Congo rebels call cease-fire

Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo announced a unilateral cease-fire Wednesday, offering hopes of an end to the violence that has displaced 200,000 people since August.

Earlier in the day, false reports about advancing rebels sent thousands of panicked families fleeing a displacement camp and storming into the eastern city of Goma, where they jammed streets, rioted and attacked United Nations vehicles.

A spokesman for rebel leader Gen. Laurent Nkunda confirmed the cease-fire agreement but provided no details.

Experts said the rebel leader, who claims to be fighting to protect ethnic Tutsis, is probably seeking to solidify his recent territorial gains in the hopes of gaining the upper hand in peace talks.

It remained unclear how long any cease-fire might hold. Past agreements between Nkunda and the government have quickly collapsed.

The country’s northeast region has been ravaged by unrest, disease and starvation for more than a decade, resulting in millions of deaths. Efforts to end the turmoil, including a U.N.-monitored presidential election in 2006 and a peace treaty signed in January by Nkunda and the government of President Joseph Kabila, have failed to keep militias and armed ethnic groups from vying for control.

Government officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but officials at the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo heralded the cease-fire announcement.

“This gives peace a chance, and the humanitarian community will be able to organize themselves,” said Madnodje Mounoubai, a U.N. spokesman in the capital, Kinshasa.

The cease-fire agreement capped a day of mass hysteria, sparked by the sight of deserting government soldiers.

U.N. officials denied there were any rebel incursions toward Goma, headquarters for the 17,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force, the largest in the world. “It was just panic among civilians,” Mounoubai said.

The panic apparently began at an overcrowded displacement facility six miles north of the city, where 45,000 people have swarmed in recent days.

By midafternoon, camp dwellers saw government soldiers running away from the battlefield and toward Goma. Fearing rebels were in hot pursuit, thousands of people spontaneously joined the exodus, carrying children, goats, mattresses and water cans on their backs.

“The army ran, so we must too,” said Bingo Mamashagu, father of four.

After the crowd had reached Goma, which had been calm for most of the day, the city erupted into chaos. “They stampeded into the city,” said Ron Redmond, spokesman of the U.N.’s refugee agency.

It was unclear why government soldiers were retreating toward Goma, but some reports suggested they might have feared Rwandan troops were preparing to intervene on the side of rebels.

A spokesman for Nkunda accused government soldiers of ransacking the city.

“They are looting and killing the people in Goma,” said Bertrand Bisimwa, a spokesman for Nkunda’s National Congress for People’s Defense. “We want to see [the U.N.] act to stop this.”

Casualties figures were unclear late Wednesday, but there were unconfirmed reports of people being injured in the melee or being hit by speeding cars. Shooting, reportedly by soldiers, could be heard into the late evening.

At one point, rumors quickly swirled that the rebels had seized the airport and that U.N. staff were evacuating.

Faced with a throng of desperate, angry people, U.N. security officials quickly mobilized some civilian staff into a central location in the city. As it turned out, rebels did not seize the airport and U.N. staff did not evacuate.

Earlier this week, mobs of residents stoned four U.N. facilities in Goma, accusing the international body of failing to do enough to stop the fighting.

Believing that the U.N. was abandoning the city to rebels, residents stoned U.N. vehicles, destroyed a small statue in the center of town and set a fire at an intersection to block U.N. trucks from passing. When one U.N. military vehicle broke down, residents attacked the troops with rocks and attempted to destroy the tires, witnesses said.

Hundreds of Congolese and dozens of international aid workers headed toward the border to Rwanda.

The cease-fire comes just as humanitarian groups were warning that the displacement crisis was approaching catastrophic levels.

“We are very concerned about the lack of food and water and blankets and everything,” said Erna Van Goor, head of the Goma office for Doctors Without Borders, an international aid group.

In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for “an end to all threats against the city of Goma and its environs, for a halt to attacks on United Nations personnel and humanitarian workers and for immediate humanitarian access to endangered populations.”

Ban, who was visiting the Philippines, told reporters there that he was sending envoys to Congo and neighboring Rwanda to insist that their feuding leaders end their quarrels and help relieve tension on their borders.

The U.N. Security Council has condemned offensive operations in the region and urged all parties to observe a cease-fire.

Security Council members met privately with U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy, who briefed them about the tensions in Goma.

Later, Le Roy told reporters that member states had heard the urgency “for additional forces, additional battalions, additional aviation, additional capacity.”

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Sanders is a Times staff writer.

edmund.sanders @latimes.com

Times staff writer Geraldine Baum in New York and special correspondents Fidel Bafilemba and Josh Kron in Goma contributed to this report.