Students challenge
CONGO presidential guard who were shielding him.
Incidents continued in the Quinze ans quarter of the city in particular, until midday, as the school students made their return journey. The result was 11 wounded.
neo-colonial regime
After a relatively calm Sunday the movement began again on November 11, this time on a still more intense level. It erupted first in the School of the Liberation where the students, after chasing the headmaster out, organised a mass meeting of all
LAST NOVEMBER saw thousands of Congolese school students on the streets in anti-government protests (see International Viewpoint, No 90, January 13, 1986). This highlighted the extent of the crisis reached by the country's neo-colonial regime, which all its Marxist-Leninist rhetoric could not conceal.
The movement expressed the discontent of the youth in the face of austerity policies being implemented by a corrupt regime.
It also reflected similar sentiments amongst the masses as a whole.
These events revealed the nature and form of neo-colonial domination and exploitation which exists in most Black African states, whatever the political regime. They show that beyond the anti- imperialist speeches and the professions of faith of the regime there exists a military clique, based on a particular ethnic group, implementing widespread repression of the masses.
MICHEL LAGUENAUD
Saturday, November 9, 1985, saw the opening in the Palais des Congres in Brazzaville of the fifth congress of the youth organisation affiliated to single party the the dominant of Socialist Youth of the
Union
Congo (UJSC).
According to custom the students were obliged to pay tribute and form the guard of honour for the delegates and dignitaries of the the occasion students honour of from the teacher-training colleges school
(CEG)
second-year students from Brazzaville were freed from their classes for the task.
On this occasion to everyone's great surprise school and college students arrived en masse chanting the
*a grant for everyone, without slogan,
[la bourse pour tous competition' concours!]. They were carrying sans banners and writing this slogan on the walls of school and other buildings along the route. They were responding decision of the Council of to the on November 6 to suspend
Ministers the system of an automatic grant awarded to every student who passed the baccalaureat [exam] and wished to continue their studies at university.
This system was to be replaced by a competition to award the grants.
UJSC
When arrived at the they venue the school students congress themselves at the security threw
18 forces who, once at them, wounding surprise, charged
The students responded by several.
throwing stones at official cars parked round the Palais des Congres.
minister of secondary and higher education, was a particular target, was forced to flee. And for the first time, the president of the republic, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, was forced to use the back door in order to get into the Palais des Congres, without a fanfare or an escort apart from some Cuban commandos of the
RÉPUBLIQUE
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Voice
Cabinda the school students. They divided up into groups who were responsible for rounding up students from other schools and colleges (the May 1 Technical School and the Red Flag and Lumumba schools) and the students from the university. Some went to the Sassou-Nguesso palace to show their opposition to the measures taken by the government and to demand the withdrawal of the minister for youth and sports, Oba-Apounou, from the secretariat of the UJSC of which he is a member.
After being prevented from entering the palace by the presidential guard who opened fire, the school students attacked the administrative buildings, smashed windows in nearby ministries and set about any cars which happened to be in the parking lot.
Other young people attacked the Ecole de la Jeunesse (school for young people), set up by Oba-Apounou, and the university rectory because of the refusal of students there to support the school students. Throughout the morning the students dominated the stunned and panicked city, shouting their slogans in the streets: 'For grants without competitions, or 'Sassou-thief'. The school and college students also attacked any symbols of power and wealth that they came across on their way. They smashed the windows of certain shops and banks and ransacked official or luxury cars. The youth have had enough!
A military truck carrying supplies was pillaged and the driver was forced to flee. The residence of the president of the National Assembly and of the minister for youth and sports were also the object of attacks by the groups of young people.
One group of students went and placed flowers on the grave of the former president of the republic, Marien Ngouabi, whilst another chanted slogans supporting expresident Yombi-Opango, shouting: "Sassou-thief, Yombi to power!" International Viewpoint 10 February 1986
That day the confrontation with the police force was extremely violent. Their forces were deployed very early in the areas around the schools and they showed themselves to be especialthe students with gunfire and created panic amongst the population and
The police were subsequently reinforced by air and artillery of the day was fairly impressive: four wounded. Amongst the wounded was the head of careers and grants officer and a commissaire of police. trucks patrolled the city unceasingly special strategic points. The next day,
Tuesday, educational establishments in Brazzaville and put the whole town under President Sassou - Nguesso on an official visit in Paris in 1983 (DR) tight police control.
