originally published in the Daily Nation, Kenya
As hundreds of tonnes of food aid were finally distributed to refugees on Saturday, soldiers sat around getting drunk and stoned.
Just down the road from the front line in this civil war near the town of Kibati, tens of thousands of Congolese waited in lines for sacks of rice and cassava to fill empty stomachs, some of which have not had real food in a week.
But a couple of hundred metres north, the town centre has become a settlement of soldiers.
With not much left to do now that fighting seems to have turned further north, the soldiers here who are supposed to be the last line of defence for the city of Goma, the prize for Tutsi rebels loyal to dissident Gen Laurent Nkunda that are less than a kilometre away, have begun to settle down.
Not a civilian in sight
There is not a civilian in sight, but the soldiers — Congolese and Angolan — who have taken over the town have begun to settle into life there.
Some carry sacks of beans on their heads and others cook food on the front porches of deserted homes.
Others are washing and drying clothes, laying out their laundry in the sun before the rains that will surely come.
The only action seen around this area was on Tuesday night when two Congolese troops were killed in a midnight firefight with Nkunda’s National Congress for the People’s Defence (CNDP).
Promises of further troop deployments from Angola, the United Nations and the Southern African Development Community have helped to cement an uneasy quiescence here.
So far, the newly arrived Angolan troops are fitting in well with their Congolese counterparts, playing cards, drinking beer and smoking marijuana to pass time on a front line that has seen little action in recent days.
Though DR Congo President Joseph Kabila called on his southern neighbour for help at his most pressing hour — as Nkunda and his troops banged on the gates of Goma — there has been little for the Angolans to do.
As the world turns its attention to the North Kivu capital of 600,000, the most recent fighting and government defeats have been 175 km to the north, outside the town of Kanyaboyanga.
The calm to the south on Saturday allowed the World Food Programme to deliver the first serious amounts of food aid to starving refugees captive behind rebel lines in the town of Rutshuru. A convoy that left Goma at 5 am reached the rebel stronghold, where a new “administration” of the CNDP has recently been put in place.
Renewed fighting and accusations of war crimes in nearby Kiwanja led to a suspension of food aid that was supposed to take place weeks ago.
Over the next four days, about 100 tonnes of food will be delivered to the 60,000 displaced persons now living under Nkunda’s control.
The United Nations and aid agencies have come under criticism from the international community and the African Union for failing to deliver on its mandate of protecting civilians and relieving famine.
The CNDP and Congolese army announced cooperation in opening security “aid corridors” in early November but had failed to live up to that promise as fighting broke out.
Since fighting broke out in August 28 between government and rebel troops, over 250,000 have been left homeless, some criss-crossing their own tracks twice a day, just metres ahead of spreading violence.
The rebel troops loyal to Nkunda claim that they are fighting to protect the Banyamulenge, Congo’s minority Tutsi population he says is targeted by Hutu militias in the area responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
String of defeats
Kabila has responded by calling Nkunda a “terrorist”, but has been unable on his own to fight back, as a string of government defeats has left the rebels with the upper hand and Kinshasa calling on its neighbours for military support.
Angola was the first to respond by sending troops clandestinely in early November.
Though African soldiers speaking Portuguese and decorated in berets showing the map of Angola have been on the front lines for almost two weeks now, Luanda announced on Wednesday that it would send troops.
There have also been unconfirmed reports that Zimbabwean soldiers are now on the ground.
Official announcement of that could catalyse East African Community members Uganda and Rwanda to mobilise troops.
The two countries have twice invaded — and marched across — Congo in the past 10 years and Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said he will do what is in his country’s national interest regardless of world opinion.
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