DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Gradually, Rwandan rebels are leaving the DRC. The UN hopes the trickle will grow to a flood, Declan Walsh reports from Bulonge
The white UN van hurtled down the winding border road. Hunkered in the back, wearing a tiger-print T-shirt, was Hutu rebel Damasene Ntawigera. For five years he had fought in the jungles of eastern Congo. Now, as darkness fell, he was returning to Rwanda.
"I am not afraid. For us, the war is over," he said, crouching with his wife, two infant children and a bag of possessions. Moments later he crossed into Rwanda, where military officials were waiting. Stepping silently from the van, Mr Ntawigera headed home.
A drip of Rwandan rebels like Mr Ntawigera is abandoning Congo's five-year war. Progress is slow. Although the UN has repatriated 1,300 fighters in the past two years, probably ten times as many remain, hidden in the east's impenetrable forests.
But a high-level defection recently has inflated hopes that the drip will soon turn to a flood. Last Saturday evening Maj-Gen Paul Rwarakabije, a leading Hutu commander, quietly crossed into Rwanda. Once across the border, he surrendered to the Tutsi-led government that for years he struggled to overthrow. Hours later, he appealed to his troops to follow him home.
The defection highlighted the increasing isolation of the famously ruthless Hutu fighters. Having fled Rwanda after the 1994 genocide - in which many were implicated - they became notorious as Congo's most shadowy and vicious militia.
Bands of gunmen roamed the vast forests, pillaging villages, raping women and contributing to a death toll of over three million. But since summer's peace deal between President Joseph Kabila and the main rebel groups, the Rwandans find themselves surrounded by enemies. Supply lines from the Kinshasa government have been cut. Their local allies, the Mayi-Mayi militia, have largely deserted them. For some, the writing is on the wall.
In Bulonge, a bumpy two-hour drive from the border, a group of Hutu officers met in a deserted wooden church. Child soldiers, some barely taller than their rifles, lounged in the door of a ruined building.
When war started Lieu-Col Abdallah Shabani recruited these men to fight. Now he is cajoling them into disbanding. "If the Congolese don't want war, then what are we doing here?" he said. "There is peace in Rwanda, so remaining in Congo is a waste of time." The UN expects to repatriate 60 of these fighters next week. There are rumours that thousands more are preparing the join them.
However, the real challenge lies a mile from the shaky church, at the gate of an abandoned quinine plantation. Ragged young men in dirty T-shirts loitered against a wall, sucking on cigarettes and swinging their battered AK-47 rifles.
The fighters were with the largest Hutu rebel group, the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda). UN officials guess they number about 10,000. Until last week Maj-Gen Rwarakabije was their leader. But several of the lounging, suspicious soldiers said his surrender would not spark a sudden exodus. "We need time to think about it," said Jean-Marie Vianni. Others hinted they felt the general had betrayed them. "He wasn't the head. Other leaders will replace him, and give us our orders," said a sour-faced soldier in a black T-shirt.
The shadow of genocide hangs over these fighters. Although commonly described as Interahamwe - the militia that led the 1994 slaughter - most are too young to have taken part.
However, many of their officers are war crimes suspects, some with a $5 million bounty on their heads offered by the US government.
"I don't see an avalanche of returns taking place yet," said Mr Jason Stearns, a UN demobilisation officer. "Some extremists have nothing to gain by going back to Rwanda. Persuading them might take more than words."
Today the new Congolese army largely controls the area. Former enemies from the RCD rebels and Mayi-Mayi chat by the roadside. They are being paid - just $12 a month (€10.1) but nonetheless the first salaries they have seen in over a decade.
Villages no longer empty at nightfall, and by day the roads are jammed with thousands of people walking to the local marketplace. But uncertainties abound.
The Congolese army remains weak and divided. The ease with which Maj-Gen Rwarakabije slipped across the border suggested some soldiers have stronger loyalties to Rwanda than Congo. The provincial capital, Bukavu, is gripped with rumours of a fresh rebellion.
And instead of returning home, the FDLR could plunge deeper into the forest, sparking a fresh wave of looting and violence.