In order to understand the reasons for the November 9 and 1l demonstraNovember 1971 (1), it is important to look at two aspects of the crisis of regime in Congo. economie crisis, capped off by tensions the state apparatus and the crisis of the school system. Second, and above all, it is important to examine the government announced the new measures on the the youth organisation's
The youth organisation is affiliated Labour (PCT) and the usual tactic of the government was to proceed through consultations prior to taking action even if such consulation was purely for show. (2) Undoubtedly, the government was so convinced of its ability to control the mass movement that it thought that it could take these measures and that the support in spite of everything. Also government must have relying on the Sunday rest day to quieten down the protest movement. The fact that the movement actually began to grow on the Monday shows just how profound the discontent
The Congolese economy, in the last five years, has, in large part, if not exclusively, been built up on the basis of oil production. From 1979 to 1982, the Congo's oil production went up by 20%, which provoked a real euphoria in the country. From the returns on this the ruling class was able to launch three different projects:
- A restructuring of the ruling class by deliberately concealing the tensions between the rival factions within the state apparatus, in order to guarantee the durability of an
International Viewpoint 10 February 1986 ethnocentric and regionalist military power;
A widening of its social base through a clever policy of redistribution of oil payments via ethnic or family networks or through a large pool of brokers;
- The financing of a five-year plan aimed essentially to create a road network supposedly to open up the country's hinterland but in reality concentrated the north of the country where the president of the republic comes from. has had to face a stagnation and even a decline in overall oil production from six million tons in 1984 to combined with a fall in the price of oil and in the value of the dollar. At the same time debt repayments are continually going up and in 1985 they of the revenue from oil, that is 140 thousand million CFA francs as compared with 18 thousand million CFA francs in 1980 (one dollar equals about 375 CFA francs).
The Congolese ruling class have thus had to pay a price for their own economic stupidity characterised by an investment budget of which 55% was allocated to buildings and public as against 12% allocated to agriculture which should have been major priority; and a foreign trade policy which saw 45 thousand million CFA francs devoted to the importing of basic agricultural foodstuffs. There developed a state sector was grossly inflated in order to enlarge the social base of the regime. This sector now employs 38,000 people and shows a net deficit of 30 thousand million CFA francs. There is also a higher of inflation in 1985 than all the other neighbouring countries.
Faced with the refusal of France to spread out the payments of the bipartite debt, which increased to 40 thousand million CFA franes in 1983, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) intervened in order to force the Congolese leaders to cut down on operational expenditure and to slash the investment budget especially in regard to the road-building programme.
In spite of a timid opposition by the PCT the Congolese leaders ended up conceding to the IMF demands by elaborating a whole programme of measures to accompany the five-year plan. This was known as the Programme for Structural Adjustment (PAS). It is nothing more than an austerity plan tailormade for the IMF. The regime's political and economic crisis
In the meantime the Congolese leaders had taken certain precautions. They had organised a series of information campaigns throughout the not a mere IMF decree but a rational solution. Such campaigns were aimed to pacify the bewildered base of the regime as well as sections of the army who were beginning to grumble. To this end the prime minister had to explain that the army was not affected by the PAS and that the road-building programme would go ahead whatever the cost. This pointed up the dilemma facing the ruling class: whether to continue with the road building and risk the wrath of the IMF or whether to interrupt the programme
1. From 1970 to 1974, there were several demonstrations and strikes of students and school students in the Congo. However, the 1971 strike was the only one which was exclusively organised by school students.
