Blame traded over Congo clashes
2005-10-20 22:36
Brazzaville - Congo's military command has blamed a militia in southern Brazzaville for street fighting in which troops evicted renegades from illegally occupied premises and least three people died and four were wounded.
A general staff statement released after Wednesday's clashes said troops deployed in the Bacongo district to dislodge members of the militia forces and "secure the district were taken by surprise by automatic weapons fire".
The National Resistance Council (CNR) or political wing of the Ninja militia led by a charismatic pastor Frederic Bitsangou, better known as Ntumi, in turn accused the government of "violating ... steps towards peace".
Fighting broke out between government troops backed by heavy artillery that could be heard 10km across town and some of the militiamen allowed into southern Brazzaville after a 2003 peace deal.
Militia condemn violence
Many residents fled the Bacongo neighbourhood where by the end of Wednesday afternoon, the army had taken control of villas occupied by Ninjas implicated in clashes that killed six people on October 13.
State radio broadcasts said the army had launched a successful operation to dislodge Ninja forces from premises illegally seized in breach of accords with the government to end five years of insurgency and provide for a political and military settlement.
The military gave no casualty figures after the fighting but said troops had "ended the occupation of the residence prepared for Mr Ntumi in Bacongo" since it "was transformed into a nestbed of insecurity and subversion".
Hospital sources said at least one soldier was killed and four injured, while an AFP journalist saw the dead bodies of two Ninjas in a street before authorities urged those who had fled to return to their homes.
Militia spokesperson Joseph Ane on Thursday said "the CNR and its president bitterly deplore the violent action taken by (President Denis Sassou Nguesso's) government", saying both sides had already "agreed the residence would be cleared within a week".
Trying to establish responsibility for violence
Ane added the authorities used force "at a moment when the CNR, a government delegation, and the state prosecutor, supervised by the prime minister's office, had decided to go to the scene of the incidents of October 13 to establish responsibility".
He said he was unable to give a casualty figure from Wednesday's clashes or tell which side was the first to open fire.
The Ninjas served as one of the private armies attached to political parties who fought two civil wars in the 1990s. Despite the pact to end insurgency that went on afterwards, Ntumi remains holed up in the forested Pool region south and east of Brazzaville.
He has demanded "special status" as well as a residence in the south of the city, but the government does not agree after letting Ninjas into Brazzaville and making arrangements to incorporate some of the former fighters into the armed forces.
Last week, violence blamed on Ninjas based in and around the villa waiting for Ntumi claimed the lives of two police officers, three members of the paramilitary gendarmerie and a Chinese local trader in unclear circumstances.