Claude-Ernest Ndalla
Encyclopedia
Claude-Ernest Ndalla is a Congolese
politician. First coming to prominence as a radical youth leader in 1960s Congo-Brazzaville, he was one of the leading members of the Congolese Labour Party (PCT) in the period immediately following its founding in 1969, but after a few years his career fell into a long decline due to factional struggles within the PCT. Later, he served in the government of Congo-Brazzaville as Minister of Youth Redeployment and Sports from 1997 to 1999, and he has been a Special Adviser to President Denis Sassou Nguesso
since 2003.
in 1937 and studied mathematics at the University of Toulouse
in France. At Toulouse, he was known for his appetite and was nicknamed Graille, or crow
. Back in Congo-Brazzaville, he quickly attained a prominent place in the radicalized political scene of the period that followed the August 1963 ouster
of Fulbert Youlou
, and he started a magazine, Dipanda.
In 1964, Ndalla was included on the executive committee of the Youth of the National Movement of the Revolution (JMNR), the radical youth wing of the ruling National Movement of the Revolution
(MNR), and he acquired a reputation as a radical leftist and ideologue. On 6 April 1965, President Alphonse Massemba-Débat
appointed Ndalla as Secretary of State at the Presidency in charge of Youth and Civic Education. However, Massemba-Débat dismissed Ndalla from that post in December 1965. In light of Ndalla's prominent identification with the JMNR, his dismissal indicated that the JMNR had lost some influence, but Ambroise Noumazalaye
—a strong advocate for the JMNR—was appointed as Prime Minister in April 1966.
Ndalla was the Director of Congolese Radio and Television Broadcasting from 1967 to 1969, and he was appointed as Ambassador to the People's Republic of China
in 1969; in the latter post, he was also assigned responsibility for relations with North Vietnam
and North Korea
. He arrived in Beijing
on 24 April 1969 and was received by the Chinese leaders Mao Zedong
and Lin Biao
at Tiananmen Square
on 1 May 1969. He held a reception in Beijing on 15 August 1969 to mark the sixth anniversary of the revolution; various high-ranking Chinese officials, including Premier Zhou Enlai
, attended.
Along with various other prominent politicians, including Massemba-Débat and Pascal Lissouba
, Ndalla was put on trial by President Marien Ngouabi
in 1969 for involvement in the murder of government officials, but he was acquitted on 21 November 1969. He then spent a few weeks at his diplomatic post in Beijing
before returning home.
In December 1969, a new ruling Marxist-Leninist
ruling party was created under President Ngouabi: the Congolese Labour Party (PCT). Ndalla was one of the party's founding members; he was included in the PCT's original Political Bureau and was designated as First Secretary in charge of Organization, in which capacity he was responsible for managing internal organizational matters. Ndalla represented the far-left faction of the PCT, and his designation as First Secretary bolstered the far-left while positioning him as "Ngouabi's principal rival", as he was effectively the second-ranking figure in the PCT regime. Despite his clear affinity for China and Maoism
, Ndalla led a Congolese delegation that visited the Soviet Union
in June 1970.
Student protests and a strike led Ngouabi to sideline the PCT's radical leftist leaders, who were associated with Maoism, in November 1971. Ndalla and another high-ranking radical, Ange Diawara
, were among those affected by Ngouabi's move. Diawara then led an unsuccessful left-wing coup attempt against Ngouabi on 22 February 1972. Ndalla and the others who supported a far-left, pro-Chinese political line were known as the 22 February Movement (M-22). Implicated in the plot, Ndalla was tried along with 177 others and sentenced to life in prison on 25 March 1972. President Ngouabi later released him as part of an amnesty, along with others from the M-22, in September 1975. Following his release, Ndalla faced difficulties and it took him some time to find work.
President Ngouabi was assassinated under mysterious circumstances in March 1977. Various prominent political figures suspected of disloyalty were immediately brought before a military tribunal and tried for complicity in the assassination. Massemba-Débat was executed, while Ndalla and Lissouba were among those sentenced to life in prison.
Ndalla was arrested prior to a PCT party congress in 1984. At the time, Sassou Nguesso was trying to assert his authority in the PCT leadership against a hard-line, pro-Soviet
faction led by François-Xavier Katali, and it was believed that Sassou Nguesso wanted to prevent Ndalla from encouraging other M-22 southerners to support Katali's faction. The arrest of Ndalla was part of a series of successful moves by Sassou Nguesso in 1984, culminating in his victory over the Katali faction at the party congress.