2. A few days before its congress, the UJSC was officially made the youth organisation of the PCT.
19
and undergo the scrutiny of the people. All this was in light of the fact that the roads which remained to be built (even linked region.
students the abolition reasonable to that the by •the IMF divisions within several dead. (5) the second most important person in
However, after the third congress of the PCT in July 1983, which confirmed Sassou-Nguesso's victory, the divisions began to re-emerge. First, at the Central Committee plenum in July 1985, where SassouNguesso launched a very violent attack against Pierre Nze, a former minister of foreign affairs, which was aimed quite simply at getting him off the Central Committee in a similar way to Tchistere-Tchicaya. But SassouNguesso had not taken account of the wiliness of this former bureaucrat of the Federation of Black 20 situation in conflicts emerged afraid
PD Ngolo, JP Such aberrations are legion: at the of the adoption the PCT of the PAS in the July, 1983, congress, the government coming out of the congress was increased ministers. The apparatus of the doubled its number of fulltime workers. More recently, the secretariat coming of the UJSC all party functionaries with a monthly salary of 372,000 council of ministers the president's salary to 2.5 million CFA francs from 1.5 million.
For more thorough analysis economic and political situation in the Congo in the last years see "Inprecor ('IV's publication), No 101, May 13, 1981, and 'IV' No 48, March 12, 1984.
5. This fact is reported by Madame Tchistere-Tchicaya in an open letter to the members of the Central Committee of the PCT.
The most blatant case is that of the prime minister, Louis Sylvain Ngoma, for whom the post of president of the
Oba-Apounou, constituted a thinly current alliance between the president of the republic and the penitent members of the M22 and a clear invocation to go back to the former leadership team, which came directly out of February 5, 1979.
The struggle for the control of the UJSC apparatus had dominated the scene in the last while and this is what made everyone assume that the lents' demonstrations on November 9 and 11 were just the
Session of the trial of strength between the M22 faction and the Sassou-Nguesso faction. In fact, the latter, who was taken by surprise by the school students' actions started blaming almost everyone for having started them. He blamed the religious groups who had not yet been recognised or legalised; he blamed the prime minister for not taking into account the situation in society at
Are implementing certain measures; and he blamed YombiOpango supporters, because some of the | demonstrators were shouting, *Long live Yombi, Yombi to power.
The response of the trade unions stantial evidence to support the were the naive school and were organised these meetings, instead of being ended up
7. The Ovo clan, named after the village where the president of the republic was born, has seven members in the government and in the Central Committee of the PCT and 14 on the Central Committee of the USJC. The most well known are
Ndinga-Oba, minister of foreign affairs, and Oba-Apounou, minister of youth and sports and first secretary of the UJSC, respectively uncle and nephew of Sassou
Nguesso.
8. The February 22 Movement (M22) came out of the mobilisations of August
1963. For several years this organisation appeared the repository of the main gains of the mobilisations. But the logic of entering into the state apparatus caught up with it after the downturn in the mobilisation and the decline of the movement.
This led many leaders of the movement to openly join up with the regime.
The same decree which abolished the automatic grant system also forbad certain religious sects. Moreover, the prime minister was summoned to explain himself on television and before the UJSC congress. International Viewpoint 10 February 1986
measures to abolish the grant. For the trade unionists and realised that the grant constituted a source of revenue families who have one for ordinary
The leadership
Trade-Union each federation produced by the federations simple compilation good advice and became real political texts. This was especially true in the case of the federation of bank workers (FESYBAC) (see box).
Immortal glory for the former president but what for the people? (DR)
During a meeting of support
Sassou-Nguesso, whilst the 'dark forces' tried to tone down the government proposals by inviting *all the mass organisations and all parents to find new ways to allocate the grant, given that it cost the state statement represented a slight retreat by the government. around by the authorities actions were motivated by without foundation. They betray a November 9 and 11 demonstrations began to affect the Poto-Poto and largely populated by groups of the North which make up the social and ethnic regime much more than the Bakongo swore that they did not belong to any political group and asserted that the slogans supporting Yombi that they had chanted were intended as pure provocation. This could well be the case since the leaflet given out the next day by supporters of Yombi itself indicated an obvious mistrust of the motives for the school students' demonstration. On the other hand, it is not excluded that some supporters of the ex-president were involved with therefore had to face the fact this represented a massive rejection of its policies among its own 11 school students' a spontaneous expression of popular discontent which by young people. It was, above all, the objective into which people. That is why this movement received the backing of the whole population and even some sections of the army. students' revolt on November 9 and
International Viewpoint 10 February 1986
11 was also an expression of a fundaeducation system.
on contradictions which it is becoming more and more difficult to overcome in the current financial and economic situation. The contradiction stems from the weakness of needs, which, during a period of stagnation, has had to absorb an influx of new students. This was aggravated by the fact that the governinstead of consolidating the got itself into debt in the excitement over oil and austerity policy under the diktats of
The Congolese school system is not very different from any colonial system in that it provides a general education geared to a job in the government bureaucracy. The SassouNguesso regime and its five-year plan did not improve on this.
