On 10 January, soldiers of President Ange-Félix Patassé’s Presidential Guard, led by General François Djadder Bedaya, set free Théophile Sonny Colé, veteran leader of the main union...

Congo-Kinshasa President Laurent-Désiré Kabila was the first African leader to feel the effects of Britain's landmark ruling that Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet no longer enjoyed...

Four months on, the battle for economic and political power in Congo-Kinshasa has become Africa’s most African war this century. The key protagonists and their armies are all...

President El Hadj Omar Bongo will be one of the grimmer-faced heads of state attending the Francophone Summit in Paris on 26-28 November. He is still favoured to...

The fall of Kindu on 12 October was a turning-point. Firstly, it demonstrated the rebels’ military superiority. The Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD) deployed about 9,000...

Though the war has broadened out, geographically and especially in the number of governments involved, the rainy season has brought a lull in hostilities; both the government and...

Congo’s worried neighbours want peace badly, but may have botched the chance of it at Victoria Falls on 7 September. The first idea was that President Laurent Kabila’s...

After less than a month of fighting, Congo’s rebellion has sawn the country in two. The rebels announcing their opposition to President Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s ‘despotism’ and ‘nepotism’ quickly...

The soldiers and the politicians

In spite of having cut down its defence commitments (the pullout from Bouar and Bangui in the Central African Republic was completed in April), France still maintains a...