Republic of the Congo

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Republic of the Congo

The Republic of the Congo (; Kongo: Repubilika ya Kongo; Lingala: Republiki ya Kongó), also known as Congo-Brazzaville or the Congo, is a country 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 republic is a former French colony. Upon independence in 1960, the former French region of Middle Congo became the Republic of the Congo. After a quarter century of Marxism, Congo became a multi-party democracy in 1992. However, a brief civil war in 1997 ended in the restoration of former Marxist President Denis Sassou Nguesso to power.

History
Government and politics
Regions and districts
Geography
Economy
Demographics
Weather and Climate
Flora and fauna
Culture
See also
References
Further reading
External links

History

The earliest inhabitants of the area were Pygmy peoples. They were largely replaced and absorbed by Bantu tribes during Bantu expansions. The Bakongo are Bantu groups that also occupied parts of present-day Angola, Gabon, and Democratic Republic of the Congo, forming the basis for ethnic affinities and rivalries among those countries. Several Bantu kingdoms?notably those of the Kongo, the Loango, and the Teke?built trade links leading into the Congo River basin. The first European contacts came in the late 15th century with Portuguese explorations, and commercial relationships were quickly established with the kingdoms?trading for slaves captured in the interior. The coastal area was a major source for the transatlantic slave trade, and when that commerce ended in the early 19th century, the power of the Bantu kingdoms eroded.

Following independence as the Congo Republic on August 15 1960, Fulbert Youlou ruled as the country's first president until labour elements and rival political parties instigated a three-day uprising that ousted him. The Congolese military took charge of the country briefly and installed a civilian provisional government headed by Alphonse Massamba-Débat.

Under the 1963 constitution, Massamba-Débat was elected President for a five-year term but it was ended abruptly with an August 1968 coup d'état. Capt. Marien Ngouabi, who had participated in the coup, assumed the presidency on December 31, 1968. One year later, President Ngouabi proclaimed Congo to be Africa's first "people's republic" and announced the decision of the National Revolutionary Movement to change its name to the Congolese Labour Party (PCT). On March 16, 1977, President Ngouabi was assassinated. An 11-member Military Committee of the Party (CMP) was named to head an interim government with Col. (later Gen.) Joachim Yhombi-Opango to serve as President of the Republic.

After decades of turbulent politics bolstered by Marxist-Leninist rhetoric, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Congo completed a transition to multi-party democracy with elections in August 1992. Denis Sassou Nguesso conceded defeat and Congo's new president, Prof. Pascal Lissouba, was inaugurated on August 31, 1992.

However, Congo's democratic progress was derailed in 1997. As presidential elections scheduled for July 1997 approached, tensions between the Lissouba and Sassou camps mounted. On June 5, President Lissouba's government forces surrounded Sassou's compound in Brazzaville and Sassou ordered members of his private militia (known as "Cobras") to resist. Thus began a four-month conflict that destroyed or damaged much of Brazzaville and caused tens of thousands of civilian deaths. In early October, Angolan troops invaded Congo on the side of Sassou and, in mid-October, the Lissouba government fell. Soon thereafter, Sassou declared himself President. The Congo Civil War continued for another year and a half until a peace deal was struck between the various factions in December 1999.

Sham elections in 2002 saw Sassou win with almost 10% of the vote cast. His two main rivals Lissouba and Bernard Kolelas were prevented from competing and the only remaining credible rival, Andre Milongo, advised his supporters to boycott the elections and then withdrew from the race. A new constitution, agreed upon by referendum in January 2002, granted the president new powers and also extended his term to seven years as well as introducing a new bicameral assembly. International observers took issue with the organization of the presidential election as well as the constitutional referendum, both of which were reminiscent in their organization of Congo's era of the single-party state.