While in detention, Ndalla was recorded on video saying that Jean-Pierre Thystère Tchicaya
, a key figure in the PCT regime, had orchestrated bomb attacks that occurred in Brazzaville in 1982. Those bomb attacks killed nine people and wounded 92 others. Sassou Nguesso used Ndalla's claim as evidence when he launched a sudden attack on Thystère Tchicaya at the 1984 congress. Although Ndalla told a party commission sent to investigate the matter that his incriminating statements were untrue and that he had only made them to avoid being tortured, Thystère Tchicaya was removed from the PCT leadership on the basis of Ndalla's claim.
Ndalla was tried before the Revolutionary Court of Justice for his alleged role in the 1982 bomb attacks and was sentenced to death in August 1986. Ndalla had no right to appeal the decision, which was criticized by international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International
and the International Federation of Human Rights
on the grounds that the trial was unfair and the evidence of guilt was insufficient. The death sentence was never carried out, however, and Sassou Nguesso commuted Ndalla's sentence to life imprisonment with hard labor
as a gesture of clemency to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1963 revolution in August 1988.
Two years later, on the 27th anniversary of the revolution, Sassou Nguesso granted Ndalla and other political prisoners an amnesty on 14 August 1990; he was accordingly released from prison on 15 August. By that time, Sassou Nguesso and the PCT regime were struggling to maintain control of the country amidst increasingly vocal demands for democratic reform, and Ndalla wasted no time in returning to the political stage by adding his voice to those calling for reform. As a delegate to the February–June 1991 Sovereign National Conference, Ndalla criticized the record of the PCT regime.
and his party, the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development
(MCDDI), during the 1990s, and he helped to recruit fighters for the Ninja militia
loyal to Kolélas. During the June–October 1997 civil war, Ndalla objected to the MCDDI's moves toward an alliance with President Pascal Lissouba
and defected to the side of Denis Sassou Nguesso and his rebel Cobra militia.
The civil war ended in victory for the Cobras on 15 October 1997; Lissouba and Kolélas were ousted and Sassou Nguesso regained control of the country. When Sassou Nguesso formed a government on 2 November 1997, he appointed Ndalla as Minister of Youth Redeployment and Sports, in charge of Civic Instruction. He was not included in the next government, appointed on 12 January 1999; subsequently he was appointed as Political Delegate of the Head of State, in which capacity he acted as Sassou Nguesso's representative.
Ndalla strongly backed Sassou Nguesso when the latter stood as a candidate for the March 2002 presidential election
. He was present for the launch of the support committee for Sassou Nguesso's candidacy on 6 February 2002, and on that occasion he elaborated his view that Sassou Nguesso was "a symbol of hope, peace and freedom" by symbolically assigning a positive characteristic to each letter of the name "Sassou", in French
: "S is for security (sécurité), A is for joy (allégresse), S is for concern for others (souci des autres), S is for the salvage of the property of the people of Mfilou (sauvetage des biens des gens de Mfilou), O is for organizer of peace (organisateur de la paix), and U is for national unity (unité nationale)". Ndalla subsequently worked on Sassou Nguesso's campaign as head of the coordination of the support committee for the Mfilou district of Brazzaville.
In his capacity as Political Delegate of the Head of State, Ndalla presided over a meeting of the Youth Committee for Peace in the Pool on 24–28 April 2002. The meeting called on the security forces to show restraint in the Pool Region while also urging Ninja rebels
to disarm. He was present at the Marien Ngouabi Mausoleum for a ceremony at which the eternal flame
commemorating Ngouabi, which had been extinguished during the 1997 war, was rekindled on 11 November 2002.
On 30 January 2003, Sassou Nguesso appointed Ndalla as a Special Adviser to the President. Ndalla accompanied Claude-Alphonse Nsilou, the Minister of Urban Affairs, during the latter's campaign for a seat in the June 2007 parliamentary election
, calling on the people of Bacongo's second constituency to give Nsilou a majority in the first round of voting.
Speaking in mid-2007, Ndalla expressed dismay regarding the poor state of Congo-Brazzaville's prison conditions and said that the system needed more money. He also noted that the prisons could cause increased criminalization among inmates, making them more dangerous to society upon release.
