Congolese tell how rebels changed from killers to cannibals

BENI, Congo -- Hiding in bushes, Amuzati Nzoli watched as rebel soldiers turned from killers into cannibals: his 6-year-old nephew was their victim.

Accounts like the one told by the middle-aged Pygmy are sweeping through northeastern Congo.

Human rights activists and investigators from the United Nations say rebels cooked and ate at least a dozen Pygmies and an undetermined number of people from other tribes during recent fighting with rival insurgents.

Pygmies have no calendar, so Nzoli can't say exactly when the rebels from the Congolese Liberation Movement invaded his forest camp. But he remembers what he saw.

The rebels slaughtered the dozen people they found at the camp. Nzoli, who had been hunting, arrived during the attack and hid.

Rebel fighters butchered the man's nephew, Kebe Musika, and roasted his body parts over an open fire, grabbing pieces from the smoldering embers.

"They even sprinkled salt on the flesh as they ate, as if cannibalism was all very natural to them," Nzoli said. He fled as the rebels were eating his nephew and can't say what happened to the bodies of the others.

It is not the first time cannibalism has been reported in Congo; it generally occurs during great upheaval, like the Simba rebellion in 1964.

The latest upheaval is the country's 4-year civil war, which has left an estimated 2.5 million people dead, the vast majority from starvation. It set the stage for this latest round of cannibalism.

As in the past, the attacks are fueled by a mix of tribal animosities and a desire to spread fear in the region. There is also a belief among some that eating one's foes is a source of power.

The rebels used cannibalism "to provoke terrible fear in their foes and pave the way to dramatic success in the battlefield," said Apollinaire Kighoma, a Roman Catholic priest in Mangina, 19 miles northwest of Beni.

The priest has heard accounts about the practice from hundreds of people displaced by fighting who have taken refuge at his church.

"Once you develop a reputation as a cannibal, no one wants to stay in your path," Kighoma said.

Most of the reported acts of cannibalism took place between November and December when the Congolese Liberation Movement launched a successful offensive to retake Mambasa, a town about 70 miles northwest of Beni.

The Congolese Liberation Movement had previously lost the town to a rival rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement, which was allied with Mayi-Mayi tribal fighters.

The Mayi-Mayi believe witchcraft endows them with supernatural power to transform bullets into water.

Witch doctors reportedly told troops from the Congolese Liberation Movement that the Mayi-Mayi were vulnerable to bullets fired by people who had eaten the hearts of young men, said Jackson Basikania, coordinator of the Program for the Assistance to Pygmies in Congo.

Tribal rivalries, fueled by the fight to control the region's mineral and timber resources, determined the victims.

Aside from the Pygmies, many other victims were Nande, the tribe from which most of the leadership of the rival rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement, is drawn. Some of the Nande victims were eaten but most were killed.

Many in northeastern Congo -- one of the most fertile and resource-rich regions in the vast central African country -- regard Pygmies as less than human. Original inhabitants of Congo, they continue to live deep in the forests, eking out an existence by hunting and gathering food from small, nomadic base camps.

Congolese Liberation Movement rebels may have eaten Pygmies as punishment for their guiding rival troops through the dense forests, said Angali Salehe, the chief of the camp were Nzoli lived.

Jean-Pierre Bemba, the leader of the Congolese Liberation Movement, says he is "shocked" by reports that his troops ate people.

"I don't even know how to explain it," Bemba said by telephone from his headquarters in Gbadolite, about 630 miles northwest of Beni.

Bemba is slated to become one of Congo's four vice presidents under a peace deal reached last year. But it's unclear whether that power-sharing deal will end the war, which has been marked by shifting alliances among a handful of fractured rebel groups all jockeying for Congo's natural resources.

The rebels, backed by Rwanda and Uganda, control nearly half of the country, the third largest in Africa.

Even if Bemba had an explanation, it would offer little comfort to Nzoli. He is struggling to overcome the trauma of seeing his nephew devoured.

"I don't remember any of their faces, but the one thing that I won't ever forget is the sight of their eyes as they ate," Nzoli said. "They looked wild, evil and unlike any I have ever seen."