Congo army bombards 'Ninjas'
2005-10-20 12:57
Brazzaville - The Republic of Congo's army bombarded a district in the south of the capital, Brazzaville, on Wednesday, rooting out members of a militia group implicated in deadly clashes that killed six people earlier this month from houses they were occupying illegally, an AFP journalist at the scene reported.
At least three people - one soldier and two militiamen - were killed in Wednesday's unrest which rocked Bacongo district for several hours, prompting hundreds of residents to flee the area.
The artillery explosions could be heard from the other side of Brazzaville, almost 10km away.
By the end of the afternoon, the army had taken control of villas where the fighters known as Ninjas, led by Frederic Bitsangou, a pastor better known as Ntumi, had been holed up.
No details about militia casualties
A hospital source said one government soldier had been killed and four wounded in the operation. The source was unable to give details of militia casualties.
The bodies of two militiamen were lying on the main road leading to the city centre.
Ntumi has a legitimate house in southern Brazzaville but his men allegedly moved into nearby villas illegally, an action that prompted Wednesday's government assault.
The Ninjas served as one of the private armies attached to political parties who fought two civil wars in the 1990s.
Last week, two police officers, three members of the paramilitary gendarmerie and a Chinese local trader were killed in clashes involving Ninjas.
On Tuesday evening, after the government began deploying troops in Bacongo, one militia leader, Daniel Malonga Bayidikila, said his men were "surrounded by the army".
The government has tolerated a Ninja presence in the Bacongo and Makelekele districts under a peace deal signed in 2003, but clashes occur if the Ninjas become troublesome or occupy buildings they have not been assigned.
Probe into unrest
Early on Wednesday, an AFP reporter saw the militiamen putting up barricades while troops took up opposing positions along streets in the area where the Ninjas had taken over properties.
State-run Radio Congo said the army had gone in "to open the way for a commission of enquiry and reconstitution of the events" of last week's unrest.
The authorities then asked the Ninjas to vacate the houses they had moved into.
In March 2003, the Ninjas and the government of President Denis Sassou Nguesso signed a deal to end clashes that were the legacy of a decade of political and ethnic conflict.
Sassou Nguesso, a onetime military ruler, has guaranteed Ntumi's safety, but the pastor remains mainly based in the Pool region, sticking to a demand that the government grant him a "special status".
For the government, it is enough that he obtained a settlement, the integration of some of his forces into the military and a house readied in the Makelekele part of town, with no further concessions to the Ninja leader.