Government and politics

The most important of the many political parties are the Democratic and Patriotic Forces or FDP [Denis Sassou Nguesso, president], an alliance consisting of:

Convention for Alternative Democracy
Congolese Labour Party (PCT)
Liberal Republican Party
National Union for Democracy and Progress
Patriotic Union for the National Reconstruction
National Republic Party of Helasia
Union for the National Renewal

Other significant parties include:

Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development or MCDDI [Michel Mampouya]
Pan-African Union for Social Development or UPADS [Martin Mberi]
Rally for Democracy and Social Progress or RDPS [Jean-Pierre Thystere Tchicaya, president]
Rally for Democracy and the Republic or RDR [Raymond Damasge Ngollo]
Union for Democracy and Republic or UDR leader NA
Union of Democratic Forces or UFD, Sebastian Ebao

Regions and districts

Regions of the Republic of the Congo

The Republic of the Congo is divided into 10 régions (regions) and one commune, the capital Brazzaville. These are:

The regions are subdivided into forty-six districts.

Geography

Map of the Republic of the Congo

Congo is located in the central-western part of sub-Saharan Africa, along the Equator. To the south and east of it is the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is also bounded by Gabon to the west, Cameroon and the Central African Republic to the north, and Cabinda (Angola) to the southwest. It has a short Atlantic coast.

The capital, Brazzaville, is located on the Congo River, in the south of the country, immediately across from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The southwest of the country is a coastal plain for which the primary drainage is the Kouilou-Niari River; the interior of the country consists of a central plateau between two basins to the south and north.

Economy

The economy is a mixture of village agriculture and handicrafts, an industrial sector based largely on petroleum,^[1] support services, and a government characterized by budget problems and overstaffing. Petroleum extraction has supplanted forestry as the mainstay of the economy, providing a major share of government revenues and exports. In the early 1980s, rapidly rising oil revenues enabled the government to finance large-scale development projects with GDP growth averaging 5% annually, one of the highest rates in Africa. The government has mortgaged a substantial portion of its petroleum earnings, contributing to a shortage of revenues. The January 12, 1994 devaluation of Franc Zone currencies by 50% resulted in inflation of 46% in 1994, but inflation has subsided since.^[2] Economic reform efforts continued with the support of international organizations, notably the World Bank and the IMF. The reform program came to a halt in June 1997 when civil war erupted. When Sassou Nguesso returned to power at the war ended in October 1997, he publicly expressed interest in moving forward on economic reforms and privatization and in renewing cooperation with international financial institutions. However, economic progress was badly hurt by slumping oil prices and the resumption of armed conflict in December 1998, which worsened the republic's budget deficit. The current administration presides over an uneasy internal peace and faces difficult economic problems of stimulating recovery and reducing poverty, despite record-high oil prices since 2003. Natural gas and diamonds are also recent major Congolese exports, although Congo was excluded from the Kimberley Process in 2004 amid allegations that most of its diamond exports were in fact being smuggled out of the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo; it was re-admitted to the group in 2007.^[3]^[4]

Demographics

Population of the Republic of the Congo (FAO, 2005); number of inhabitants given in thousands.

The Republic of the Congo's sparse population is concentrated in the southwestern portion of the country, leaving the vast areas of tropical jungle in the north virtually uninhabited. Thus, Congo is one of the most urbanized countries in Africa, with 85% of its total population living in a few urban areas, namely in Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire, or one of the small cities or villages lining the railway which connects the two cities. In rural areas, industrial and commercial activity has declined rapidly in recent years, leaving rural economies dependent on the government for support and subsistence. Before the 1997 war, about 15,000 Europeans and other non-Africans lived in Congo, most of whom were French. Presently, only about 9,500 remain.

Weather and Climate

Climate diagram for Brazzaville

Since the country is located on the Equator, the climate is consistent year-round, with the average day temperature being a humid () and nights generally between (). The average yearly rainfall ranges from in south in the Niari valley to over in central parts of the county. The dry season is from June to August while in the majority of the country the wet season has two rainfall maxima: one in March?May and another in September?November.^[5]

Flora and fauna

In 2006-07, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society studied gorillas in heavily forested regions centered on the Ouesso district of the Sangha Region. They suggest a population on the order of 125000 Western Lowland Gorillas, whose isolation from humans has been largely preserved by inhospitable swamps. ^[6]