People's Republic of the Congo

Demographics

The People's Republic of the Congo had 2,153,685 inhabitants in 1988. There were 15 different ethnic groups, although most people were Kongo, Sangha, M'Bochi, or Teke. 8,500 Europeans were present as well, mostly of French extraction. French was the official language, but other recognized languages included Kikongo and Lingala. Most of the population was centered in urban areas such as Brazzaville. Literacy was 80%, but infant mortality was also high.

Health

According to the Third Edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GSE):

"According to incomplete data for 1967, the birth rate was 41.1 and the death rate 24.4 per 1,000 inhabitants. Infant mortality is very high, 180 per 1,000 live births. The average life expectancy is 37 years. Contagious diseases predominate. Intestinal infections, geohelminthiasis (especially ancylostomiasis) and leprosy are widespread. Malaria occurs everywhere, and the incidence of the disease varies from low (Brazzaville) or medium (Batéké Plateau) to universal (in the rest of the country). The incidence of sleeping sickness has declined sharply since 1968, and wuchereriasis is rare. Smallpox epidemics break out periodically. From 25 percent to 36 percent of the Bakongo people and 10 percent of the Bateke people have hemoglobin S. Cancer of the liver occurs frequently.

The southwestern and northern equatorial forest regions are marked by a high incidence of framboesia, leprosy, and loaiasis (a type of filariasis). These diseases are rare in the regions of park forests, where genitourinary schistosomiasis (around Dolisie and Jacob) and onchocercosis (west of Brazzaville) are endemic.

In 1967 the Congo had 275 hospitals with about 5,000 beds, of which 4,700 were in 238 state hospitals (5.8 beds per 1,000). Outpatient service was provided by outpatient departments of hospitals, one polyclinic, 224 outpatient clinics (of which 37 are privately owned), 22 infirmaries, and four mobile health units. In 1968 there were also 11 mother and child care centers, three centers for schoolchildren, two outpatient departments for work rehabilitation, two psychiatric clinics, and one tuberculosis facility. Medical personnel included 101 doctors (one doctor per 8,300), of whom 91 were state employees, 245 medical assistants, four dentists, 14 pharmacists, and about 600 middle-level medical workers. Doctors are trained mainly in France and at the University of Dakar in Senegal; middle-level medical personnel are trained at a school in Pointe Noire. In 1969 the USSR built a maternity hospital with 100 beds in Brazzaville."

Education

According to the Third Edition of the GSE:

"Since independence, especially since 1964, much attention has been given to the development of public education. In 1965 the National Assembly enacted a law placing all private (missionary) schools under state control. Since the late 1960’s expenditures on education constituted between 20 and 25 percent of the state budget, totaling about 4 billion African francs in 1970. The number of students attending all types of schools has almost trebled since independence, rising from 103,000 students in 1960 to 300,000 students in 1972. The Congo has the highest proportion of school-age children attending schools (92 percent in 1972) of any African country. In 1970 the Congo was awarded the N. K. Krupskaia UNESCO Prize for its achievements in eradicating illiteracy.

The educational system consists of primary schools, general secondary schools, and various types of vocational schools. The six-year primary schools are compulsory for all children between the ages of six and 14. General secondary education is provided by seven-year lycées, divided into two levels of four and three years each, and by four-year collèges. Vocational and technical schools, which admit graduates of elementary schools, include two-year vocational-training centers, five-year technical colleges, and eight-year technical lycées. The public education system is now being reorganized to create unified polytechnical secondary schools. In 1971–72, 260,000 pupils, or 95 percent of eligible school-age children, attended primary schools, 35,000 students were enrolled in secondary schools, and 3,000 students attended vocational and technical schools. Primary school teachers are trained at pedagogical schools, with an enrollment of about 600 in 1971–72, and secondary school instructors at the Advanced Teacher Training Institute in Brazzaville, with 312 students in 1971–72.

The Congo’s first institution of higher learning, the Center of Higher Education in Brazzaville, was opened in 1961, with faculties of law, humanities, and natural sciences. In 1971–72 the center had an enrollment of over 800, including students from other African countries. The center was reorganized as the National University, which opened in the fall of 1972. More than 1,000 Congolese receive a higher or secondary specialized education abroad; 328 persons were sent to study in the USSR in 1972.

The National Museum, which has an archive and a library, was opened in Brazzaville in 1965."

Background

Alphonse Massamba-Débat, who became the president of the Republic of the Congo in 1963, was the first African head of state who proclaimed himself openly a Marxist. He established a single party system in 1964 around his own political group, the National Revolution Movement (Mouvement National de la Révolution). Massamba-Débat was elected Secretary General of the National Revolution Movement while Ambroise Édouard Noumazalaye became its First Secretary. The Congolese single party was backed by a well-armed popular militia, the Défense Civile, headed by Ange Diawara. However, by 1968 mounting protests led Massamba-Débat to throw in prison one of its leaders, Captain Marien Ngouabi.

