MONDAY, 5.30PM
OUSTED Congo president Pascal Lissouba has fled to Burkina Faso, newspapers in the capital, Ougadougou, have announced. No official statement has been made, but a large entourage of men guarded by soldiers has arrived to stay in a complex reserved for visiting foreign dignitaries.
Meanwhile Angola has confirmed its own role in the Congo uprising by becoming the first country to recognise the new government, with Angolan president Eduardo Dos Santos hailing strongman Denis Sassou Nguesso for taking “the highest office in the land” and pledging military co-operation. The triumph of Nguesso may spell the end for Dos Santos’ own chief rival, Jonas Savimbi, who has lost a key supply route.
Meanwhile in Brazzaville, Nguesso may have routed his political rivals, but he is having a harder time with the looters who now control the streets — many of them his own supporters. Nguesso’s Cobra militia have set up barricades around town and are attempting to confiscate weapons, but battle fatigue and lack of direction have so far given the looters the upper hand.
Witnesses report seeing armed looters driving through town in stolen cars laded with goods, or pushing wheelbarrows piled high with booty.
Foreign diplomats report that the US and French embassies have both been wrecked and looted, as has the UN Health Organisation’s headquarters for Africa.