Editing Denis Sassou Nguesso

{{Villain_Infobox
|Image = Dennis Sassou N'guesso.jpg
|fullname = Denis Sassou Nguesso 
|alias = The Emperor<br>Mwene<br>Otchouembé
|origin =Edou, French Equatorial Africa
|occupation = President of the Republic of the Congo (1979 - 1992; 1997 - present)
|type of villain = Corrupt Tyrant 
|goals = Retain total control over Congo (successful so far)
|crimes = Corruption<br>[[Embezzlement]]<br>Human rights abuses<br>[[War crimes]]<br>[[Torture]]<br>[[Money laundering]]<br>Nepotism<br>[[Xenophobia]]<br>Electoral fraud<br>[[Censorship]]<br>Mass repression 
|hobby = 
}}
{{Quote|I am not God, and I have not said that I will be president for life. What is true is that we have never usurped any mandate, and all the mandates we have exercised have been given by the Congolese. For the time being, we have a mandate from the people and we will carry it out to the end if God wills it.|Denis Sassou Nguesso}}'''Denis Sassou Nguesso''' (born 23 November 1943) is a Congolese politician who has been President of the Republic of the Congo since 1997. He was previously president from 1979 to 1992.<ref name = Rise></ref>

During his first period as president, he headed the single-party régime of the [[Congolese Party of Labour]] (PCT) for 12 years. Under pressure from international sources, he introduced multiparty politics in 1990 and was then stripped of executive powers by the 1991 National Conference, remaining in office as a ceremonial head of state. He stood as a candidate in the 1992 presidential election but was defeated, placing third.

Sassou Nguesso was an opposition leader for five years before returning to power during the Second Republic of the Congo Civil War, in which his rebel forces ousted President Pascal Lissouba. Following a transitional period, he won the 2002 presidential election, which involved low opposition participation; he was re-elected in the 2009 presidential election.
==Biography==
===Early years===
A member of the Mbochi tribe, Sassou Nguesso was born in Edou in the Oyo district in the north of the country.<ref name = Nguesso>[https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/people-global-african-history/denis-sassou-nguesso-1943/ Denis Sassou-Nguesso (1943-)], ''Blackpast''</ref>

He joined the army in 1960 just before the country was granted independence. He was marked for prominence and received military training in Algeria and at Saint Maixent, France before returning to join the elite paratroop regiment.<ref name = Nguesso></ref>

He had socialist leanings and supported the opposition to Fulbert Youlou in Les Trois Glorieuses of August 1963. He was later part of the 1968 military coup that brought [[Marien Ngouabi]] to power and was a founding member of the [[Congolese Party of Labor]] (''Parti Congolais du Travail'', PCT) in December 1969.

In 1970 Sassou Nguesso was made Director of Security and a minister in the new presidential council. When Ngouabi was assassinated in March 1977, Nguesso played a key role in maintaining control, briefly heading the Military Committee of the Party (CMP, ''Comité Militaire du Parti'') that controlled the state before the succession of Colonel Joachim Yhombi-Opango. Sassou Nguesso was rewarded with a promotion to colonel and the post of vice-president of the CMP. He remained there until February 5, 1979 when Yhombi-Opango was forced from power in a technical coup accused of corruption and political deviancy. On February 8, the CMP chose Nguesso as the new President, and at the Third Extraordinary Congress of the PCT his position was unanimously approved on March 27, 1979
===First term===
Sassou Nguesso surprised many observers who saw only a military strongman by revealing a strong commitment to Marxism as well as a streak of practical politics. He negotiated loans from the International Monetary Fund and allowed foreign investors from France and the Americas to operate in the vital oil and mineral extraction operations. He also traveled to Moscow in 1981 to sign a twenty-year friendship pact with the Soviet Union.

Sassou Nguesso was re-elected for a five year term as President of the PCT Central Committee and President of the Republic at the party's Third Ordinary Congress on July 27–July 31, 1984; he was sworn in for his new term on November 10, 1984, and on this occasion he announced the release of Yhombi-Opango. He was not slow to moderate the Marxist policies of the government as the situation demanded. 

He was Chairman of the Organization of African Unity from 1986 to 1987. In late 1987 he faced down a serious military revolt in the north of the country with French aid.

At the PCT's Fourth Ordinary Congress on July 26–31, 1989, Sassou Nguesso was re-elected as President of the PCT Central Committee and President of the Republic. Subsequently he saw the collapse of the socialist states of Eastern Europe and, under pressure from the French, began to prepare the process of bringing the country to capitalism. In December 1989 he announced the end of government control of the economy and declared a partial amnesty for political prisoners. Into the following year he attempted to improve the failing economic situation and reduce the outrageous levels of corruption. From September 1990 political parties other than the PCT were allowed and Sassou Nguesso undertook a symbolic state visit to the United States of America, laying the grounds for a new series of conditional IMF loans later that year.

In February 1991, a national conference began; the opposition gained control of the conference, and the conference's declaration of its own sovereignty was not challenged by Sassou Nguesso. The conference, which concluded in June 1991, chose André Milongo as Prime Minister during the transitional period leading to scheduled elections in 1992. Milongo was given executive powers, leaving Sassou Nguesso as effectively a figurehead president.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/25/world/congo-political-conference-gives-africa-a-democratic-model.html Congo Political Conference Gives Africa a Democratic Model], ''The New York Times''</ref>

Sassou Nguesso's power was so limited by the Conference that he was barred from travelling outside of Congo without the transitional government's approval. He was also subjected to serious criticism and allegations during the Conference, including a claim from some delegates that he was involved in Ngouabi's 1977 assassination. His eventual response to the criticism on 26 April was "repentant rather than defiant" in tone.
===Out of office===
In the parliamentary election of June–July 1992, the PCT won only 19 of 125 seats in the National Assembly; the Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (UPADS) was the largest party, with the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development (MCDDI) another strong force. In the August 1992 presidential election, Sassou Nguesso was eliminated in the first round, in which he placed third with 17% of the vote; although he performed strongly in the north, he fared poorly in the rest of the country. The second round was held between Pascal Lissouba (UPADS) and Bernard Kolelas (MCDDI); Sassou Nguesso backed Lissouba, who won in the second round with 61% of the vote, although he and the PCT quickly went into opposition after the PCT received fewer positions in government under Lissouba than it had anticipated.

