The first stretch of road seen by new un troops in Congo after their arrival at the airport in Goma, the country's second-biggest city, is a stark indicator of what lies ahead. The road-a rare bit of tarmac-was the site of a stunning victory not long ago by Tutsi fighters opposed to central rule. Heavily armed, they swept down from volcanic hills late last year to the shallow shores of Lake Kivu along the road to Sake, a smaller town where un troops will soon be based, pushing demoralised Congolese government soldiers ahead of them (see map on next page). Man-high grass on both sides of the road was for days littered with uniformed corpses, flies swarming over the slow, the drunk and the unlucky.
展开▼
