Video

Congo, the so called Heart of Darkness. People call it an African Worldwar what has taken place here during the last ten years. What is still preventing peace in this vast country?

One day we were driving to the airport, like always -too late- on a mission with Eric. There was a traffic jam in the center of Bukavu, and suddenly we realized that not only the cars didn't move but also all people around us freezed. It was the daily flag ceremony at 7am in Bukavu.

Eric's all day mission: driving up to a small village in the remote areas, trying to get in touch with Hutu-fighters and to convince them to go home....

One of the countless missions to really remote places: Lulingu's airstrip is the only connection, no roads lead to here. UN-Intelligence suggested that Eric could find an FDLR-Camp nearby.

But, like the corpulent chief said: "problemes de communication"

(sorry, no engl.subtitles)

During our 4 month stay in the Kivus, two massacres happened in the Walungu-Area. It all reminded at the Rwandan genocide: even women and children were brutally killed with machetes, the attackers spoke Kinyarwanda. They stole, kidnapped, destroyed security. And there was nobody to protect the people.

Everybody was really upset two days after the attacks, when we arrived there. Just the day before, people of the nearby town Kanyola had blocked the street and threw stones on a UN-convoy, that came to investigate.

 

Bernard Kalume has lived in Kigali until '94, he was the singer in the famous band 'Muhabura'. Today he struggles to get the old members together to make music again.

Amongst the three screenings in Rwanda, the one in Butare was the most impressing: The Campus of the National University has a large auditorium that was packedl- 600 students were impassioned by the film. After the screening there was an intense discussion. Many students came up with solutions and told us their opinion. As we did not bring extra light-equipment, the video is a bit gloomy.

Tout les commentaires sont en francais, apparament les étudiants préferent le francais - même si l'anglais est devenu langue officielle. 

Aimable was one of the many Hutu-Fighters, who presented themselves at the Monuc headquarter in Bukavu. About 10 thousand Hutu-Fighters like him are said to be in Congo. Aimable was 19 years old, when he decided to flee from his unit where he had served as soldier with the rank of private for the last 9 years.

Three years later, back in Rwanda. We could find Aimable with the help of the Repatriation-Commission in Kigali/Rwanda. They have a huge database containing all repatriated fighters. It was not a big deal to get the permission to visit him. One official from the local repatriation-office escorted us to Aimables house and followed the talks.