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For Tutsis of Eastern Congo, Protector, Exploiter or Both?
Renegade Gen. Laurent Nkunda says he is protecting eastern Congo's minority Tutsis, but U.N. officials accuse him of creating a humanitarian crisis in the war-devastated region.
(By Stephanie Mccrummen -- The Washington Post)
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Eastern Congo is a sordid tangle of violence, but even within that context, villagers say, Nkunda's men have distinguished themselves.
In one forsaken camp of banana-leaf huts sprawled across volcanic rocks near the provincial capital of Goma, people who had run for their lives told different versions of the same story: that before attacking with machetes and guns, Nkunda's soldiers had accused them of harboring Hutu militiamen.
"They consider us like the Interahamwe," said Nayino Faraziya, 70, referring to the Hutu militia that she said had taken up residence around her village, Bufamando.
Faraziya said Nkunda's soldiers burned down houses and called about two dozen people, including her, to a "meeting" at the local Catholic church. Then, she said, they set the building on fire.
"People were crying and screaming," said Faraziya, who escaped through a window and has fresh burns across her back, neck and arms.
More than 2,000 people have arrived at the camp since January, said the camp's chief, Mahoro Faustin, and more are arriving daily, some missing legs and arms and most with little more than the torn clothes on their backs.
The notion that Nkunda is offering people some kind of protection from Hutu militias, he said, is "a masquerade."
"He wants everyone to join him against the government," said Faustin. "His people were preaching that we need to liberate ourselves and make our own country. He even put his flag in our village."
In recent months, Nkunda has forcefully recruited soldiers, including children, inside Rwanda, according to U.N. officials who repatriated at least 500 of them.
The general has also boosted his military position since the Congolese army agreed in January to mix several of its brigades with his. The deal was intended by the national government to diminish Nkunda's power but instead has increased it: The soldiers are now deployed across a wider area while remaining loyal to him.
At the same time, Nkunda's movement appears to be taking on an almost cultlike character.
In his territory -- a wide swath of lush, black-soil mountains including farms owned by wealthy Tutsi businessmen -- villagers report having to submit to ideological training in which they profess loyalty to the movement, which now has a political party, a Web site, flags, songs and the radio station that broadcasts messages about "tribal unity."
