In remote part of Congo, normalcy inches forward

In an old Greek restaurant next to the United Nation's headquarters here, Emmanuel Leku Apuobo, a former schoolteacher, leans forward and begins listing the work ahead.

There are refugees to resettle; schools, hospitals, and courts to rebuild; immigration and customs to be restarted; child soldiers rehabilitated and militias disarmed. There are, he says, 20,000 former civil servants in the Ituri district of Congo alone, waiting for peace and the chance to begin work again.

After nearly four years of civil war, this is a region that, as one longtime aid worker put it, has had "no demonstrable sign of government for years." Mr. Apuobo's unenviable job, as the head of Ituri's new interim administration, is to bring order to that chaos.

"Nothing has been very easy," sighs Apuobo. "The difficulty is with the armed groups who want to control Bunia [Ituri's main city]. One says, 'I want to control this part,' and the other says, 'I want to control that part.' While they're still fighting, we can't do much of anything."

Last December, most parties in this complicated war signed a peace treaty. But here in Ituri, in the far eastern part of the country, separated from neighboring Uganda by a sliver of Lake Albert, the bloodshed has continued almost unabated. Control of Bunia has changed hands at least eight times since the war began in August 1998, twice this year alone.

The conflict here has been one of Congo's most brutal and entrenched, driven by foreign greed and ethnic hatreds. Several of the main combatant groups, including the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), which now controls Bunia, are not signatories to the main peace agreement. So as the peace process moved forward 1,200 miles away in capital, Kinshasa, it became clear that Ituri would need a separate peace deal.

The result is the Ituri Pacification Commission (IPC), a 177-person body representing most of the major players here, including armed and political groups, civil society, the UN, and the new Kinshasa government. Inaugurated on April 14, the IPC created Apuobo's administration and a 32-member assembly, and gave them the task of rebuilding Ituri.

"We are working to prepare for the unification of the country," says Pétronille Vaweka, the assembly president, as she leans against what was once the restaurant's old bar. "It is one step towards what we all want, which is to be part of the Congo again."

Suddenly, Ms. Vaweka's cellphone rings, and she fishes it from her handbag. The technological revolution came two months ago to this city of burned-out, looted buildings that last saw running water and postal service more than five years ago. Although the instability has forced many IPC members to take refuge in the restaurant, cellphones are their lifeline to the outside world. "We stay in touch with NGOs, with educators, and with our members in other cities."

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