The reason is that after 14 years of fighting in the provinces of North and South Kivu, the governments of Rwanda and Congo finally signed a mutually beneficial agreement in November to squash each other's enemy guerrilla outfits.
He says his men have killed 50 enemy combatants — guerrillas of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, known by their French initials, F.D.L.R., which include remnants of the Hutu fighters who carried out the genocide in neighboring Rwanda in 1994 and who have since made a haven in Congo.
(As U.S. General David Petraeus skillfully and quietly demonstrated in extricating the United States from Iraq by buying off most enemy Sunni guerrillas and getting them to fight against al Qaeda, the policy is still used occasionally, but we just don't call it the a-word).
"The U.S. is a brutal enemy," a guerrilla leader known as Richard told a dozen rebels during a class about the invasion of Iraq.
Meanwhile, the population in major towns and villages is vulnerable because we are off elsewhere chasing the enemy main-force guerrillas, allowing terrorist and insurgent cells based in the populated areas to intimidate people where they live.
By the time they left, late the following Sunday afternoon, they had killed at least 36 people whom they accused of collaborating with the enemy, left-wing guerrillas who have long been a presence in the area.
There is, of course, a hesitancy in time of war — and, in particular, during an increasingly unpopular war against an entrenched guerrilla enemy — to publish stories that could be interpreted as undermining military morale.
But the FARC dominates the Arauca region of eastern Colombia where the snatch took place, and U'wa leaders said the paramilitary groups, fierce enemies of the guerrillas, had not been active in the area.
