Congo election stirs hopes for peace among displaced villagers
By: Daniel Wallis

July 29, 2006 - (Reuters) A truce between eastern Congolese militias and the government has stirred hopes of peace for thousands of villagers displaced by fighting ahead of historic elections on Sunday. Some 50,000 people have flooded into a makeshift camp at Gety in northeastern Ituri district in recent weeks, fleeing clashes between the army and militias who have long fought for control of the mineral-rich region.

On Saturday, villagers said they hoped a peace deal signed this week with a militia warlord would hold, and that they would be able to return home again after Democratic Republic of Congo's first free multi-party polls in 40 years on Sunday. "If the militias have really decided to reconcile and leave the bush, we are approaching the solution we all want," said Edmond Tawara, a 25-year-old camp resident. "I think this election will finally bear some very good fruit in this area." Tawara fled Isura village during fighting last month and returned to find all its huts destroyed. Conditions in the camp are also hard, with little medicine, food or shelter.

Sitting on a mat of dirty straw in Gety's crumbling red-brick former prison, Aliya Muhigi clutched five children to her as her husband searched for food outside the camp. "You can see how they look, how they cough," the 48-year-old grandmother said. "My children are all sick, sick, sick." Camp leaders said 34 adults and 221 children have died in July, mostly from malnutrition and malaria. At the funeral on Saturday of one -- two-month-old Matteso Manguo -- a pastor read from the Bible in Swahili while dozens of women in brightly coloured dresses and headscarves wept. In their midst, the boy's sobbing mother cradled his corpse in her arms, tightly wrapped in a blue shawl.

To one side, camp president Gideon Katawanga said he hoped the truce with the militias would last, but he had his doubts. "The militia have not surrendered yet," he said. Ahead of Sunday's vote, security has been stepped up, led by the Congo's big United Nations peacekeeping force. Tensions flared a week ago when a family of five was shot dead and their bodies burned in their hut near Gety. The militia, most of whom are believed to be camped near the southern Ituri village of Tchei, are armed with rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and even anti-aircraft guns. "We are prepared for anything," said one U.N. officer.

Many people in Gety and the surrounding area complained of abuses, including the rape of women by Congolese soldiers whom residents said suspected them of supporting the militias. Outside the camp, almost every hut has been burned to the ground -- locals said by the army to deny the rebels hideouts. "They are treating us like slaves," said Androzo Kabona, chief of Aveba village. "Now is not the time of slavery... With the elections we are meant to be entering the time of democracy."

From: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29808174.htm