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| Africa Subsaharan |
| U.N. Addresses Congo Conflict by Helping Hutus Return to Rwanda |
| 2008-12-04 |
| The couple had spent three hard years in a militia camp deep in the forests around this eastern Congolese village when they finally decided to escape. Droselle Uwonkunda's husband, a militiaman, left first, and a few weeks ago she followed him -- hiking for four days through the rainy forest with their 7-year-old daughter, Grace, crossing rivers and sliding down muddy paths. When Grace was tired, Uwonkunda encouraged her with visions of where they were headed. "I told her we are going to Rwanda, our beautiful country, with nice houses and good roads," she said, sitting in a grass-roofed gazebo in this village, where she is waiting to be repatriated. "I told her we are leaving the forest, and we are going home." In some ways, the conflict in eastern Congo comes down to that elusive wish, one shared by hundreds of thousands of mostly Hutu refugees who fled here after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The Uwonkundas' ability to escape the ranks of a potent Hutu militia, formed in these borderlands by several dozen commanders who participated in the genocide, and return to their country is an essential step toward ending the fighting that has overwhelmed eastern Congo in recent weeks. About 6,000 of the Hutu refugees make up the heavily armed militia group known as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, which claims that its sole aim these days is the Rwandans' "dignified" return to their homes. That return is complicated, however, by the fear among Hutus here that comes with returning to a country now run by Tutsis, who took control of Rwanda in 1994 after Hutu militias and soldiers slaughtered an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. |
| Posted by:Fred |