Congo-Brazzaville Army - Post-Independence
After full independence was achieved, the Congolese government chose to continue the defense arrangement with the French under multilateral and bilateral agreements. As a consequence, the national Congolese forces that were created in the immediate postindependence period were relatively small in number — about 1,500 including the gendarmerie — and were developed primarily as a symbol of national sovereignty and as an internal security force.
When the Congo became fully independent in August 1960, no indigenous military units had yet been developed. In order to provide for the continuing defense of the country, as well as for the orderly establishment of independent military forces, in 1960 the new government (along with Chad, the Central African Republic and, later, Gabon) signed a multilateral defense agreement with France. At the same time it also concluded a bilateral agreement dealing with the provision of French military aid and assistance.
These military accords provided for Franco-African military collaboration in three significant areas. First, they specified the transfer by France of men and units from the colonial army to the new national authorities, along with a basic grant of transportation, equipment, and fixed installations. Second, France agreed to assist in the organization and development of military forces through training in Africa and France and in the continued supply, on favorable terms, of military equipment. Third, France also agreed to extend direct military assistance for the external and internal defense of the new African countries, at their request.
Congolese armed forces, although officially authorized in 1961, were not organized until early 1962. The first unit, an infantry battalion, was formed from personnel recruited from among the Congolese nationals who were serving in the colonial army. The French provided a limited number of officers and noncommissioned officers who acted in both command and advisory positions within the battalion. The gendarmerie, as well as the small air force and naval components, was also established in 1962.
After independence the armed forces played an increasingly influential political role in the course of the government's trend toward the left. They first participated in governmental activities in August 1963 by supporting a revolt against President Fulbert Youlou and by participating in the selection of Alphonse Massamba-Debat as his successor.
The newly organized Congolese army and gendarmerie were intended to develop slowly under continued French guidance and assistance. The new leftist-oriented government that took over after the overthrow of President Fulbert Youlou in August 1963, however, decided in mid-1964 ,to expand the army and the security forces in order to secure more firmly its position of political control. At about this same time French defense arrangements under the multilateral agreements with various African states were modified under a general retrenchment policy. African-based forces were to be reduced considerably in number and were to become the advance strike elements of a strategic, air-mobile support force that would be permanently based in France.
French withdrawal of all troops from Congolese territory was completed by early 1966, and quantities of arms, materiel, vehicles, and uniforms were turned over to the Congolese as outright grants.
Under succeeding governments the army (including the gendarmerie) more than doubled in size and continued to represent a power base for the ruling group. In the development of this new role it underwent a series of politicizing actions that were still continuing in early 1970. These actions included the establishment of a political directorate with the position of political commissar in the army's command structure and the incorporation within its ranks of various nonregular militant youth groups of the country's single political party, the National Revolutionary Movement (Mouvement Nationale de la Revolution—MNR).
A limited number of aircraft and small naval vessels also became available at this time, which expedited the growth of the air force and naval components of the army.
By mid-1966 the Congolese army and the security forces had more than doubled in size, and the armed militant groups, particularly elements of the Youth Organization of the National Revolutionary Movement (Jeunesse du Mouvement National de la RevolutionDINR) of the single political party, were also increased in numbers to further assure the political security of the state. In June 1966 the army was transformed into a people's national army with a political directorate and under a collegial command. After 1966 a series of political struggles involving the army and the militant youth groups resulted in the eventual removal of President Massamba-Debat and the gradual assumption of control of the government by Major Marien Ngouabi, a former commander of the paratroop battalion stationed in Brazzaville.
After rising to power, President Ngouabi concentrated the bulk of military and political power in the positions held by himself and his prime minister, Major Alfred Raoul, a former chief of the Army Corps of Engineers. In late 1968 Ngouabi became chairman of the National Council of the Revolution (Conseil National de la Revolution—CNR), the supreme organ of the state, and was given the portfolios of defense and security. In January 1969 the CNR named him head of state. Raoul, in addition to becoming prime minister, was given the post of secretary to the presidency in the CNR.
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