Proclamation

Seeing that the militant leftist opposition was not giving up, Massamba-Débat ended up yielding and proclaimed an amnesty, freeing Marien Ngouabi, among other political prisoners in mid 1968. Following the amnesty Massamba-Débat relinquished his power in September giving way to a period of instability. Finally on 31 December 1968 Marien Ngouabi became the head of state. The new leader officially proclaimed a Socialist-oriented state in the form of a "Popular Republic" on 31 January 1969. The administration became strongly centralized in Brazzaville and the main government posts were taken over by Congolese Workers' Party —Parti congolais du travail (PCT)— cadres after abolishing the national assembly of the previous republic. The Marxist-Leninist PCT held a constitutive congress in the capital from 29 to 31 December 1969, becoming the sole party of the new state. Marien Ngouabi further introduced a number of communist policies —such as nationalizing the means of production— in the succeeding years. Ngouabi was assassinated in 1977 and was succeeded by colonel Joachim Yhombi-Opango, who ruled until February 1979, when Denis Sassou-Nguesso rose to power.

In the same manner as other African communist states of the Cold War era, the People's Republic of the Congo shared close ties with the Soviet Union. This association remained strong after Ngouabi's assassination in 1977. However, the PCT government also maintained a close relationship with France throughout its existence.

Transition

In mid-1991, the Sovereign National Conference removed the word populaire ("People's") from the country's official name, while also replacing the flag and anthem that had been used under the PCT government. The Sovereign National Conference ended the PCT government, appointing a transitional Prime Minister, André Milongo, who was invested with executive powers. President Denis Sassou Nguesso was allowed to remain in office in a ceremonial capacity during the transitional period.

Economic geography

According to the Third Edition of the GSE:

"The Congo is an agricultural country whose economy shows strong traces of colonial rule. The export branches of the economy, especially the exploitation of forest resources, are very important. Since 1964 state planning has been introduced and measures have been taken to create and strengthen a state sector within the national economy. Industrial and transportation facilities have been nationalized, and all land and mineral resources have been declared state property. A cooperative movement is developing, and state farms are being created. Nevertheless, foreign, mainly French, capital still controls several important spheres of the economy. The government promotes the creation of mixed companies with the aid of foreign capital, but retains control over them. The bulk of capital investments, both state and private, are channeled into industry and the infrastructure, so that the industrial sector has become increasingly important. The Congo is a member of the Central African Customs and Economic Union and an associate member of the European Economic Community (Common Market)."

Agriculture

According to the Third Edition of the GSE:

"Agriculture is dominated by small, mostly subsistence and semisubsistence farms belonging to African peasants. There are also highly productive plantations and live-stock farms, mainly in the Niari Valley, which are owned by European colonialists and which produce for foreign and domestic markets.

In 1963 cultivated land constituted 1.8 percent of the total land area, pastures 41.8 percent, forests 47.5 percent, and other land about 9 percent. On African farms hoe cultivation is practiced, and ground is cleared by the slash-and-burn method. Farming is more intensive in the European sector. The principal food crops, produced primarily for family consumption, are manioc, sweet potatoes, yams, taro, millet, corn, rice, plantains, and various vegetables. Farm products cultivated for domestic and foreign markets include oil-palm products (grown in the forested regions of the Niari basin and in the Congo Basin), sugarcane (on the European plantations in the Niari Valley), peanuts (also on the European plantations in the Niari Valley), bananas (in the Kouilou Region), coffee (in the forested areas of the Niari basin and in the Congo Basin), cocoa (in Kouilou and the Sangha Valley), tobacco (on the Batéké Plateau), citrus fruits, and hevea. (The area and yield of chief agricultural crops are shown in Table 1.)

In 1970–71 livestock numbered 32,000 head of cattle, 38,000 pigs, 60,000 sheep, and 89,000 goats, most of which were raised on the European farms in the Niari Valley.

There is fishing in the coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean and, to a lesser extent, in lakes and rivers. Of the total 1970 fish catch of 12,200 tons, saltwater fish accounted for 10,000 tons. Pointe Noire is the country’s only fishing port."

The GSE also provides a table showing agricultural performance:

Industry

According to the Third Edition of the GSE:

"The lumber industry is the leading export branch of the economy. Prior to 1971 the industry was owned almost entirely by French companies. In March 1971 the government nationalized the foreign lumbering companies, which held concessions over a total area of 80,000 hectares, and took over the marketing of all the timber procured in those areas. Lumber is cut primarily in the southwest, in Kouilou and in the Niari basin. In 1970 lumber production totaled 950,000 eu m of round timber, mainly limba and okoumé, of which 431,000 eu m were exported. Some of the wood is processed at local sawmills and veneer (peeling) plants. There are about 20 enterprises in the logging regions and in Pointe Noire, where 40,000 eu m of sawn lumber and 75,000 eu m of veneer were produced in 1970.

