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WORLD> Africa
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Congo rebels make roadblock out of bodies
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-13 11:48 KILIMANYOKA, Congo -- The road that leads into rebel-controlled Congo begins with a makeshift roadblock made from the corpses of two government soldiers strewn across the dark volcanic earth.
The pair on Wednesday blocked the main two-lane track running north from the regional capital, Goma, one with a bullet in his forehead and a frozen fist grasping the air above. The scene was meant as a warning to government troops just a few hundred yards down the road whom the rebels had battled the night before. And for the few fearful civilians trickling past the frontline, it was clear message that Congo's savage war is not easing amid fears it could draw in Angola and others in the region. "We don't want any more of it," said 18-year-old John Biamungu, who pushed a wooden bicycle past the corpse-strewn checkpoint as rebels stood in a clutch of trees on both sides staring silently. Years of sporadic violence in eastern Congo intensified in August, and fighting between the army and fighters loyal to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda has displaced at least 250,000 people since then, despite the presence of the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world. The bodies blocking the maroon-tinged road at Kilimanyoka Wednesday were dressed in olive green military uniforms. Each wore the blue armbands of the army. Both were barefoot, their boots apparently removed by rebels. A white four-wheel drive belonging to a humanitarian aid group slowed down and wound off the road around them. Civilians covered their mouths as they passed in silence, aghast at the scene. Rebels standing in trees on both sides of the road stared coldly at approaching journalists and the few civilians who passed by. Asked how the army troops came to be placed in the road, one rebel wearing an olive green poncho grinned. "The army attacked," he said, looking out at the bodies and a light rain drizzled from a dark sky. "This is what happens when the army attacks." He refused to give his name because his commander was not present. After walking a few hundred yards south through an empty no-mans land that separates the two sides, Biamungu stopped and spoke to a reporter. "The rebels said to us, 'What are you looking at?' Biamungu recounted. "We didn't say anything. We kept moving. Honestly, we are afraid." Exhausted Congolese soldiers sat leisurely by the road, apparently unworried rebels were so close. It was a bizarre mix, neither war nor peace. "When we get orders to attack, we will," said Congolese army Capt. Alex Kazadi, as a couple soldiers cooked stews in the fields behind him, the steam from boiling water evaporating into the chilly air. "This has gone on too long." The rebels, however, are far more disciplined on the battlefield than Congo's ill-trained army, which was forced into a humiliating retreat in late October as Nkunda's forces advanced toward Goma and suddenly halted. Both sides blamed each other for starting Tuesday's clash. Asked if he had lost any troops in the gunbattle, Kazadi shrugged. "It's normal to lose men in a war," he said. |
