Burning, Looting, Rape and “Sad Faces” Provide Virtual Reality in Congo

February 3, 2012 By Georgianne Nienaber

Villagers' food consists mainly of some wild vegetable and wild manioc (cassava) that they find in the bush. (Photo by Paluku Mbusa Omer 2012.)

The road to the truth about what is happening in the remote region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) known as Walikale depends now upon a Mwami, a motorbike, and a very determined man named Paluku Mbusa Omer. For the past two months we have been telling readers about atrocities committed by the FDLR (remnants of the Rwanda genocidaires) including assassinations, rapes, burnings of villages, looting, protection payoffs and epidemics of disease among the children and the elderly who are fleeing through the forests.

So, it was startling to read an item in the Voice of America, echoed by the propaganda arm of the Rwandan government, the New Times, that the United States is cooperating with Rwanda to eliminate the murderous FDLR genocidaires from eastern Congo. The new U.S. envoy to the Great Lakes region, Ambassador Barrie Walkley, is an Obama/Clinton appointee. Both articles (dated Tuesday, January 31) implied that the FDLR is significantly weakened.

The muddy road to Walikale tells another story, based upon eyewitness accounts from Mwami Lukonge, Omer, and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). On the morning of Saturday January 29, King “Mwami” Lukonge climbed onto the back of Omer’s small motorbike for a 200- kilometer (124 mile) trip to the village of Lushali. There, displaced villagers from Walowa Yungu Groupement in Walikale Territory were seeking refuge with extended family members. The FDLR had burned their villages, killed many of the men, and raped every woman they could find along their way. The men who survived were hiding in the forests.

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