Word: goma
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...explain the attacks on U.N. compounds in Goma? It's a combination of things. There is a huge amount of genuine frustration. Then there's the recent outbreak of fresh hostilities. Sometimes the popular frustration is manipulated by political forces to advance their own agenda. The problem is simply practical. There are 10 million people in North and South Kivu, and we have less than 10,000 soldiers there. In Liberia I had the same amount of troops as I have for Congo, and [Liberia] is less than one-hundredth of the size. Congo is the size of Western Europe...
...have 120 soldiers in a base. In those circumstances, they might well say that they have not seen us. North Kivu is twice the size of Belgium, and a third of our forces are there, though for obvious reasons, they are mostly in and around Goma. I can understand the frustration. But you can see the scale of the problem, and we're just trying to manage these realities and these operational dilemmas. The expectations of what we can do are a problem. We cannot meet them at this stage. I would be less than honest if I said...
...humanitarian crisis erupts in Africa, a kind of collective cry goes up urging action - any action - to prevent a comparable atrocity from happening again. The current crisis and the fighting around it are apt to push more buttons than most. First, it is evocative. The Congolese town of Goma that is the center of the crisis was also where the world first had its clearest glimpse of the Rwanda atrocities. Secondly, a huge amount of the world's most important minerals, including one involved in the making of cellphones, emanate from the region and specifically from areas controlled...
Fighting has flared sporadically in eastern Congo since the end of troubles in Rwanda in 1994. Tutsi rebels under the command of the current Rwandan President Paul Kagame drove more than one million Hutus into Congo, mostly congregating there in the town of Goma. Among these fugitives were members of the ousted Rwandan army and the interahamwe death squads who had earlier carried out genocide against some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Since then fighting between Hutus and Tutsis in Congo has persisted on and off. The latest uptick pits the forces of Tutsi rebel leader, Laurent Nkunda, against...
...point, and may have achieved what he wants: a spurt of international attention, and the potential for talks with the Congolese president Kabila to air his grievances. He is in a position of strength - he's made it clear that government forces are no match for his men, and Goma is his for the taking. "Nkunda wants direct negotiations with the government," says Van Woudenberg, of Human Rights Watch. "And now he now holds the ultimate bargaining chip - the town of Goma...