Congo rebels advance despite cease-fire

'They took everything'
"We didn't even stay home one night," Mbusa said. "They took everything we had, mattresses, money. They were drunk. We left immediately."

His next stop: the U.N. base.

Many residents had mixed feelings about the U.N. mission in Kanyabayonga. On the one hand, its mere presence offers a modicum of security in a lawless part of the world. Just a couple of miles down the road, a dozen so-called Mai Mai militiamen wandered around wielding spears with vegetation and vines wrapped around their heads.

"The U.N. does nothing," Mbusa said. "When there is fighting, they don't even come out. They stare at us."

Civilians crowded around the Rwindi further south U.N. base made similar complaints, but said peacekeepers had brought them rice and curry and had allowed them to sleep — outside — beside a U.N. shipping container during Sunday night's exchange of artillery.

Congo has the world's largest U.N. peacekeeping mission, with 17,000 troops, but the peacekeepers have been unable to either stop the fighting or protect civilians.

Nkunda declared a unilateral cease-fire in late October as his fighters swarmed toward Goma, which serves as headquarters for the provincial government, the U.N. and aid groups in the region.

Since then, rebels have consolidated their positions, appointing their own local administrators and forcibly recruited young men and boys to join their ranks, aid workers say.

Rebels advance north
Though the rebels halted outside Goma, they have advanced further north. Today they control the entire road from the outskirts of Goma to the doorstep of Kanyabayonga.

The dilapidated route winds through scenic Virunga National Park, where elephants roam and troops of baboons can be seen scurrying through the road. Several park ranger stations and gates are abandoned, littered with empty boots and discarded uniforms.

"They are continuing their offensive further north," U.N. peacekeeping spokesman Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich said. "This shows they're not respecting their own cease-fire they've declared."

Rebel spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa said the rebels were only defending themselves from army attacks.

Nkunda launched a rebellion in 2004, claiming to protect ethnic Tutsis from Hutu militias who fled to Congo after Rwanda's 1994 genocide left more than 500,000 Tutsis and others slaughtered. But critics say Nkunda is more interested in power and Congo's mineral wealth than in protecting his people.

Fighting among armed groups has ground on for years in eastern Congo's lawless North Kivu province, despite hopes that security would improve after 2006 elections, the country's first democratic vote since it gained independence half a century ago. The vote was the culmination of a peace process that ended a devastating 1998-2002 war that drew in half a dozen African nations and split the vast nation into rival fiefdoms.

Mbusa, who is a refugee in his own town, said he hoped there would be no fighting if rebels seized Kanyabayonga. Some said they feared rebels would massacre civilians as human rights groups said they did earlier this month in Kiwanja, further south.

The U.N., "they don't even let us inside," he said, just yards from the base. "All we can do is duck down and pray."

New U.N. resolution
A proposed new U.N. resolution would increase the 17,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in conflict-wracked Congo by about 3,100 troops and police.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his top U.N. envoy in Congo have been urging the U.N. Security Council to beef up its presence in eastern Congo, where clashes between fighters loyal to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda and the Congolese army have created a humanitarian crisis.

The French-drafted resolution, obtained Monday by the Associated Press, would add 2,785 military personnel and 300 police to the force.

Diplomats said the expect a quick vote, probably later this week.

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