Congo rebels appear to pull back ahead of talks
RWINDI, Congo – Rebels appeared to be pulling back as promised Wednesday in an area home to some of the world's last remaining mountain gorillas, offering some hope that Congo's latest war may be easing.
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The rebels had taken control of Rwindi, the headquarters of Virunga National Park, early Monday.
But on Wednesday, Rwindi's main road was empty, with rebels seen only to the south, setting up a checkpoint at a park station abandoned by rangers. About two dozen rebels — and several dozen elephants — could be seen.
The rebels have been planning talks with the army and say they will consider a demarcation zone to keep the forces apart. It was not clear, though, when the talks would be held.
Further north, in the army-occupied hilltop village of Kirumba, two charred bodies and scattered debris from looted shops littered the red earth road.
Years of sporadic violence in eastern Congo intensified in August, and fighting between the army and fighters loyal to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda has displaced at least 250,000 people.
Nkunda says he is fighting to protect Tutsis from Hutus who fled to Congo after Rwanda's 1994 genocide. But critics say he is more interested in power and Congo's mineral wealth. Nkunda said over the weekend he was committed to a cease-fire and U.N. efforts to end the fighting.
Congolese aid and development agencies, meanwhile, were pleading with the international community for more peacekeepers. In a letter distributed Tuesday by Human Rights Watch, the groups said they did not know to "which saint to pray."
"The United Nations says that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, but our dignity and our rights are violated every day with hardly a cry of protest," the letter said. "Do we not deserve protection? Are we not equal to others?"
In the region's main town, Goma, protesters at a crowded refugee camp greeted Mark Malloch Brown, Britain's minister for Africa.
The protesters carried signs in English — a language not widely spoken in the region — criticizing U.N. peacekeepers who have struggled to protect civilians and proclaiming they were "tired of life in the camps."
Brown told reporters he supported U.N. recommendations that the peacekeeping force be strengthened. He also said talking was the only way to end the crisis.
"What the international community can do is support strongly domestic cooperation to solve the problem politically," Brown said. "If there is not a political engagement between the government and General Nkunda, there will not be a solution."
The rebels said they were pulling their forces back from the front lines to allow for the talks with the army near Kanyabayonga, a town 9 miles (15 kilometers) south of Kirumba.
On Tuesday, fighting in Kirumba was between the army and spear-wielding Mai Mai militiamen — who had previously fought on the government side.
"We can't fight with the rebels in front of us and the Mai Mai behind us," said Dido Dieudonne, a 26-year-old soldier in Kirumba. "We have enough problems already. The Mai Mai are supposed to be on our side. They are Congolese like us. We don't know what's happening."
The few residents who trickled back to Kirumba spoke of Tuesday's gunbattles.
"The army are like wild animals," said Obed Machozi, 24. "They were angry over (Tuesday's) fighting, and they began to pillage systematically."
Machozi said he fled at dawn Tuesday when gunfire heralded the start of a Mai Mai attack. He returned Wednesday to find his pharmacy completely looted.
The frail wooden doors of dozens of shop fronts had been ripped open beside the town's main road. Trash littered the area.
Outside two homes scattered with dark bottles of Ugandan beer were the bodies of two men. Soldiers said they were both Mai Mai and had been shot dead, then burned by angry soldiers.
The skeleton of a charred umbrella stuck out of one dead man, his clenched fist raised.
"They attacked us for nothing," said soldier Gibril Bindu, staring down at the corpse. "Our men were angry, so they set them on fire after they shot them."
The village was almost deserted, but hundreds of soldiers sat on the main road with their families, cooking food in open iron pots near two dark green armored personnel carriers. An old tank belched black smoke, racing up and down the road.
In the last two days, soldiers could be seen walking away from Kanyabayonga, which rebels had advanced to but not taken. But on Wednesday, many appeared to be walking back with reinforcements, pushing some supplies on bicycles made entirely of wood.
At the hospital in Kayna, 3 miles (5 kilometers) south of Kirumba, seven soldiers and two civilians nursed gunshot wounds in a tiny hospital.
Local staff from the French charity Doctors Without Borders said soldiers were still looting Wednesday and had taken the majority of the group's medicine stocks for themselves.
Soldiers in Congo's ill-trained army have spoken increasingly about their anger over lack of money, food and pay raises they say were approved but never arrived.
For more than a decade, militias in lawless eastern Congo have taken up arms to defend themselves in remote villages in the hills.
Congo has the world's largest U.N. peacekeeping mission, with 17,000 troops, but the peacekeepers have been unable to either stop the fighting or protect civilians.
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