On 1 October 2008, Ndalla participated in the founding of the Convention for the Rebirth of Congo (CRC), a pro-Sassou Nguesso political grouping that was created through an agreement signed by five parties, eight associations, and nine individuals. Gabriel Bokilo
was designated as President of the CRC, while Ndalla became its First Vice-President. In Bokilo's absence, Ndalla chaired an ordinary session of the CRC National Coordination on 15 November 2008.
At a forum for peace in Congo-Brazzaville, held in Paris in April 2009, Ndalla gave a presentation on "the major political currents in Congo from 1956 to the present day". Drawing on decades of political experience, Ndalla argued in his presentation that democracy had to be developed gradually and consolidated through peace.
In an October 2009 presidential decree, Sassou Nguesso barred top officials from travelling abroad for the remainder of 2009 except in cases of urgency. Speaking to the BBC
, Ndalla explained that some officials were taking needless and expensive trips outside the country, sometimes merely for their own pleasure. He said that henceforth travel plans would have to be reviewed and they would be allowed only if they were considered to be worthwhile.
Republic of the Congo
The Republic of the Congo , sometimes known locally as Congo-Brazzaville, is a state in Central Africa. It is bordered by Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo , the Angolan exclave province of Cabinda, and the Gulf of Guinea.The region was dominated by...
politician. First coming to prominence as a radical youth leader in 1960s Congo-Brazzaville, he was one of the leading members of the Congolese Labour Party (PCT) in the period immediately following its founding in 1969, but after a few years his career fell into a long decline due to factional struggles within the PCT. Later, he served in the government of Congo-Brazzaville as Minister of Youth Redeployment and Sports from 1997 to 1999, and he has been a Special Adviser to President Denis Sassou Nguesso
Denis Sassou Nguesso
Denis Sassou Nguesso is a Congolese politician who has been the President of Congo-Brazzaville since 1997; he was previously President from 1979 to 1992. During his first period as President, he headed the single-party regime of the Congolese Labour Party for 12 years...
since 2003.
Political career in the 1960s and 1970s
Ndalla was born in BrazzavilleBrazzaville
-Transport:The city is home to Maya-Maya Airport and a railway station on the Congo-Ocean Railway. It is also an important river port, with ferries sailing to Kinshasa and to Bangui via Impfondo...
in 1937 and studied mathematics at the University of Toulouse
University of Toulouse
The Université de Toulouse is a consortium of French universities, grandes écoles and other institutions of higher education and research, named after one of the earliest universities established in Europe in 1229, and including the successor universities to that earlier university...
in France. At Toulouse, he was known for his appetite and was nicknamed Graille, or crow
Crow
Crows form the genus Corvus in the family Corvidae. Ranging in size from the relatively small pigeon-size jackdaws to the Common Raven of the Holarctic region and Thick-billed Raven of the highlands of Ethiopia, the 40 or so members of this genus occur on all temperate continents and several...
. Back in Congo-Brazzaville, he quickly attained a prominent place in the radicalized political scene of the period that followed the August 1963 ouster
Trois Glorieuses (1963)
The Trois Glorieuses was an uprising in Congo-Brazzaville which occurred August 13–15, 1963. The uprising ended the rule of the first Congolese President, Fulbert Youlou, as the opposition trade union movement and Congolese Youth Union struck an alliance with the army.-Background:Congo-Brazzaville...
of Fulbert Youlou
Fulbert Youlou
Abbé Fulbert Youlou was a Brazzaville-Congolese Roman Catholic priest, nationalist leader and politician.-Early life:...
, and he started a magazine, Dipanda.
In 1964, Ndalla was included on the executive committee of the Youth of the National Movement of the Revolution (JMNR), the radical youth wing of the ruling National Movement of the Revolution
National Movement of the Revolution
The National Movement of the Revolution was a political party in the Republic of the Congo. MNR was founded at a congress held June 29 to July 6, 1964. MNR was instituted as the sole legal political party in the country on July 20, 1964, according to the Law No. 25-65. Pre-existing political...
