originally published in the Daily Nation, Kenya
The “blackboard” at the “school” here in this captured city is little more than a tall man with a strong voice who calls himself Dr Dan.
He teaches history class, so far the only subject on the curriculum for a couple scores of young boys and girl who sit in the tall, leafy grass and listen to this soldier-cum-teacher.
School is back in session in Rutshuru, just three after rebels took the city in late October. The first lesson to learn is that it is the victorious who write the textbooks.
Preaches version
In the fields where children have been rounded up and forced to attend “class” the National Congress for the People’s Defense, the rebel group loyal to dissident general Laurent Nkunda, preaches its version of history.
“Forever the Congo has been a place of peace and love. But the government continues to hate its people,” Dan, who says he is a major in Laurent Nkunda’s group, says in Swahili.
“Even though many groups have lived here for a long time together, now the government wants to tear us apart.”
Nkunda claims that his force is fighting for the protection of Congolese Tutsi, but in some interviews he has also promised to topple Congo President Joseph Kabila and take over.
Genocide against Tutsi in neighbouring Rwanda killed nearly 1 million in 1994. The perpetrators of that genocide fled across the border to Goma when rebels took the city.
Now, Nkunda says, they continue a campaign of hate in the Congo, and that is why he fights.
“This is not just a Tutsi movement,” he insisted. “The Tutsis do have a particular problem, but we stand for the defence of all minorities,” said Ngeve Kumbasu, a director of the CNDP’s political committee, to fellow journalists.
No less than five kilometers away, a lesson in chemistry and capitalism is taking place, far more illuminating than any history lesson could tell.
It is here, at the mines at Lueshe, that are some of the largest in North Kivu, that the real reason for Rutshuru’s importance exists.
With large deposits of Gold, Coltan and Cassiterite, control of Rutshuru and nearby Kiwanja means exotic levels of wealth. It is said that the government and rebel groups are fighting as proxy wars of larger international corporations, each with their own military and political connections in a war over who can make the most.
But to the children in the fields of Rutshuru, all are equal. And all are equally scared.
Rutshuru was the scene of dissident General Laurent Nkunda’s most important victory of government troops, giving him a clean line straight down to Goma. One of the fist issues of business was the forced removal of close to 50,000 internally-displaced persons living in makeshift camps just outside the city.
Nukanda’s forced residents out of their homes, some at gunpoint, and leveled all the camps. There is nothing left and the United Nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, OCHA, is still unable to account for all of them.
It was also the first of his newly-taken towns to be appointed a full municipal administration.
The rebel general is eager to build a country on his little swathes of territory. He refers to his domain as the Land of the Volcanoes and has his own police force, stamps, and codes of protocol.
Yorumlar