Coupled with the creation of the road network, whose effect was to bring the rural population to Brazzaville (the population has increased by 155,000 inhabitants in six years), the school system has helped discourage young people from going agriculture. This has led to a constant decrease in the labour and a massive rural exodus. Indeed it could not be otherwise since the peasantry gets no help government, and agricultural schools in Ngoyo and Mouyondzi only receive 48,000 CFA francs in yearly subsidies to cover about 200 students each.
The PCT's reaction, however, is to do nothing but praise the example of the town of Ouesso in the Sangha region, which is the centre of cocoa
They do not mention that the cocoa-bean plantations are dying off because of the rural exodus and that the drinking chocolate served up
The school system in the Congo is thus aimed at internalisation and consolidation of the market relation of forces in which economic power is concentrated in the hands of a minority. The productive apparatus is dominated by imperialism, and therefore the siblis of treating can only be realised in the sphere of distribution (trade and business) and within the bureaucratic apparatus of the regime for which the school equips you. The regime contributes to this by building phoney schools like the PCT school or the Ecole de la Jeunesse, which train civil servants and service the PCT but are paid by the state. These schools have managed to intice 1,062 teachers away from primary education in seven in order to throw them into the PCT and UJSC apparatus. This is in a country which had only 6,892 teachers in 1978 when the haemorrhage began.
Despite their socialist rhetoric, the attached to the dominant relation of social forces, and under pressure of more demand for schooling in the Congo they have had to impose a more and more strict selection system. (11)
November 9 and 11 saw the beginnings of a new type of school- and college-student movement. much less an expression of a political radicalisation characteristic of the stu-
10. We note, all the same, that in its frenzied burst of reorganisation, the regime cancelled the participation of Congolese football clubs in competitions abroad. This measure hit the military football club as well as the club 'Etoile Rouge' in the Ouenze quarter. The latter club has always symbolised the unity of the North, and it is very probable that this measure was seen as break-up of alliances and betrayal by the authorities. Many supporters therefore took part in demonstrations to protest against this decision.
11. From 1969 to 1984, the number of those attending school trebled, with an annual rate of 10%, that is, nearly 3.5 times more than the rate of increase of the of secondary education, went up by 467% in ten years. More and more parents have to take charge of the provision of local school equipment and have even had to contribute furniture on occasions. There are still many students who have to take classes sitting on the floor.
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GLO MORTE U Cd MARIER NGOVABI
FESYBAC statement
WE ARE publishing below some extracts from a document the political leaders become increasingly bourgeois'. The drafted November 18, 1985, by the Trade Union Federation of Banks (FESYBAC) for the Congolese Trade Union analysed as revealing a 'poor choice of management by the
Confederation. The text, which incorporates the thoughts political leadership'.
of the trade union delegation, is intended to answer the choice of projects' and 'prestige spending'.
directive of the permanent secretariat of the Congolese A series of social objectives in
Trade Union Confederation (CSC) dated November 13, education and nutritional self-sufficiency were reaffirmed.
1985, concerning the current political situation expressed by the events of November 9 and 11, 1985. permanent contact with the government's base
On the political level, this document notes the increasingly better dissemination of information; reinforcement of bourgeois direction of government members and of political the South-South economic dialogue; grants-in-aid from a direction that does not differentiate them from the treasury as a priority to children of the poor and the behaviour of the capitalists, and further notes their to the most deserving; decentralisation of the university
'authoritarianism' and the 'tendency to the development strengthening of a system of a personality cult'. The text also criticises 'the feudal examinations in order to avoid evasion; a census of character of the trade union, expressing itself through the foreigners in the country; reduction of operating expenses, lack of militancy of the members of the trade-union leader- civil service salaries and advantages for political officers;
ship' and it 'condemns the act of the military who fired consolidation of a number of ministries and secretariats of needlessly police-like' and reference is made to the un- education in the Congo; the development of a patriotic The regime is judged to be too the central committee; holding a national conference on popularity of policies for which the regime is supposedly spirit in the members of the Popular National Army (APN)' accountable, but which are in reality forced' on the country. And the document ends with the following commentary:
On the economic level, the PAS was presented as 'the *With the collection of all this information the workers consequence of bad management of public affairs. But of FESYBAC hope that the political leadership will reflect
'the government's base feels the effects of the PAS while on the discontentment manifested here.
