Denis Sassou-Nguesso

Close to President Denis Sassou-Nguesso Lopes (also a writer) has been important in contacts with Sassou's exiled opponents...

They were joined by unemployed Yakoma youths and reinforced by Rwandan fighters - probably Hutus rescued by France during the notorious Opération Turquoise in 1994 who fought for President Denis Sassou-Nguesso in Congo-Brazzaville's civil war and then took refuge in CAR...

President Denis Sassou-Nguesso knows a lot about the national conferences and conventions that are supposed to precede democracy...

The meeting was to sort out some US$36 million of unpaid bills for two Mi-24 helicopters and three Mi-8s ordered by former Congo-B President Pascal Lissouba but captured by the Cobra militiamen of Lissouba's successor Denis Sassou-Nguesso...

In Congo-Brazzaville Trafigura has had an agreement to market crude oil on behalf of President Denis Sassou-Nguesso's military regime which seized power in 1997...

On 30 January he met the Organisation of African Unity-appointed facilitator of the Congolese national dialogue Botswana's ex-President Ketumile Masire to propose that he be a member of a 'Council of African Presidents' probably alongside Omar Bongo of Gabon and Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the other Congo...

Rwanda is also trying to use Angolan allies such as President Denis Sassou-Nguesso Gabon's Omar Bongo and Mozambique's Joaquim Chissano as channels...

The latest would-be peacemaker for Congo-Kinshasa is the President of neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville Denis Sassou Nguesso...

Local suspicions that deep-water contracts with Chevron ExxonMobil TotalFinaElf and BP were too generous to the operators were fuelled by President Denis Sassou-Nguesso of neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville who is close to the ruling Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola ...

Reports of the discussions show a rapprochement between Angola Rwanda (which backs the opposition Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie-Goma) Uganda (which backs two rebel groups - the RCD-Kisangani and Jean-Pierre Bemba's Mouvement de Libération du Congo) and Congo-Brazzaville whose President Denis Sassou-Nguesso is one of Angola's key regional allies...