Lissouba began his rule dogged with accusations of voting irregularities and he had to act with increasing repression to maintain his power. From November 1993 to the end of that year clashes between supporters of Kolelas and Lissouba left almost 1500 people dead. In 1994 Sassou Nguesso prudently left the country for Paris. He returned to Congo on January 26, 1997 and intended to contest the presidential election scheduled for July.

In May 1997, a visit by Sassou Nguesso to Owando, Yhombi-Opango's political stronghold, led to the outbreak of violence between his supporters and those of Yhombi-Opango. On June 5, 1997, government forces surrounded Sassou Nguesso's home in the Mpila section of Brazzaville, attempting to arrest two men, Pierre Aboya and Engobo Bonaventure, who had been implicated in the earlier violence. Fighting broke out between the government forces and Sassou Nguesso's fighters, called Cobras, and led to the outbreak of a [[Civil War|civil war]]. By October, Sassou Nguesso, who was aided at the end of the war by Angolan troops, was in control of the country, and he was sworn in as President on October 25.<ref name = Rise>[http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9710/16/sassou.nguesso.profile/ The rise and fall and rise of Denis Sassou-Nguesso], ''CNN''</ref>
===Return to the presidency===
Sassou Nguesso declared that he was willing to allow a return to democracy and began a three-year transition process in 1998, but renewed fighting with opposition groups led to the collapse of the endeavor. With the government forces in ascendancy and following peace agreements in 1999, elections were re-scheduled for 2002, although not all rebel groups signed the accords. 

On March 10 Sassou Nguesso won with almost 90% of the vote; his two main rivals Lissouba and Kolelas were prevented from competing. The only remaining credible rival, André Milongo, withdrew his candidacy three days before the election day, claiming that the election would be rigged. A new constitution was agreed upon in January 2002 which granted the president new powers and extended presidential terms from five to seven years. While the 2002 elections were hailed as being free of violence, they conferred little legitimacy on Sassou Nguesso's regime due to the lack of meaningful participation by opposition parties. Sassou Nguesso was sworn in on August 14, 2002.

Having already served as the Chairman of the Organisation of African Unity in 1986 to 1987, he was elected Chairman of the African Union, the OAU's successor body, in January 2006. His election was the result of a compromise reached to prevent the chairmanship from going to [[Omar al-Bashir]], President of Sudan. Despite making frequent trips around the continent and around the world during his year-long tenure as AU chairman, Sassou Nguesso's achievements in the office were limited.

Sassou Nguesso was re-elected as President of the Central Committee of the PCT at the party's Fifth Extraordinary Congress in December 2006.

In January 2007, Sassou Nguesso's international reputation suffered a blow after a panel of judges in France reopened an official investigation into the alleged role of Sassou Nguesso's government in the 1999 disappearance of 353 Congolese refugees.<ref>[https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/41402-the-missing-of-brazzaville-beach-20-years-on.html The missing of Brazzaville's 'Beach', 20 years on], ''JusticeInfo.net''</ref>

Re-elected in the July 2009 presidential election with 78.61% of the vote amidst an opposition boycott, Sassou Nguesso was sworn in for another seven-year term at a ceremony in Brazzaville on 14 August 2009. He said that his re-election meant continued "peace, stability and security", and he called for an end to "thinking like ... freeloaders" in reference to international aid received by the country. Sassou Nguesso also made an important announcement at his inauguration, saying that he would set in motion an amnesty bill to pardon Pascal Lissouba, who had gone into [[exile]] after his 1997 ouster and was convicted of crimes ''in absentia''. Sassou Nguesso said that he wanted the amnesty bill to be presented to Parliament by the end of 2009.

As Congo-Brazzaville prepared to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its independence from France in 2010, Sassou Nguesso noted that the country had far to go in fully realizing the dream of independence: "Our country will not be totally independent until our people are free of the yoke of poverty." He presided over a large parade in Brazzaville, featuring thousands of soldiers and civilians, to celebrate the anniversary on 15 August 2010.

Sassu Nguesso was once again the PCT’s candidate in the March 20, 2016, presidential election, which took place amid a much-criticized communications blackout. Sassou Nguesso was victorious, with officials claiming that he won about 60 percent of the vote; this was disputed by the opposition.<ref>[https://www.france24.com/en/eye-africa/20160324-sassou-nguesso-reelected-president-congo-opposition-rejects-results Sassou Nguesso re-elected president of Congo-Brazzaville, opposition rejects results], ''France 24''</ref> He was once again reelected in March 2021, reportedly with more than 88 percent of the vote, although amid some of the same circumstances as in 2016: the main opposition boycotted the election, Internet service in the country was shut down, the outcome was disputed, and there were allegations of fraud.<ref>[https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/eye-on-africa/20210323-republic-of-congo-president-sassou-n-guesso-wins-re-election Republic of Congo elections: President Denis Sassou Nguesso declared winner], ''France 24''</ref>

His daughter was married to President [[Omar Bongo]] of Gabon.
==References==
{{Reflist}}
[[Category:Modern Villains]]
[[Category:Presidents]]
[[Category:African Villains]]
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