Nibolek

Meaning and scope

Nibolek is an acronym formed from the first syllables of Niari, Bouenza and Lékoumou, three departments in the south-west of the Republic of the Congo (IRB 2000). The term referred to those three departments, located between the Atlantic coast and the Pool region, but since the 1990s it has been used as a new ethnic and regional concept covering most supporters of former president Pascal Lissouba. Scholarship holds that the southern (sudiste) identity split along administrative lines into two tendencies, Nibolek and Tchek: the Nibolek supported Lissouba, while Tchek was the counterpart category assigned to people from the Pool region, who supported Bernard Kolélas (Bazenguissa-Ganga & Yengo 1999).

Geography and composition

The capital of Lékoumou department is Sibiti, and the department borders Niari, Bouenza, Pool and Plateaux departments and Gabon. The three departments are inhabited mainly by the Nzabi, Pounou, Téké (Bateke), Kongo, Bembé (Babembé) and Zambi ethnic groups, and Pascal Lissouba himself came from the area (IRB 2000).

Electoral base

In the first round of the 1992 presidential election Lissouba won overwhelming support in the three Nibolek departments: 88.7 per cent in Niari, 80.6 per cent in Bouenza and 91.7 per cent in Lékoumou. In the same round Kolélas's sole first-round majority came in Pool (64.4 per cent), and Sassou-Nguesso dominated the north (Plateaux 57.6 per cent, Likouala 58.5 per cent). Lissouba defeated Kolélas in the second round with 61 per cent. The 1992 election was dominated by Lissouba's UPADS, centred in the Nibolek departments, and Kolélas's MCDDI, based in Pool, and Congo's triangular political configuration (north, south-west, Pool) was tied to regional and ethnic cleavages.

Political connotations and militarisation

Scholarship holds that the Nibolek and Tchek ethnoregional identities emerged during the National Conference (Conférence nationale souveraine) of February to June 1991 and were officialised by the 1992 presidential competition. The competition between Lissouba and Kolélas officialised these new identities, which are not secular realities but social constructions accompanying struggles for the control of state positions. The southern identity split along administrative lines into these two tendencies, and in Brazzaville people claiming the two identities lived mainly in specific quarters: M'Filou for the Nibolek, Bacongo and Makélékélé for the Tchek (Bazenguissa-Ganga & Yengo 1999). Militias sharpened regional and ethnic cleavages: the Cobra, Ninja and Cocoye militias were built as the private forces of three political leaders, and militia men were drawn mainly from the leaders' home areas. Lissouba's Cocoye (Zulu) militia remained active in Niari, Bouenza and Lékoumou (known collectively as Nibolek) after the end of the 1997 war (Oxfam). In the 1997 war a decisive intervention by Angolan troops confirmed Sassou-Nguesso's advantage, entering Lissouba's home area of Nibolek from the Cabinda enclave (ISS 1999).

Humanitarian situation and international assessments

A UN OCHA report published on 19 August 1999 described the situation in Pool and Nibolek as deplorable, said that in Nibolek alone the number of displaced persons had risen to 50,000 and that no humanitarian organisations or religious communities had access to this population, and an article published in March 2000 estimated that over 400,000 people had left the forests of Pool, Bouenza, Niari and Lékoumou. In August 2000 Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board stated that it could find no recent information on the specific treatment of members of these ethnic groups by the current government.

Origins and uncertainties

French Wikipedia describes Nibolek as a connoted term that served as an ideological basis during the various Congo wars between 1992 and 2000, while attaching a citation-needed tag. The same account relates that Nibolek was once a recognition password used at Fort Rousset (now Owando), where 'Boni leke' was answered with 'Nibolek' (Niari, Bouenza, Lékoumou, Kouilou), also attaching a citation-needed tag that marks the story as unverified.

Recorded uncertainties: an alternative chronology placing the generalisation of 'Nibolek' or 'Niboland' for the three south-western departments after the events of 1993-94 has been proposed. That starting point is unverified: the Oxfam text to which the claim was attributed contains no such statement, and the 1996 IRD PDF cited in review has no extractable text layer. It is nonetheless documented in scholarship that the spelling 'Niboland' was used in the 1997 war for the south-western base of combatants of the presidential camp (Bazenguissa-Ganga & Yengo 1999). The date of the first round of the 1992 presidential election also conflicts between documents: the English account gives 8 August and the French account 9 August, while both give 16 August for the second round. The ADST oral history also gives 8 August for Lissouba's election, so both dates should be recorded with attribution.