New York Times article

Goma is the city in Congo just across the border at Lake Kivu. The picture I have posted at the top of the page on the right is a picture of Goma. Although I am perfectly safe here n Kigali, this situation is a testament to the disastrous affect that colonialism and foreign involvement continue to have on Africa. Fabricated ethnicities, that of Hutu and Tutsi, creates tension that erupts in violence and the cycle of rebellion continues between Hutu and Tutsi. And there is nothing truly ethnically different between Hutu and Tutsi, only a 100 year history of favoritism, division, and western world supported hatred has led to ethnic identification.


October 31, 2008

Congo City Is Calmer After Night of Violence

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

GOMA, Congo — At dawn on Thursday, the United Nations trucks began to move. A convoy of desperately needed supplies was finally entering this besieged town.

The rattle of gunfire was remarkably absent for the first time in days. United Nations peacekeepers were patrolling the streets.

The crisis seemed to be easing.

The rebels who have encircled this strategic town in eastern Congo, casting this region into a vortex of violence and uncertainty once again, seemed to be respecting the unilateral truce they declared on Wednesday night.

“Today there has been no fighting,” said Lt. Col. Samba Tall, a commander for the United Nations peacekeepers in Congo. “All belligerents are abiding by the cease-fire.”

Government soldiers who had fled the advancing rebels on Wednesday night, trudged back into town, with guns slung over their shoulders and sleeping rolls balanced on their heads. They looked exhausted. But they talked tough.

“We’re in control now,” said one of the Congolese soldiers, Col. Jonas Padiri.

Perhaps. But few people here trust them. On Wednesday night, in the security vacuum that opened up with the rebels marching toward town and the Congolese army fleeing in droves, rogue government soldiers turned on the people of Goma. The blood-soaked results were literally on display Thursday morning.

The body of a 17-year-old boy named Merci lay on a mattress, his hands folded carefully in front of him, his nostrils plugged with cotton.

His relatives said that a gang of uniformed government soldiers burst into Merci’s house at 10 p.m. on Wednesday and ordered Merci at gunpoint to load all the things in the house — rice, clothes, pots, pans, blankets — into the soldiers’ truck. After he complied, the soldiers shot him in the back.

Next door, two dead women, also victimized by rogue soldiers, according to residents, lay in a room packed with people. The whole neighborhood was pressed around the bodies. Nobody had any answers.

“They didn’t resist,” said Alan Bulondo, a relative. “They gave up their money. There was no point.”

Congolese soldiers are infamous for training their guns on civilians and fleeing at the first sign of a real threat. The looting, pillaging, raping and killing seems to happen every time a city switches hands.

United Nations officials said they were negotiating intensely on Thursday with government commanders and the rebels’ leader, Laurent Nkunda, to solidify the cease-fire. On Wednesday, Mr. Nkunda had declared the cease-fire, saying he did not want to spread more fear in Goma.

Mr. Nkunda, a renegade Congolese general, has said he is waging war to protect the Tutsi people. Congolese officials accuse him of being a front man for neighboring Rwanda, which is led by Tutsi, and say that Mr. Nkunda is trying to carve out a buffer zone between Congo and Rwanda. Rwandan officials deny this and on Thursday there were high level talks between the two countries.

One of the biggest concerns now is the hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced by all the fighting. Many of them are sleeping in the rain, with no food and gravely ill children. So far, aid workers have been unable to reach them.

But on Thursday, for the first time in more than a week, the fighting in the hills around here stopped and aid officials were hopeful they could resume operations soon.

“Things are still volatile,” said Ivo Brandau, a United Nations spokesman in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, in the west of the country. “But it’s calmer today than it has been. The situation is improving.”

Goma is an important staging ground for United Nations aid efforts in the region that are keeping millions alive. The United Nations also has its largest peacekeeping mission in Congo, with 17,000 troops with tanks and helicopter gunships. But United Nations officials have said it is not necessarily their job to repel the rebels.