Exiled minister accused of plotting Congo coup
An exiled former minister of the Republic of Congo is plotting a coup along with two white foreigners, other mercenaries and accomplices in the army, it was claimed today.
Interior Minister General Paul Mbot said authorities were searching for two whites who he said have been shuttling back and forth between Brazzaville and Kinshasa, the capitals of the two Congos that are separated by the Congo River.
Mbot said the coup was in a “preparatory phase”, and was being masterminded by Nguila Moungounga Nkombo, a former finance minister in the government of Pascal Lissouba, who lost power in 1997 during a civil war. Both men live in Paris.
Also implicated, Mbot said, were senior officials in the current government, including two MPs.
“Supported by a group of mercenaries … these foreigners, who work in Brazzaville for a front company, have the mission of provoking a military insurrection and overturning the institutions of the republic,” Mbot said.
The general said information about the coup plotters came from soldiers arrested following an arms theft from a paramilitary police barracks in Brazzaville in January.
Congo suffered back-to-back wars in the 1990s. The final victor was the country’s former military ruler for decades, Denis Sassou Nguesso. He organised and won 2002 elections that international observers deemed fair.
