Embers of Rwandan Genocide Flare

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U.N. Tries to Broker Cease-Fire in Congo

Tens of thousands of refugees displaced by fighting in eastern Congo are desperate for food rations and other international aid.

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"I ran away and left my child," cried Justin Furaha, looking back toward the hills where her 1-year-old daughter, Landerin, remained. "I left my child."

The fractious Congolese army joined the exodus, with soldiers abandoning the front lines in heavy tanks, on the backs of motorbikes, on foot and heaped high in trucks.

"The rebels and the Rwandans are attacking us so strongly," said Michel Kabumba, a Congolese soldier in full retreat along a gravel road. "All of us, we are returning. We have fought a lot, and we are tired. And this month, we have not gotten paid."

The military retreat left the region's defense almost completely to the U.N. peacekeeping force, made up of Indians and Uruguayans. The United Nations apparently decided not to engage Nkunda's forces and began evacuating its civilian staff from here Wednesday afternoon.

U.N. officials in New York said Wednesday that peacekeepers would fight to defend Goma if Nkunda decided to enter it. The officials also said that they were concerned about the Rwandan army entering Goma and that peacekeepers would not fight Rwanda under such a scenario.

As U.N. peacekeepers, a force known by the acronym MONUC, drove through the streets in white trucks and tanks, young men hurled heavy stones at them, as they have all week.

"MONUC is running away! They are selling out our country and leaving us alone!" one young man shouted at the passing convoys, expressing a widespread frustration that peacekeepers have failed to protect civilians.

Van de Geer said that discussions were underway between the Congolese government, Nkunda and the United Nations.

"We think it is very important that the peace process is restarted again," he said, referring to a deal signed this year that fell apart when Nkunda began his offensive in August. "But we will have to reckon with new realities."

Rwandan officials again denied accusations that their soldiers had set foot in Congo, saying their troops were fired on from the Congolese side.

"It was provocation," said Rwanda's special envoy to Congo, Joseph Mutaboba. "This was just to incite us to strike back. Now we have to wait and see."

But Congolese soldiers and others fleeing the combat zone Wednesday said they saw Rwandan troops crossing into Congolese territory to help the advancing rebels led by Nkunda.

The Hutu militias are led by a core group that fled into the forests of eastern Congo after the genocide. Nkunda, an ethnic Tutsi, and Rwanda want the Congolese government to follow through with numerous agreements to disarm them. But instead of disarming the Hutu militias, the Congolese army has been fighting alongside them, sharing supplies and weapons in what Rwandan officials say has become "systematic" collaboration since August, when the fighting began despite the peace deal signed in January.

Even in that context, Nkunda's rebels, large numbers of whom are ethnic Tutsis, are highly unpopular. The conflict between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda has existed to varying degrees for decades in eastern Congo, where ethnic Congolese Tutsis are often viewed as outsiders. Nkunda's rebels are widely viewed here as a thinly veiled proxy for Rwanda, whom people suspect of wanting to grab this mineral-rich territory.

On the streets of Goma on Wednesday, anti-Tutsi sentiment ran high among the crowds anticipating a possible rebel attack.

"If the rebels come here, we will kill them," said Maurice Heritien, a taxi driver standing outside a shuttered shop. "We will kill Tutsi people."

Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.