GOMA, September 7, 2007 (CISA) - A Catholic missionary in North Kivu where fierce fighting has been raging between the regular army and rebels led by Laurent Nkunda has given a dramatic account of the violence. Latest reports say aid workers in eastern Congo are struggling to cope with a surge of people fleeing the recent fighting. More than 10,000 people have fled their homes in the past week. “The streets are filled with people carrying mattresses on their heads, the only thing they manage to take with them as they run from violence,” the missionary, who asked not to be named, told FIDES news agency. “These people come from an area about 25-30 km west of Goma. They say that yesterday morning (September 4) at about 6 am they were woken by mortar shelling and decided to abandon their village en masse before the fighting reached their homes.“The fortunate ones go to family or friends in Goma, the main town in North Kivu. Those who have no one to go to are settling in makeshift shelters close to the town. “I wonder who is funding the violence. Who has the money to pay people to take up weapons again? Recently Congolese authorities said they had dismantled a network of provocateur agents, rebels preparing to take action in Bukavu, Uvira and other parts of Kivu, to spread the conflict. There is fear of a third Congolese war, after those of 1996-97 and 1998-2003. “Sadly, when the militia in this area were disarmed nothing was done to reintegrate them into society. They were given an incentive of 100 dollars to hand over the arms, but many of them failed to find work. Unemployed and with no prospects, they are easy prey.
“There exist then the conditions for another war: all that is needed is someone with a box of matches. The members of the provocateur agents are paid 250 dollars a month, a fortune in this part of the world. Not even a university professor earns as much! Who is paying?” “There are precise strategies behind these events. Nothing is left to chance. I saw, for example, that the media in the West gave ample coverage to the killing of the mountain gorillas in Virunga Park. This was not useless cruelty to nature; instead it was to prevent tourists coming here to see what is happening.”
Laurent Nkunda commands rebel brigades of the unified Congolese army established after the peace agreement of 2003. He is wanted for war crimes. Nkunda's troops have repeatedly thwarted efforts on the part of the central government to restore peace in the eastern regions of D.R. Congo. Because of the fighting, tens of thousands of Congolese have fled to Uganda.
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