NYT, p.1: Hopes and Tears of Congo Flow in Its Mythic River

Hopes and Tears of Congo Flow in Its Mythic River
By SOMINI SENGUPTA

Published: April 21, 2004


....Today, as this country tries to knit itself together after a half-decade of war that ended last year, the river is witness to Congo's slow, aching rebirth.

It is both symbol and substance of the country's reunification, and the life it nurtures on its banks shows the enormousness of the task.

A power-sharing government has been installed, but the authority of the state has yet to reach old rebel fiefs. There is no national army to speak of, only gunmen who remain loyal to rival warlords.

Peace still eludes pockets of the nation, like the mineral-rich Ituri region. Ethnic Hutu militias, some responsible for the killing frenzy in neighboring Rwanda in 1994, squirrel away in the eastern Kivu hills.

Not least, most everything has stopped working. Schools, hospitals and a functioning legal system are but a memory. Roads, train tracks and turbines must be rebuilt. Today the river, coursing 2,700 miles, is the country's principal highway.

Mighty and mythic, it carries everyone and everything: hyacinths, memories, traders, the dead....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/21/international/africa/21CONG.html