“I am fighting for the destiny of this country,” said Mr. Nkunda, offering up the orderly streets and neatly terraced farms of the surrounding countryside as evidence of what Congo might be like if he ran things. “What we want is to restore the dignity of this country and these people.”
But beneath the veneer lies a ruthlessness of a piece with Congo’s unbroken history of brutality. With a military campaign in October and November that was met with a feeble response from both the Congolese government and United Nations peacekeeping forces here in eastern Congo, General Nkunda has pushed the nation to its most dangerous precipice in years.
Many here fear a new regional war or that an alliance of convenience between General Nkunda and other enemies of the president could lead to the ouster of Congo’s first democratically elected government in four decades.
That General Nkunda, who is suspected of committing a litany human rights violations, could be a leading figure in such a move is a chilling thought for many Congolese. A recent journey through territory he controls revealed a host of contradictions between the image he puts forward and reality, including evidence of mass killings, the extraction of onerous payments from residents, illegal profiteering from the mineral trade and the conscription of child soldiers.
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Two years later, his men took the city of Bukavu, and days of killing and rape followed, investigators say. Since 2005, when he formed his own rebel group, known as the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or C.N.D.P., his forces have carried out a number of massacres, according to human rights investigators, most recently at Kiwanja, in early November, where 150 people were executed
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According to rebel officials, in Nkunda territory children are never made to wield Kalashnikov rifles and kill. But boys like Eric, who is now 16 but says he has been fighting with armed groups since he was kidnapped by Hutu militiamen at the age of 9, say General Nkunda’s rebellion forces hundreds of children to fight.
“The strategy they use is this,” he explained. “When they met children on the road, they ask them to help them carry their goods.”
The boys are then taken to training camps, given guns and taught to fight, Eric said. His eyes are wide in permanent surprise, and he said he had headaches that did not respond to medicine.
Loud noises terrify him.
“Too many bombs,” he explained in a soft voice.
For two years, from 13 to 15, he said he fought with General Nkunda’s troops.
“Many of us were boys,” he said. “They would send us out first, then the men.”
He lives in a shelter for boys separated from their parents by the war. In the next bunk is his friend Fabrice, a 14-year-old former Mai Mai fighter who used to do battle with General Nkunda’s forces.
“I always felt bad to kill other children, because I knew they had been forced to fight just like me,” he said.
There has already been too much genocide in Africa. Heading this volitile situation off HAS to be a priority of President Elect Obama's administration!
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Man, I have no idea what to do about Africa. It seems like the first thing anyone does when they get into power over there is horsefuck their people back into the Stone Age.
ReplyDeleteSeems like it would be easy to teach people not to do that, but yet here we are.
And I should also say, a lot of this is the fault of the West. White guys have been fucking over Africa for centuries, and I think that the roots of these stories can be traced back to colonialism.
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