in his presidency by asking the American-owned Occidental Petroleum company to provide financial support for his Government in exchange for promises of future oil production. As the French company Elf Aquitaine (which reaped much of its profits from the Republic of the Congo) had only just recently opened a large deep-water oil platform off the coast of Pointe-Noire, Mr. Lissouba was pressured by the French into canceling all contracts with Occidental Petroleum, but suspicions of Lissouba remained. However, Congo's democratic progress derailed in 1997. As presidential elections scheduled for July 1997 approached, tensions between the Lissouba and Sassou Nguesso camps mounted. In May, a visit by Sassou Nguesso to Owando, Joachim Yhombi-Opango's political stronghold, led to the outbreak of violence between their supporters. On June 5, 1997, government forces surrounded Sassou Nguesso's home in the Mpila section of Brazzaville, attempting to arrest two men, Pierre Aboya and Engobo Bonaventure, who had been implicated in the earlier violence. Fighting broke out between the government forces and Sassou Nguesso's fighters, called Cobras, igniting a 4-month conflict that destroyed or damaged much of Brazzaville. Angola supported Sassou Nguesso with about 1,000 Angolan tanks, troops. Support by the sympathetic French government further bolstered Sassou Nguesso's rebels. Together these forces took Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire in the morning of October 16. Lissouba fled the capital while his soldiers surrendered and citizens began looting. Yhombi-Opango supported Lissouba during the war, serving as leader of the Presidential Majority, and after Sassou Nguesso's victory he fled into exile in Ivory Coast and France. Soon thereafter, Sassou Nguesso declared himself President and named a 33-member government. In January 1998 the Sassou Nguesso regime held a National Forum for Reconciliation to determine the nature and duration of the transition period. The Forum, tightly controlled by the government, decided elections should be held in about three years, elected a transition advisory legislature, and announced that a constitutional convention will finalize a draft constitution. However, the eruption in late 1998 of fighting between Sassou Nguesso's government forces and an armed opposition disrupted the transitional return to democracy. This new violence also closed the economically vital Congo-Ocean Railway, caused great destruction and loss of life in southern Brazzaville and in the Pool, Bouenza, and Niari regions, and displaced hundreds of thousands of persons. In November and December 1999, the government signed agreements with representatives of many, though not all, of the rebel groups. The