Bodies, pillaging testify to Congo's chaotic war

[November 19, 2008]  KIRUMBA, Congo (AP) -- Congolese rebels planning talks with the army Wednesday will consider a demarcation zone to keep the forces apart, a rebel spokesman said, suggesting there may be hope that Congo's latest war was easing.

In the army-occupied hilltop village of Kirumba, two charred bodies and scattered debris from looted shops littered the red earth road, a testament to the chaotic nature of Congo's latest war, between the army and rebels allied to Laurent Nkunda, a minority Tutsi who says he is fighting to protect Tutsis from Congo's Hutus.

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. The parties "will examine the establishment of zones of separation between their two armies, in order to prevent any possibility of confrontation," rebel spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa said in a statement.

Fighting in Kirumba on Tuesday 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 shopfronts had been ripped open beside the town's main road. Papers and 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.

Rebel leader Nkunda told U.N. envoy Olusegun Obasanjo over the weekend he was committed to a cease-fire and U.N. efforts to end the fighting. But his troops have been taking more territory in the remote hills north of Goma by the day.

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.

Plagued by utter lawlessness, eastern Congo has been occupied for more than a decade by swarms of militias that have taken up arms to defend themselves in remote rural 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.

Nkunda launched a rebellion in 2004, claiming to protect ethnic Tutsis from Hutu militias who fled to Congo after Rwanda's 1994 genocide left more than 500,000 Tutsis and others slaughtered. But critics say he is more interested in power and Congo's mineral wealth.

Fighting between the army and Nkunda's men since August has forced hundreds of thousands of people from homes into crowded displaced camps. The U.N. puts the total refugee figure at 250,000,

[Associated Press; By TODD PITMAN]

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