The Congo’s mineral resources have been poorly developed. The Emeraude and Agat petroleum deposits, discovered in the early 1970’s, are now being exploited (the Agat deposit lies 15 km offshore), producing 15,000 tons of petroleum in 1971. The French-Congolese Elf Congo company and the Italian state-owned company Agip share equally in the exploitation of the Agat deposit. A small amount of natural gas (16 million cu m in 1971) is extracted at the Pointe Indienne deposit near Pointe Noire (largely exhausted) and from marine deposits. Other minerals extracted on a large scale include lead and zinc ores at the M’Passa deposit (2,200 tons of lead and 4,700 tons of zinc in 1969), copper in Mindouli (310 tons in 1969), and gold in Kouilou and in the northern part of the country (121 kg in 1969). In 1969 the Compagnie des Potasses du Congo (15 percent of whose assets were owned by the government and 85 percent by French companies) began exploiting the large potash salt deposits in the Holle-St. Paul region, producing 429,700 tons in 1971. The deposits of iron ore in Zanaga, of phosphorites in Tchivulam, and of polymetals are potentially important.

Electrical energy production totaled 88 million kilowatt-hours in 1971, most of it supplied by the Djoue hydroelectric power plant near Brazzaville, which has an installed capacity of 15 megawatts. There are steam power plants in Brazzaville, Pointe Noire, Dolisie, and Jacob.

The manufacturing industry is poorly developed, although it has been growing at an accelerated pace since 1963. The food industry is important, especially sugar refining (with two plants in Jacob that produced 76,000 tons of sugar in 1970) and vegetable-oil production. Other enterprises include a flour mill in Jacob, a fish-packing plant in Pointe Noire, breweries, soft drink bottling plants, rice-hulling and coffee-cleaning enterprises, and a cigarette factory in Brazzaville. A state-owned textile factory began operation in Kinsoundi, a suburb of Brazzaville, in 1969. The factory has an annual capacity of 3.5 million meters of cotton fabric and 1.8 million pieces of knitwear. There is a footwear factory in Pointe Noire. The chemical industry (Brazzaville, Pointe Noire) is represented by enterprises producing soap, plastics, and paints. A cement plant put into operation in Loutété in 1968 had a capacity of 120,000 tons in 1971. Pointe Noire and Brazzaville have wharves for small ocean and river vessels, railroad repair shops, and factories producing boilers and metal structural components. Recently built enterpriseinclude a match factory in Bétou and plants producing glassware and phonograph records."

Transportation

According to the Third Edition of the GSE:

"In 1971 the Congo had 797 km of railroad track. The main transportation artery is the Brazzaville-Pointe Noire railroad; the railroad’s Bela-M’Binda branch line is used mainly for shipping manganese ore out of Gabon. The Congo has 11,000 km of highways and more than 11,000 motor vehicles (1970). The river port of Brazzaville is the starting point of a waterway system on the Congo River and its tributaries, 2,500 km of which are in the People’s Republic of the Congo. Pointe Noire, the country’s only ocean port, had a freight turnover (together with nearby roadsteads) of more than 3 million tons in 1970; the port handles not only the foreign trade of the Congo but also that of the landlocked Central African Republic and the Republic of Chad and of the southeastern regions of Gabon. The port at Ouesso on the Sangha River, put into operation in 1970, also handles ships going to and from the Central African Republic anCameroon. The country’s two international airports are in Brazzaville and Pointe Noire."

Foreign Trade

According to the Third Edition of the GSE:

"In 1970 exports totaled 8.6 billion African francs and imports, 16.6 billion African francs (figures exclude trade with other countries of the Central African Customs and Economic Union). The major export commodities are round timber and other timber products and potash salt, followed by diamonds (reexport) and, to a lesser extent, palm kernels and oil, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, sugar, ores, and concentrates of nonferrous metals. Imports include machinery and equipment, vehicles, petroleum products, food products, and consumer goods. The principal trading partners are the Common Market countries, accounting for 58 percent of exports and 74 percent of imports in 1969; France accounted for 13 percent of exports and 57 percent of imports in 1969 and the Federal Republic of Germany for 17 percent and 8 percent, respectively. Other important trading partners are Great Britain and the USA. The Congo is developing economic and trade relations with the USSR and other socialist countries, with which it has signed several agreements on technical, cultural, and scientific coopetion. The monetary unit is the African franc; 100 African francs equal 2 French francs."