03 October 2004	Sunday	17 Shaban 1425

BUKAVU: For Samuel, things changed in June when many of his Tutsi pupils marched out of his classroom, donned fatigues and joined the ranks of rebels attacking their home town.

Samuel was furious that the Congolese ethnic Tutsis, known as the Banyamulenge, had turned on their community. Now he is one of many in this mineral-rich eastern region of Congo taking a harder line against people he previously considered brothers.

"They opened the doors of our schools and homes to the rebels and let them come to rape and steal," he said.

There are very few Banyamulenge left in Bukavu. When the two renegade army officers who seized it in June retreated, so did their fellow ethnic Tutsis. Fearing reprisals, some fled north while another 15,000 crossed into Rwanda and Burundi.

Now, with tensions running high, attempts by several hundred Banyamulenge to return from Burundi caused riots in the nearby town of Uvira, where angry villagers hurled rocks and erected blockades on the road to the border.

"They're just Rwandans. Pure trouble. I'm glad they are gone," said taxi driver Jean as he drove through a Bukavu neighbourhood where many Tutsis used to live.

Though the term Banyamulenge technically refers to the people that live near Mulenge, a mountain in Congo's South Kivu province, the term is used loosely, often to describe all Tutsis living in the former Zaire.

Their ancestors came initially to what is now Democratic Republic of Congo from Rwanda in the 19th century and have lived alongside other Congolese communities for generations.

EXTREMISTS FAN CONFLICT: Thomas Nziratimana, vice governor of South Kivu, and perhaps the only Banyamulenge civilian left in Bukavu, agrees that the June crisis has made life difficult for his people.

"Yes, there have been some tensions in the past, but things really went wrong and anti-Banyamulenge sentiment has been very strong ever since General Nkunda and Colonel Mutebusi came to town," he said.

The two renegade Tutsi army officers, members of a former rebel group backed by Rwanda, held Bukavu for a week. More than 100 people died in fighting there, dozens of women and children were raped and much of the town pillaged.

The soldiers said they were stepping in to stop "genocide" against fellow Banyamulenge but preliminary investigations by some of 10,800 United Nations peacekeepers in Congo found no evidence of targeted ethnic killings.

Nziratimana believes anti-Banyamulenge sentiment is being whipped up by extremists, a charge he repeated after thousands of people took to the streets in Uvira to stop the Banyamulenge refugees returning from Burundi.

"These people want it to be difficult, if not impossible for the Banyamulenge to return. These sentiments are entertained by officials in Kinshasa. The civil society and the Catholic Church are also involved in it," he said.

Jonas Sebatunzi Gishinge, a lawyer from Bukavu who has been in a camp just over the border in Rwanda since fleeing at the end of May, agrees. And he says the huge military reinforcements sent by Kinshasa to the east have not calmed the situation.

"People want to go back, because life as a refugee is not easy. But there are still problems," he said. "Instead of trying to ensure reconciliation, there is a campaign to try and make sure that we don't come back to Congo," he said-Reuters