DRC: Interview with a warlord

[dArKeR]

Officially Jules Mutebutsi is a colonel in Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) army, but he recently rose to a more senior rank -- warlord.

A conflict the world hoped was over blazed up again last month when Mutebutsi's rebels led against the DRC government and turned the city of Bukavu into a battleground.

The uprising was quelled and the colonel retreated with 300 men into Rwanda, where UK newspaper, The Observer found him at a rickety table in a glade playing cards with friends, considering his next move.

Softly spoken and skinny, wearing a green tracksuit and black slippers, he did not look like a master of mayhem. So far his warlord stint had not been successful. After a week pillaging Bukavu, his force was chased out, along with the Congolese Tutsi civilians it claimed to be protecting, turning them all into refugees.

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=118525&t=1