Congo's militia lays down arms
Mindouli, Congo - The dishevelled, bearded militiamen gathered in their hundreds at this railway town in southeast Congo to lay down their arms, ending an insurgency which wracked the region for four years.
"Today, we undertake to guarantee peace in the Pool (region) and no longer to carry out attacks on trains of the Congo-Ocean Railway," the chief of the militia's military operations, Bernard Mikisi, said on Friday.
The rebels, known as Ninjas, had fought in the densely forested Pool region east and south of Brazzaville since 1999 and launched many attacks on the vital rail link between the capital and Pointe-Noire on the Atlantic coast.
"Trains can henceforth run in the Pool without hindrance because we're committed to peace," Mikisi said at a meeting with Trade Minister Adelaide Moundele Ngollo, attended by an In the week leading up to the Mindouli meeting, more than 500 Ninjas handed in weapons ranging from Kalashnikov assault rifles to hunting guns, in the wake of a March 17 peace pact negotiated by Moundele Ngollo.
The minister is herself a native of the Pool.
Nobody officially knows how many Ninjas there are. Led by Father Frederic Bitsangou, alias Ntumi, they started out as the remnants of a private army maintained by one of Congo's political parties during three civil wars in the 1990s.
Several Ninjas turned up for Friday's meeting still carrying their rifles and with knives attached to their belts.
"These are youngsters who have just arrived," Mikisi said. "They're going to abandon their weapons like the others."
Since the peace accord was signed, no clashes have been reported in the Pool between President Denis Sassou Nguesso's army and the rebels.
No official death toll from the years of conflict has been released, but the strife is known to have claimed hundreds of lives and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, many going deeper into the forest to try to survive in desparate conditions.
The demobilised rebels have been give temporary barracks in one of the large public buildings in Mindouli, where they will be waiting for the government to implement planned measures to help integrate them back into society.
"Get ready to give up a life of rebellion for normal social activity," Moundele Ngollo urged Ninjas at the meeting. "Some of you will be able to go back to your home districts. Others could join the army or benefit from aid."
One child fighter, a 13-year-old who gave his name as Aime, said he was looking for a military career.
"It's really the army that interests me," he said. "I can't go back to civilian life any more."
The government of the former French colony, an oil-rich western neighbour of the vast Democratic Republic of Congo, plans to carry out a census of the local people who have been displaced by the fighting.
Moundele Nguollo introduced a group of workers from the ministry for humanitarian action who will be undertaking this task in Mindouli, one of the 24 railway towns on the line between the capital and the oil terminals of the coast.
Other government workers will be doing similar jobs in the neighbouring districts of Bouenza, Lekoumou and the Plateaux, not simply counting heads but also assessing the needs of the displaced villagers.
On the basis of their findings, the government plans to draw up a social reintegration programme, for which it already has pledges of support from donor nations and financial institutions. - Sapa-AFP
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