequently he saw the collapse of the socialist states of Eastern Europe and, under pressure from the French, began to prepare the process of bringing the country to capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
. In December 1989 he announced the end of government control of the economy and declared a partial amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
for political prisoners. Into the following year he attempted to improve the failing economic situation and reduce the outrageous levels of corruption. From September 1990 political parties other than the PCT were allowed and Sassou Nguesso undertook a symbolic state visit to the United States of America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, laying the grounds for a new series of conditional IMF loans later that year.
In February 1991, a national conference began; the opposition gained control of the conference, and the conference's declaration of its own sovereignty was not challenged by Sassou Nguesso. The conference, which concluded in June 1991, chose André Milongo
André Milongo
André Ntsatouabantou Milongo was a Congolese politician who served as Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo from June 1991 to August 1992. He was chosen by the 1991 National Conference to lead the country during its transition to multiparty elections, which were held in 1992...
as Prime Minister during the transitional period leading to scheduled elections in 1992. Milongo was given executive powers, leaving Sassou Nguesso as effectively a figurehead
Figurehead (metaphor)
In politics, a figurehead is a person who holds de jure an important title or office yet de facto executes little actual power, most commonly limited by convention rather than law. The metaphor derives from the carved figurehead at the prow of a sailing ship...
president. Sassou Nguesso's power was so limited by the Conference that he was barred from travelling outside of Congo without the transitional government's approval. He was also subjected to serious criticism and allegations during the Conference, including a claim from some delegates that he was involved in Ngouabi's 1977 assassination. His eventual response to the criticism on 26 April was "repentant rather than defiant" in tone.
1992 elections
In the parliamentary election of June–July 1992Republic of the Congo parliamentary election, 1992
Parliamentary elections were held in the Republic of the Congo in 1992, along with a presidential election, marking the end of the transition to multiparty politics. The election was held in two rounds, the first on 24 June 1992 and the second on 19 July 1992...
, the PCT won only 19 of 125 seats in the National Assembly; the Pan-African Union for Social Democracy
Pan-African Union for Social Democracy
The Pan-African Union for Social Democracy is a political party in the Republic of the Congo, led by former president Pascal Lissouba....
(UPADS) was the largest party, with the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development
Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development
The Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development is a political party in the Republic of the Congo, led by Bernard Kolélas....
(MCDDI) another strong force. In the August 1992 presidential election
Republic of the Congo presidential election, 1992
Presidential elections were held in the Republic of the Congo in August 1992, marking the end of the transitional period that began with the February–June 1991 National Conference...
, Sassou Nguesso was eliminated in the first round, in which he placed third with 17% of the vote; although he performed strongly in the north, he fared poorly in the rest of the country. The second round was held between Pascal Lissouba
Pascal Lissouba
Pascal Lissouba was the first democratically elected President of the Republic of the Congo from August 31, 1992 to October 15, 1997. He was overthrown by the current President Denis Sassou Nguesso in the 1997 civil war....
(UPADS) and Bernard Kolelas
Bernard Kolélas
Bernard Bakana Kolélas was a Congolese politician and President of the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development...
(MCDDI); Sassou Nguesso backed Lissouba, who won in the second round with 61% of the vote, although he and the PCT quickly went into opposition after the PCT received fewer positions in government under Lissouba than it had anticipated.
Lissouba began his rule dogged with accusations of voting irregularities and he had to act with increasing repression to maintain his power. From November 1993 to the end of that year clashes between supporters of Kolelas and Lissouba left almost 1500 people dead. In 1994 Sassou Nguesso prudently left the country for Paris. He returned to Congo on January 26, 1997 and intended to contest the presidential election scheduled for July.
Return to Presidency
In May 1997, a visit by Sassou Nguesso to OwandoOwando
Owando is a town in the central Republic of the Congo, lying on the Kouyou River. It is the capital of Cuvette Department and an autonomous commune...
, Yhombi-Opango's political stronghold, led to the outbreak of violence between his supporters and those of Yhombi-Opango. On June 5, 1997, government forces surrounded Sassou Nguesso's home in the Mpila section of Brazzaville
Brazzaville
-Transport:The city is home to Maya-Maya Airport and a railway station on the Congo-Ocean Railway. It is also an important river port, with ferries sailing to Kinshasa and to Bangui via Impfondo...
, attempting to arrest two men, Pierre Aboya and Engobo Bonaventure, who had been implicated in the earlier violence. Fighting broke out between the government forces and Sassou Nguesso's fighters, called Cobras, and led to the outbreak of a civil war. By October, Sassou Nguesso, who was aided at the end of the war by Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
n troops, was in control of the country, and he was sworn in as President on October 25.