(MNR), and he acquired a reputation as a radical leftist and ideologue. On 6 April 1965, President Alphonse Massemba-Débat
Alphonse Massemba-Débat
Alphonse Massamba-Debat was a political figure of the Republic of the Congo who led the country from 1963 until 1968....
appointed Ndalla as Secretary of State at the Presidency in charge of Youth and Civic Education. However, Massemba-Débat dismissed Ndalla from that post in December 1965. In light of Ndalla's prominent identification with the JMNR, his dismissal indicated that the JMNR had lost some influence, but Ambroise Noumazalaye
Ambroise Noumazalaye
Ambroise Édouard Noumazalaye was a Congolese politician who was Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo from 1966 to 1968, under President Alphonse Massamba-Débat. Later in life he served as Secretary-General of the Congolese Labour Party and was a supporter of President Denis Sassou Nguesso...
—a strong advocate for the JMNR—was appointed as Prime Minister in April 1966.
Ndalla was the Director of Congolese Radio and Television Broadcasting from 1967 to 1969, and he was appointed as Ambassador to the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
in 1969; in the latter post, he was also assigned responsibility for relations with North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...
and North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
. He arrived in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
on 24 April 1969 and was received by the Chinese leaders Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
and Lin Biao
Lin Biao
Lin Biao was a major Chinese Communist military leader who was pivotal in the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, especially in Northeastern China...
at Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square is a large city square in the center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen Gate located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the third largest city square in the world...
on 1 May 1969. He held a reception in Beijing on 15 August 1969 to mark the sixth anniversary of the revolution; various high-ranking Chinese officials, including Premier Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976...
, attended.
Along with various other prominent politicians, including Massemba-Débat and Pascal Lissouba
Pascal Lissouba
Pascal Lissouba was the first democratically elected President of the Republic of the Congo from August 31, 1992 to October 15, 1997. He was overthrown by the current President Denis Sassou Nguesso in the 1997 civil war....
, Ndalla was put on trial by President Marien Ngouabi
Marien Ngouabi
Marien Ngouabi was the military President of the Republic of the Congo from January 1, 1969 to March 18, 1977.-Origins:...
in 1969 for involvement in the murder of government officials, but he was acquitted on 21 November 1969. He then spent a few weeks at his diplomatic post in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
before returning home.
In December 1969, a new ruling Marxist-Leninist
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
ruling party was created under President Ngouabi: the Congolese Labour Party (PCT). Ndalla was one of the party's founding members; he was included in the PCT's original Political Bureau and was designated as First Secretary in charge of Organization, in which capacity he was responsible for managing internal organizational matters. Ndalla represented the far-left faction of the PCT, and his designation as First Secretary bolstered the far-left while positioning him as "Ngouabi's principal rival", as he was effectively the second-ranking figure in the PCT regime. Despite his clear affinity for China and Maoism
Maoism
Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
, Ndalla led a Congolese delegation that visited the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in June 1970.
Student protests and a strike led Ngouabi to sideline the PCT's radical leftist leaders, who were associated with Maoism, in November 1971. Ndalla and another high-ranking radical, Ange Diawara
Ange Diawara
Ange Diawara was a politician and military figure from the Republic of the Congo.Diawara was born in Sibiti. When the National Revolutionary Council was established in August 1968, Diawara became First Vice-President of the CNR Executive Board in charge of Defense and Security; he was...
, were among those affected by Ngouabi's move. Diawara then led an unsuccessful left-wing coup attempt against Ngouabi on 22 February 1972. Ndalla and the others who supported a far-left, pro-Chinese political line were known as the 22 February Movement (M-22). Implicated in the plot, Ndalla was tried along with 177 others and sentenced to life in prison on 25 March 1972. President Ngouabi later released him as part of an amnesty, along with others from the M-22, in September 1975. Following his release, Ndalla faced difficulties and it took him some time to find work.
President Ngouabi was assassinated under mysterious circumstances in March 1977. Various prominent political figures suspected of disloyalty were immediately brought before a military tribunal and tried for complicity in the assassination. Massemba-Débat was executed, while Ndalla and Lissouba were among those sentenced to life in prison.
