Hard and fast

Last week I was temporarily distracted by London, where I went on a whirlwind visit to speak at a conference about the DRC. It’s the second consecutive year that I attend this conference and make a presentation on the DRC, and it’s the second year that I return home to turmoil. For now I will continue to focus my attention on ‘the troubled eastern province of North Kivu’, as it is regularly referred to by reporters.

For the last few days, everyone has been saying that after weeks of preparation, the Congolese army would finally attack on 5 December. Someone jumped the gun. Probably the rebel leader, General Nkunda. This morning there was heavy fighting north of Goma, with tanks shooting at the hills, and the hills shooting back at the tanks.

The numbers:
· 1 rebel leader
· 4,000 insurgents loyal to the rebel leader
· 20,000 government troops
· almost 400,000 displaced civilians since the end of last year
· 800,000 displaced civilians altogether

According to one of my Congolese colleagues, whenever there is conflict in the DRC, the three big players are not far away: USA, Belgium and France. The US is going very public, ahead of Condoleeza Rice’s visit to Ethiopia on Thursday, with calls for Nkunda to surrender and go into exile. Belgium and France are very silent. The UN is even more definitely siding with the government than before.

The recurring refrain amongst the Congolese I speak to is, why on earth wasn’t Nkunda taken out before? I remember when I was in Goma six months ago, driving past a hotel and being told by a fairly senior UN representative that this was where Nkunda regularly came to eat and meet with his collaborators…

Meanwhile, I look back wistfully at my pictures from election-day in Sake, and remember with sadness the tears of joy in an old man’s eyes as he danced down the steps of the voting centre for whence he had just cast the first free vote in his life. I wonder where these kids are today.



P.S: Extra Extra, aka F., travelled to Masisi on Saturday to look into stories like this one. He had some misadventures on route, involving sleeping in a truck, which I’m sure he will blog about in due course. He is now in Masisi, which remains quiet.