Blessed with resources, shadowed by war

POINTE-NOIRE, Republic of Congo -- This country is blessed with enormous tracts of lush rain forests and mineral riches. Researchers from around the world come to study gorillas, pygmies, and the stunning array of insect life.

But Congo has also been haunted by war and oil.

Once the capital of French Central Africa, headquarters for Charles de Gaulle during World War II, this nation at one time boasted a literacy rate approaching 90 percent.

The country won independence from France in 1960, but the French kept strong business ties. In the mid-1970s, French interests pushed local rulers to seize the oil-rich neighboring area of Cabinda, an Angolan enclave. The effort failed. Soon after, the Republic of Congo's leader, Captain Marien Ngouabi, was assassinated.

Another military man took over two years later -- Colonel Denis Sassou-Nguesso. He has held power for 21 of the past 26 years; he lost power in a democratic election in 1992, but seized it again during a civil war in 1997 that killed 10,000 civilians. Peace here remains fragile.

The civil war destroyed the country's agricultural base. Roads crumbled. The government and rebels spent millions on weapons. Shops today sell almost nothing from this nation of 3.5 million, importing fruits and vegetables from afar. One store in Pointe-Noire offers grapefruits at $3 apiece.

''For 35 years, the oil companies have been here, and in their shadows we still have no lights -- no electricity," said Jérôme Pambou Fouti, 55. ''They helped us only with the primary school, and for that, they paid for the roof."

In Pointe-Noire, Basil Saya, 49, harbors similar frustrations. The polio virus took away use of his legs when he was a child, and so he survives by selling oil on a road.

His hand-powered tricycle began falling apart recently, so he peddled a borrowed one to the front gate of the national oil company. He handed over a letter asking for pity, and $50.

''I thought, 'Isn't this company, and isn't this oil, for all of the Congolese?' " he said one day recently. ''I keep going back, but they never have answered me."

John Donnelly