Political career from the 1980s to the 1990s
Under Denis Sassou Nguesso, the M-22 was partially rehabilitated and regained influence beginning in 1980, to the point that some M-22 figures were considered part of "the backbone" of the PCT regime. By that time, the M-22 was considerably less radical, although still ideologically Marxist. Like the PCT in general, the M-22 was "clearly dominated by northerners", and it was the northern M-22 leaders, rather than southerners like Ndalla, who most clearly benefited from Sassou Nguesso's favor.Ndalla was arrested prior to a PCT party congress in 1984. At the time, Sassou Nguesso was trying to assert his authority in the PCT leadership against a hard-line, pro-Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
faction led by François-Xavier Katali, and it was believed that Sassou Nguesso wanted to prevent Ndalla from encouraging other M-22 southerners to support Katali's faction. The arrest of Ndalla was part of a series of successful moves by Sassou Nguesso in 1984, culminating in his victory over the Katali faction at the party congress.
While in detention, Ndalla was recorded on video saying that Jean-Pierre Thystère Tchicaya
Jean-Pierre Thystère Tchicaya
Jean-Pierre Thystère Tchicaya was a Congolese politician. He was briefly Acting Head of State of the Republic of the Congo in February 1979 and was President of the National Assembly of the Republic of the Congo from 2002 to 2007...
, a key figure in the PCT regime, had orchestrated bomb attacks that occurred in Brazzaville in 1982. Those bomb attacks killed nine people and wounded 92 others. Sassou Nguesso used Ndalla's claim as evidence when he launched a sudden attack on Thystère Tchicaya at the 1984 congress. Although Ndalla told a party commission sent to investigate the matter that his incriminating statements were untrue and that he had only made them to avoid being tortured, Thystère Tchicaya was removed from the PCT leadership on the basis of Ndalla's claim.
Ndalla was tried before the Revolutionary Court of Justice for his alleged role in the 1982 bomb attacks and was sentenced to death in August 1986. Ndalla had no right to appeal the decision, which was criticized by international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
and the International Federation of Human Rights
International Federation of Human Rights
The International Federation for Human Rights is a non-governmental federation for human rights organizations. Founded in 1922, FIDH is the oldest international human rights organisation worldwide and today brings together 164 member organisations in over 100 countries.FIDH is nonpartisan,...
on the grounds that the trial was unfair and the evidence of guilt was insufficient. The death sentence was never carried out, however, and Sassou Nguesso commuted Ndalla's sentence to life imprisonment with hard labor
Hard Labor
Hard Labor is the eleventh album by American rock band Three Dog Night, released in 1974 .- Cover Artwork :The original album cover, depicting of the birth of a record album , was deemed too controversial and was soon reworked with a huge bandage covering the "birth". The cover also includes an...
as a gesture of clemency to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1963 revolution in August 1988.
Two years later, on the 27th anniversary of the revolution, Sassou Nguesso granted Ndalla and other political prisoners an amnesty on 14 August 1990; he was accordingly released from prison on 15 August. By that time, Sassou Nguesso and the PCT regime were struggling to maintain control of the country amidst increasingly vocal demands for democratic reform, and Ndalla wasted no time in returning to the political stage by adding his voice to those calling for reform. As a delegate to the February–June 1991 Sovereign National Conference, Ndalla criticized the record of the PCT regime.
Political career since the 1990s
Ndalla was associated with opposition leader Bernard KolélasBernard Kolélas
Bernard Bakana Kolélas was a Congolese politician and President of the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development...
and his party, the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development
Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development
The Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development is a political party in the Republic of the Congo, led by Bernard Kolélas....
(MCDDI), during the 1990s, and he helped to recruit fighters for the Ninja militia
Ninja (militia)
The Ninjas were a militia in the Republic of the Congo, which participated in numerous wars and insurgencies in the 1990s and 2000s. The Ninjas were formed by the politician Bernard Kolélas in the early 1990s and were commanded by Frédéric Bintsangou, alias Pastor Ntoumi when Kolelas was in exile...
loyal to Kolélas. During the June–October 1997 civil war, Ndalla objected to the MCDDI's moves toward an alliance with President Pascal Lissouba
Pascal Lissouba
Pascal Lissouba was the first democratically elected President of the Republic of the Congo from August 31, 1992 to October 15, 1997. He was overthrown by the current President Denis Sassou Nguesso in the 1997 civil war....
and defected to the side of Denis Sassou Nguesso and his rebel Cobra militia.
The civil war ended in victory for the Cobras on 15 October 1997; Lissouba and Kolélas were ousted and Sassou Nguesso regained control of the country. When Sassou Nguesso formed a government on 2 November 1997, he appointed Ndalla as Minister of Youth Redeployment and Sports, in charge of Civic Instruction. He was not included in the next government, appointed on 12 January 1999; subsequently he was appointed as Political Delegate of the Head of State, in which capacity he acted as Sassou Nguesso's representative.
