A CONGOLESE rebel leader has said he is ready to talk peace even as his fighters engaged government troops in the latest round of clashes, writes
Rob Crilly
More than 250,000 have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to the renegade Tutsi army general closed in on Goma, a strategic city in the far east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, last month.
But yesterday Gen Laurent Nkunda swapped his fatigues for a sharp suit to meet Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president of Nigeria, who has been asked by the United Nations to help broker peace.
"Let me tell you we have agreed a ceasefire and are waiting for the other side to respect it," he said.
The talks took place inside a church hall in the rebel-held town of Jomba, about 97km (60 miles) from the regional capital Goma.
Gen Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) came within a few miles of snatching the city during fighting in October. Aid workers were evacuated and the government withdrew its forces ahead of an expected rebel advance that never materialised.
Since then the conflict has settled into a routine of muscle-flexing as the sides try to gain territory ahead of any negotiations. Gen Nkunda claims to be protecting ethnic Tutsis from Hutu militias who fled Rwanda after losing power.
Rwanda has repeatedly denied supporting Gen Nkunda despite accusing the Democratic Republic of Congo of failing to disarm Hutus involved in the 1994 genocide. Add in a dozen or more militias, rich seams of tin ore and coltan, envious neighbouring states, and the result is a heady mix of conflict.
While the rest of the country has held elections and moved on from the civil war that ended in 2003, the eastern portion of the state remains mired in misery.
Yesterday a UN official reported heavy exchanges of artillery, rocket and small arms fire near the village of Ndeko, about 113km north of Goma.
Lieut Col Jean-Paul Dietrich, chief military spokesman for the 17,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission, said: "It is difficult to say who started it but we can confirm it was between the CNDP and the army. We have treated six army soldiers who were wounded and need to be evacuated."
The clashes were reported just hours before Mr Obasanjo arrived in Jomba, close to the border with Rwanda. He was appointed by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon to help end the fighting.
The venue for talks was a neat mission station built during Belgian colonial rule. Sunday school was cancelled and hundreds of locals - the men in smart shirts, the women in vibrant fabrics - milled around after Mass.
Gen Nkunda, flanked by militiamen, said he was ready to talk to the government without any preconditions.
"Today is a great day for us because we were losing many men and now we have a message of peace. We should work with this mission," he said. "We agreed to open humanitarian corridors to support the process."
Mr Obasanjo said the talks had gone well and he would relay Gen Nkunda's words to Joseph Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, before travelling on to the Rwandan capital Kigali to meet President Paul Kagame.
"Nkunda wants to maintain a ceasefire but it's like dancing the tango. You can't do it alone," he said. It was an apt turn of phrase. Within minutes the two men were dancing and laughing with a troupe of young performers who beat out a rhythm on a goat-skin drum. Gen Nkunda, clutching his trademark cane, topped with a silver eagle's head, kissed babies and posed for photographs before both men inspected a guard of honour.
His media offensive has been every bit as effective as his military operation, allowing him ample opportunity to claim his ragtag band of about 7,000 rebels is set to march on the capital, Kinshasa, or to take Goma - both well beyond his means.
But the result is a land replete with fear. Thousands of people are crammed into the squalid camps that surround Goma.
While all sides stand accused of looting, pillaging and raping their way through village after village, there are many who fear Gen Nkunda's rebel army in particular.
Anne-Marie has been sleeping on the floor of a school since fleeing her home in Rutshuru, on the main road north from Goma.
Men she believes were rebels, dressed in fatigues and Wellington boots called at her simple, wooden house late one night. They shot her five daughters and her husband.
"My children were killed in my sight. I fainted but then I was lying in a pool of blood so that they might think I was not alive," she said in Swahili. She survived but only after being marched into the forest and raped by five men.