Aimless Soldiers Plunder in Congo
Rebel Leader Nkunda Calls for Direct Talks With the Government

By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 31, 2008

GOMA, Congo, Oct. 30 -- After giving up their fight against rebel forces, Congolese soldiers resorted Thursday to shaking down residents and the tens of thousands of displaced people here for cash, cellphones and skinny chickens and goats. With this important provincial city essentially surrounded by rebels, the exhausted and now aimless government soldiers roamed the streets looking for liquor, food and money.

"Go!" one soldier yelled to another, ushering him toward a clanking, idling truck full of bananas at a checkpoint on the muddy edge of the city. "Ask them for $5. And if they don't give you $5, they cannot pass!"

The fighting in eastern Congo began in August, when renegade Gen. Laurent Nkunda launched a major offensive after declaring he would "liberate" Congo. Over the past few days, his forces fought their way closer to Goma, reaching the city Wednesday.

The conflict has many interconnected causes: There are the Hutu militias, including many fighters who fled to eastern Congo after participating in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered. The militias were never disarmed and settled into lives in the eastern forests. They have become a cause for Nkunda, who has close ties to Rwanda and casts himself as a protector of Tutsis.

A mad scramble for minerals has also helped fuel a thriving business in private militias that guard mines.

And then there is the Congolese army, a notoriously underpaid, ill-equipped and poorly trained force that has proved unable to provide security and deal with the complex task of disarming the Hutu militias, much less handle Nkunda's well-organized rebellion. Instead of guarding the city, some soldiers spent Wednesday night looting. Fire from machine guns overnight apparently came from soldiers who had turned their weapons on civilians.

In one lantern-lit neighborhood of wood-slat houses, two soldiers went door to door asking for dollars and cellphones, shooting one boy when he refused, according to residents of the neighborhood. After robbing several houses, the men ordered three residents -- a doctor and two women -- into an empty house and shot them.

"They slept in the room where they killed those people," said Claudine Ndakola, 19, whose aunt was one of those killed. "I don't have any idea why."

Thursday morning, streets were mostly empty as the police and soldiers drove around with megaphones telling people it was safe enough for them to return to work. But the looting continued, with doctors at one hospital forced to fight off soldiers attempting to steal an ambulance.

There were heroes, here and there, for instance the lone soldier who ordered another's arrest for trying to steal a chicken from a woman who had been chased from her home. The soldier argued with other troops, who did not want to carry out the arrest.

In the crowds milling in the streets near shuttered shops, some people said they did not know who would protect them.

"The population is protecting itself," said Richard Bulambo, 29, a medical student who was helping watch over some shops to prevent looting. "There is no security."

Though U.N. soldiers patrolled some on Thursday, people expressed little confidence in the largest peacekeeping mission in the world, saying it had not done enough to protect them, either.

"MONUC ran away" on Wednesday, one young man said, referring to the 17,000-member mission by its French abbreviation. "Only God can protect us."

Sitting behind his desk at Goma's military headquarters, Congolese Col. Etienne Mbunsu Bindu -- with a glamorous poster of himself on the wall -- said morale was good among his soldiers despite their retreat a day earlier. He denied that any of his soldiers had behaved badly, though he conceded the army had some issues.

"We are trying to reorganize from past conflicts," Bindu said, referring to back-to-back civil wars fought mostly in the east. "But I can say our army is strong."

Despite his assurances, the safety of Goma's population of 600,000 seemed mostly at the mercy of Nkunda, a charismatic figure whose rebel soldiers are accused of war crimes and who admires President Bush, Gandhi and Thomas Jefferson.

After fighting his way to the edge of Goma on Wednesday, Nkunda declared a unilateral cease-fire and then called for direct negotiations with the government of Congolese President Joseph Kabila.

Jendayi Frazer, assistant U.S. secretary of state for African affairs, met with Kabila in Kinshasa, the capital, on Thursday, and a Rwandan delegation was also expected. It was unclear whether or how Kabila would negotiate with Nkunda or what sort of arrangement might be discussed for establishing security.

Kabila has not yet addressed people in eastern Congo, where he campaigned on a platform of restoring security and where his popularity has declined sharply. He has a monumental humanitarian crisis on his hands, as about 250,000 people have fled the fighting since August.

By Thursday afternoon, thousands of people who had fled to Goma on Wednesday had decided to head back to their villages about five miles north. Many had spent the night sleeping outdoors.

"We are returning -- this is my third time to come and go," said Venansia Mitondeke, who was hauling a big bundle up the hill to her house. "If we die, at least we will die at home."