Sassou Nguesso declared that he was willing to allow a return to democracy and began a three-year transition process in 1998, but renewed fighting with opposition groups led to the collapse of the endeavor. With the government forces in ascendancy and following peace agreements in 1999, elections were re-scheduled for 2002, although not all rebel groups signed the accords. On March 10 Sassou Nguesso won with almost 90% of the vote; his two main rivals Lissouba and Kolelas were prevented from competing. The only remaining credible rival, André Milongo
André Milongo
André Ntsatouabantou Milongo was a Congolese politician who served as Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo from June 1991 to August 1992. He was chosen by the 1991 National Conference to lead the country during its transition to multiparty elections, which were held in 1992...
, withdrew his candidacy three days before the election day, claiming that the election would be rigged. A new constitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
was agreed upon in January 2002 which granted the president new powers and extended presidential terms from five to seven years. While the 2002 elections were hailed as being free of violence, they conferred little legitimacy on Sassou Nguesso's regime due to the lack of meaningful participation by opposition parties. Sassou Nguesso was sworn in on August 14, 2002.
Having already served as the Chairman
Chairperson of the African Union
The African Union Chairman is chosen by the Assembly, which consists of the heads of state of member countries, to serve a 1-year term.- List of Chairmen:...
of the Organisation of African Unity in 1986 to 1987, he was elected Chairman
Chairperson of the African Union
The African Union Chairman is chosen by the Assembly, which consists of the heads of state of member countries, to serve a 1-year term.- List of Chairmen:...
of the African Union
African Union
The African Union is a union consisting of 54 African states. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established on 9 July 2002, the AU was formed as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity...
, the OAU's successor body, in January 2006. His election was the result of a compromise reached to prevent the chairmanship from going to Omar al-Bashir
Omar al-Bashir
Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir is the current President of Sudan and the head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister...
, President of Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
. Despite making frequent trips around the continent and around the world during his year-long tenure as AU chairman, Sassou Nguesso's achievements in the office were limited.
Sassou Nguesso was re-elected as President of the Central Committee of the PCT at the party's Fifth Extraordinary Congress in December 2006.
In January 2007, Sassou Nguesso's international reputation suffered a blow after a panel of judges in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
reopened an official investigation into the alleged role of Sassou Nguesso's government in the 1999 disappearance of 353 Congolese refugees.
Re-elected in the July 2009 presidential election with 78.61% of the vote amidst an opposition boycott, Sassou Nguesso was sworn in for another seven-year term at a ceremony in Brazzaville on 14 August 2009. He said that his re-election meant continued "peace, stability and security", and he called for an end to "thinking like ... freeloaders" in reference to international aid received by the country. Sassou Nguesso also made an important announcement at his inauguration, saying that he would set in motion an amnesty bill to pardon Pascal Lissouba, who had gone into exile after his 1997 ouster and was convicted of crimes in absentia. Sassou Nguesso said that he wanted the amnesty bill to be presented to Parliament by the end of 2009.
As Congo-Brazzaville prepared to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its independence from France in 2010, Sassou Nguesso noted that the country had far to go in fully realizing the dream of independence: "Our country will not be totally independent until our people are free of the yoke of poverty." He presided over a large parade in Brazzaville, featuring thousands of soldiers and civilians, to celebrate the anniversary on 15 August 2010.
Personal spending
When Sassou Nguesso attended the United NationsUnited Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
General Assembly meeting in September 2006, almost £14,000 of room service at the Waldorf Astoria was added to his bill during another five-night stay. His entourage, including several members of his family, occupied 44 rooms which together ran up a bill of £130,000. The bills on September 19 included two bottles of Cristal champagne charged at £400. This was pointed out by the British newspaper The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
to be "comfortably more than the £106,000 that Britain gave the Republic of Congo in humanitarian aid in 2006."
As of June 2007, Sassou Nguesso, along with President Omar Bongo
Omar Bongo
El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba , born as Albert-Bernard Bongo, was a Gabonese politician who was President of Gabon for 42 years from 1967 until his death in office in 2009....
of Gabon
Gabon
Gabon , officially the Gabonese Republic is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west...
, is being investigated by the French police due to claims that he has used millions of pounds of embezzled public funds to acquire lavish properties in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. He has been cited in recent years during French criminal inquiries into hundreds of millions of euros of illicit payments by Elf
Elf
An elf is a being of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of divine beings endowed with magical powers, which they use both for the benefit and the injury of mankind...
, the former French state-owned oil group.http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1963997.ece
In July 2007, British NGO Global Witness
Global Witness
Global Witness is an international NGO established in 1993 that works to break the links between natural resource exploitation, conflict, poverty, corruption, and human rights abuses worldwide. The organisation has offices in London and Washington, D.C.. Global Witness states that it does not have...
published documents on its website that appear to show that the President's son, Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, may have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of money that may derive from the country's oil sales on shopping sprees in Paris and Dubai. The documents show that in August 2006 alone, Denis Christel, who is the head of Cotrade - the marketing branch of Congo's state oil firm SNPC - spent $35,000 on purchases from designers such as Louis Vuitton and Roberto Cavalli. Attempts were made by Schillings Solicitors to suppress this information but the application failed (see law report at http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/inpractice/lawreports/view=details.law?GAZETTEINPRACTICEID=357873).