Postwar Cleanup Begins in Rep. of Congo

Red Cross workers started picking up corpses from the rubble-strewn streets of Brazzaville on Saturday, cleaning up the capital after a four-month war that ended with an ex-dictator returning to power.

Search teams found 32 corpses by midday Saturday, but hundreds more were expected to be recovered as debris was cleared and searchers gained access to more neighborhoods.

Gen. Denis Sassou-Nguesso made his first public appearance late Friday since declaring victory the previous day.

From his hometown of Oyo, 250 miles northeast of the capital, Sassou-Nguesso called for a government of national unity but gave no timetable for elections or a return to civilian rule.

Sassou-Nguesso’s rival, President Pascal Lissouba, remained in hiding and refused to concede defeat despite losing Brazzaville and the commercial capital, Pointe-Noire, on Wednesday.

France, the former colonial ruler, said Saturday it was sending a mobile hospital to Brazzaville to deal with what the Foreign Ministry called a “worrisome” health situation.

Sassou-Nguesso’s victory returned him to power six years after demands for democratic reforms ended his 1979-91 dictatorship.

He lost the country’s first multi-party election to Lissouba in 1992, and the two were expected to face each other at the polls again last July. But fighting between their private militias derailed the election.

Despite Sassou-Nguesso’s victory over the capital, Brazzaville was far from calm. Heavily armed militiamen were a menacing presence, looting everything from women’s wigs to board games.

No one knows how many people died in the war, which started June 5. Shelling and gunfire made it too dangerous for searchers to comb the streets regularly for victims.

Across the river in Kinshasa, capital of the country once named Zaire but now called Congo, refugees from Brazzaville were wary about rushing home.

“It’s good that peace has returned,” refugee Pierre-Claver Ouesso said, but quickly added that he couldn’t help but wonder “if the losers are getting ready for another war.”