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Monday, June 24, 2002 - Web posted at 2:47:41 pm GMT

BRAZZAVILLE - Day and night they line the main street along Brazzaville's riverside beach.

They hold up scuffed jerry cans, jabbing a thumbs-down signal at passing cars and swarming over any motorist who slows to ask the price of black-market gasoline.

The hundreds of fuel vendors in Congo Republic's capital are dubbed 'Gaddafis', after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

"Like in Libya, they are getting rich from selling petrol," says Sylvestre Matimuna, a taxi driver forced to scavenge for fuel since Congo's latest crisis triggered the shortage.

The Congolese hoped presidential elections in March, the first for a decade in the former French colony of some 2,8 million, might draw a line under years of chaos and killing in sub-Saharan Africa's fourth biggest oil producer.

President Denis Sassou Nguessou, a military strongman who took power in a brief but bloody 1997 civil war, won the election by a landslide, albeit after his two main rivals were barred and another challenger pulled out.

In his victory speech, Sassou praised the Congolese for rejecting hate, division and insecurity - but hopes for a lasting peace were short-lived.

A rebel attack last month on the railway between Brazzaville and the port and oil industry hub of Pointe Noire severed the central African country's lifeline and launched a new round of bloodshed, forcing Sassou to fly food supplies into the capital.

"He promised us peace, but what kind of peace is this?" asked Matimuna, pointing to nearly 100 idle taxis parked at a downtown garage for three days, waiting for fuel to arrive.

Most of the recent fighting between so-called 'Ninja' rebels and government troops has been restricted to the southern Pool region, closed to outsiders such United Nations agencies seeking to avert a refugee crisis.

The Ninjas, who formed the largest rebel faction in two years' of ethnic strife after Sassou seized power in 1997, are led by the Reverend Frederic Bitsangou, a renegade pastor.

Sassou's Angolan-backed troops bombarded the rebels, who take their name from an ancient band of Japanese warriors made popular by Hollywood, using helicopter gunships.

The violent turn of events has shaken the confidence of a population that finally dared to hope for peace.

"We thought the war was over, but we must still resolve the country's problems. There's been an incredible regression and for such a rich country we're very poor," said Andre Milongo, a former prime minister.

"As for the government's battles with the Ninjas, we don't really know what's going on. The government is saying nothing except that their military operation is to rid the Pool region of armed bandits," said Milongo, who dropped out of the March presidential poll at the last minute, citing irregularities.

Drivers in Brazzaville know that if they want to fill their tanks they must pay almost three times the official price for fuel, smuggled across the mighty Congo River.

The 'Gaddafis' ferry the valuable fuel in dugout wooden canoes from Kinshasa, the capital of Democratic Republic of Congo, dodging customs checks and rapids along the way.

"It takes an hour to cross over and an hour to paddle back," said Sorel Dianama, a fuel vendor who says he pays about US$14 for 25 litres of gasoline in Kinshasa.

In Brazzaville he slips soldiers a US$3 bribe and sells his 25 litres for the local equivalent of US$34 - a 100 per cent mark-up.

The price of US$1,65 per litre is triple Brazzaville's official rate of 55 cents but taxi drivers have refused to increase their prices, saying it will mean further hardship through a lack of clients.

"If I raise my rates, who will I drive?" asked Matimuna.
Meanwhile, the 'Gaddafis' are still profiting.

"We buy clothes and food for our families. This is how we survive," said Patrick Mwanga, who normally works as a vendor in the city's main market and knows the best business in town may take a hit when trains start running regularly again.

Mwanga grinned at the irony of ferrying 25 litres of fuel across a river in plastic sacks disguised as flour to a country which pumps 262 000 barrels - or 42 million litres - of crude oil every day.

"It's unfortunate, it's bizarre, but it's our situation." - Nampa-Reuters

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