on unarmed people. dent struggles in May 1968 and of the
Youth Movement of the Revolution (JMNR) which of it. (12) This new radicalisation is the product of a crisis of the neocolonial states. The specific demands of the movement are the best expres sion of this. They also demonstrate the movement's objective limitations.
on, this movement showed both its strengths and the limits of its strictly economic goals.
demanding the withdrawal Oba-Apounou from the head of the UJSC, and you done with the oil revenues') the youth have spontaneously made and political situation. The hardening of the movement which has been from November 11 is the product of this development. For although initially spontaneous, the school-student revolt has shown a continuing maturation.
Although the November 9 and 11 moment can be characterised as being essentially around economic demands, it also showed itself to be radicalising politically by attacking the symbols regime. (13) denounced wastage and corruption. They built a united movement that swept away those ethnic which weigh collective awareness.
Also, on the ground, the movement showed a real capacity for organisation by setting up liaison between the different schools, by outsmarting police traps and in organising general assemblies in the playgrounds. 22 negative financial problem, however, was the in higher education for the school struggle, even though the the campuses for assistance. The movement could have broadened out and involved students outside of Brazzaville as well. because of these problems it remained focused on the capital city. Today, the students, tomorrow, the workers.
The movement was full of contradictions throughout. We just have to look at the example of the flowers placed at the foot of Marien Ngouabi's statue. It is true that for a whole generation of voung people brought up on a diet of PCT ideology, Marier Ngouabi is a symbol — especially since a large section of the youth were not part of the tradition of school-student struggles initiated during the 1971
It is obvious that the November 1985 school students' movement has had to pay the price of a certain lack of direction which would have allowed it to coordinate its activity with other educational establishments in Brazzaville; to prepare actions stamp its own political line on the movement so that it could not be used by any faction within the neocolonial regime (such as the Yombi supporters or others); and above all would have allowed it to prepare activity after November 11. The apparent calm which followed these events does not hide the tension situation of the the fields of health, which still exists in the schools and
The only resort for the SassouNguesso was repression. sixty people were questioning by police and some students are still in prison and have been beaten and tortured. As well as maintaining the demand for 'grants without competitions, students now have to take up the demand for the release of their com-
Today it is the students who are going into action; tomorrow it will be the turn of the workers, when they begin to feel the pinch of the PAS. in the form of a cut in wages last November, which was portrayed as an increase in pension contributions.
In any case the school students' movement must find a way to unite with trade unions and organisations of parents who, as the FESYBAC document shows, are more and more opposed to the idea that their children should pay for the regime's mess.
The JMNR was the youth organisation of the MNR, the ruling group in the country after the August, 1963 revolt which overthrew the Fulbert Youlou regime. Although not really autonomous from the party, the JMNR appeared as more radical with its armed units, references to Che Guevara, control of the popular quarters etc.
13. Contrary what the state-controlled press said, the only things that were touched were SENO symbols of the regime (black cars belonging to PCT high-ups), places and objects representing capitalist over-consumption from the oil revenues (supermarkets, Mercedes cars ete) residences of certain important people who were particularly hated such as Oba-Apounou and the figurehead president of the National Assembly, Ganga Zanzou International Viewpoint 10 February 1986
National Justice for
BRITAIN ding support for the families of those in prison or sacked
(see interview with Liz French, wife of following imprisoned miner).
The campaign
Mineworkers Campaign steps up action on an international level is still going strong and needs to be stepped up along with the renewed activity in Britain. Support groups exist in Denmark, Italy, France, Belgium, Australia. Such groups can affiliate to the campaign in Britain and where
ONE YEAR FROM the end of the British coal strike miners and their supporters are stepping up the fight for reinstatement of miners sacked or imprisoned during the dispute.
JUDITH BAKER