Ndalla strongly backed Sassou Nguesso when the latter stood as a candidate for the March 2002 presidential election
Republic of the Congo presidential election, 2002
A presidential election was held in the Republic of the Congo on 10 March 2002. This followed a civil war in 1997, which returned Denis Sassou Nguesso to power, and a subsequent transitional period, in which a new constitution was written and approved by referendum in January 2002.The election...
. He was present for the launch of the support committee for Sassou Nguesso's candidacy on 6 February 2002, and on that occasion he elaborated his view that Sassou Nguesso was "a symbol of hope, peace and freedom" by symbolically assigning a positive characteristic to each letter of the name "Sassou", in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
: "S is for security (sécurité), A is for joy (allégresse), S is for concern for others (souci des autres), S is for the salvage of the property of the people of Mfilou (sauvetage des biens des gens de Mfilou), O is for organizer of peace (organisateur de la paix), and U is for national unity (unité nationale)". Ndalla subsequently worked on Sassou Nguesso's campaign as head of the coordination of the support committee for the Mfilou district of Brazzaville.
In his capacity as Political Delegate of the Head of State, Ndalla presided over a meeting of the Youth Committee for Peace in the Pool on 24–28 April 2002. The meeting called on the security forces to show restraint in the Pool Region while also urging Ninja rebels
Ninja (militia)
The Ninjas were a militia in the Republic of the Congo, which participated in numerous wars and insurgencies in the 1990s and 2000s. The Ninjas were formed by the politician Bernard Kolélas in the early 1990s and were commanded by Frédéric Bintsangou, alias Pastor Ntoumi when Kolelas was in exile...
to disarm. He was present at the Marien Ngouabi Mausoleum for a ceremony at which the eternal flame
Eternal flame
An eternal flame is a flame or torch that burns day and night for an indefinite period. The flame that burned constantly at Delphi was an archaic feature, "alien to the ordinary Greek temple"....
commemorating Ngouabi, which had been extinguished during the 1997 war, was rekindled on 11 November 2002.
On 30 January 2003, Sassou Nguesso appointed Ndalla as a Special Adviser to the President. Ndalla accompanied Claude-Alphonse Nsilou, the Minister of Urban Affairs, during the latter's campaign for a seat in the June 2007 parliamentary election
Republic of the Congo parliamentary election, 2007
A parliamentary election was held in the Republic of the Congo on 24 June 2007, with a second round initially planned for 22 July 2007, but then postponed to 5 August 2007. According to the National Commission of the Organization of the Elections , 1,807 candidates stood in the first round for 137...
, calling on the people of Bacongo's second constituency to give Nsilou a majority in the first round of voting.
Speaking in mid-2007, Ndalla expressed dismay regarding the poor state of Congo-Brazzaville's prison conditions and said that the system needed more money. He also noted that the prisons could cause increased criminalization among inmates, making them more dangerous to society upon release.
On 1 October 2008, Ndalla participated in the founding of the Convention for the Rebirth of Congo (CRC), a pro-Sassou Nguesso political grouping that was created through an agreement signed by five parties, eight associations, and nine individuals. Gabriel Bokilo
Gabriel Bokilo
Gabriel Bokilo was a Congolese politician and the President of the Union for National Redress .-Administrative career:Bokilo studied in France and earned a doctorate...
was designated as President of the CRC, while Ndalla became its First Vice-President. In Bokilo's absence, Ndalla chaired an ordinary session of the CRC National Coordination on 15 November 2008.
At a forum for peace in Congo-Brazzaville, held in Paris in April 2009, Ndalla gave a presentation on "the major political currents in Congo from 1956 to the present day". Drawing on decades of political experience, Ndalla argued in his presentation that democracy had to be developed gradually and consolidated through peace.
In an October 2009 presidential decree, Sassou Nguesso barred top officials from travelling abroad for the remainder of 2009 except in cases of urgency. Speaking to the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, Ndalla explained that some officials were taking needless and expensive trips outside the country, sometimes merely for their own pleasure. He said that henceforth travel plans would have to be reviewed and they would be allowed only if they were considered to be worthwhile.