The country is supposed to be at peace, but increasingly looks as if it is not This week, rebels surged into Bukavu, one of the most important cities in eastern Congo, which nestles on the border with Rwanda. On June 2nd, they captured it, driving the government's shabby troops into the wooded hills nearby. The rebels' leader, Brigadier-General Laurent Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi, is now installed in Bukavu's governor's mansion, an elegant villa overlooking lovely Lake Kivu. He is vague on how long he plans to remain there; he told The Economist only that he intends to defend the local Tutsi population against "genocide". His soldiers are meanwhile marauding through Bukavu's more modest residences, helping themselves to loot. Columns paraded with bedrolls and sacks of stolen rice on their heads. A local showed your correspondent the scar where a rebel had bayonet-ted him through a window. UN peacekeepers stood by, to the fury of most Congolese. Mobs attacked UN compounds in at least three other cities.
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