Congo

Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931)American poetVachel Lindsay believed it wasn't enough just to write poetry -- a poet needed to read it as well.Committed to reviving poetry as an oral art form of the common people, Lindsay wrote and read compositions with powerful rhythms that had immediate appeal. Among the 20 or so poems that audiences demanded to hear were "General Booth Enters into Heaven," "The Congo" and "The Santa Fe Trail."Lindsay's popularity declined during the 1920s. He committed suicide by drinking poison.

NYAMATA, Rwanda -- In a land haunted by the 1994 genocide, where small boys bear machete scars across their skulls, where creeks wash up bones on shore, the civil war in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo is seen as a battle for Rwandan survival.The dreams of Casius Niyonsaba, a 10-year-old Tutsi boy, tell him so. He stands in the Nyamata Catholic Church in southern Rwanda on an overcast morning and walks behind the altar. He points to the spot where his mother, father and three sisters were hacked to death in a raid by radical Hutu militias, known as the Interahamwe.

IN 14 MONTHS as ruler of Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, Laurent Kabila has not coped.His victory last year over the tyranny of Mobutu Sese Seko was greeted with joy. But it was easy to doubt he was up to the job.A small-time revolutionary of the 1960s, he was propped up by an invading army of largely Rwandan Tutsis defending the Banyamulenge, their kin in Congo, and pursuing their Hutu enemy. The people wanted anyone but Mobutu.The rebellion against Mr. Kabila, now spreading from eastern Congo toward the capital Kinshasa, appears to come from the Tutsi army that put him in power but also to be picking up Congolese soldiers.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- The U.S. airstrike against a chemical plant in Sudan, in the wake of the twin bombings of the U.S. embassies here and in Tanzania, has increased tensions in an area already in turmoil.With civil war threatening in the Democratic Republic of Congo and insurrections of one kind or another in most of the nearby countries, including Sudan, Central Africa is on the brink of explosion.A war in the Congo could quickly spill over its borders and involve its volatile neighbors, unless South African President Nelson Mandela can broker a last-minute peace agreement this weekend.

PRETORIA, South Africa -- Leaders of 15 African states yesterday called for an immediate cease-fire in the civil war in Congo to head off the threat of full-scale regional conflict.Congolese President Laurent Kabila's Angolan allies captured a key rebel stronghold in western Congo yesterday. The rebels acknowledged losing the town of Kitona, but said they were continuing their advance on Kinshasa, the capital, and had captured the eastern city of Kisangani.At their summit in South Africa's capital, the African leaders called for a standstill of troops and recognized the government of Kabila, who toppled dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

SPREADING THE WORD about missionaries who serve in the world's challenging areas was one theme of the musical "Prayerworks," sung by the Kid's Choir on Sunday at North Carroll Assembly of God church in Manchester.The 28-member choir of boys and girls, ages 3 through 11, were directed by Cindy Myers, former vocal music teacher at North Carroll Middle School.The children's performance was part of a two-day mission-awareness convention coinciding with a visit from the Rev. Gary Dickinson and his family, who serve as missionaries in the Congo.

TRYING TO ERASE 32 years of misrule, its newest savior has renamed Zaire as the Democratic Republic of Congo and reimposed the flag it took at independence. As a fiery leftist of the 1960s, President Laurent Kabila is trying symbolically to turn the calendar back three decades and redo things right. But in real policy, the only way is forward.Mr. Kabila has no track record in government. Contradictory messages from him told each hearer what he or she wished to hear. A radio broadcast in his name was full of 1960s revolutionary rhetoric.

HAVANA -- He was Che Guevara's worst headache. Laurent Kabila, leader of the rebel forces in Zaire, is portrayed as leader of an earlier, failed rebellion, but witnesses from those times say he was often far from the fighting, and had a tendency to issue orders that were impossible to carry out.Guevara and nearly 100 Cuban officers spent six months in Zaire -- then the Congo -- in 1965. trying to train fighters in a movement begun by members of the government of that assassinated Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

LAURENT KABILA's government mocks the constitutional provisions laboriously drafted by the ousted Mobutu regime. By claiming to govern presidentially without a prime minister, and by decree, Mr. Kabila is not only resisting the pretensions of Etienne Tshisekedi. He is proclaiming revolution rather than evolution for the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire.The first 13 cabinet ministers kept the key portfolios among his loyal lieutenants. Others went to men associated with the political opposition to Mobutu Sese Seko.

LUBUMBASHI, Zaire -- Until seven months ago, the man who declared himself president of what he has renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo was an obscure rebel leader with a history of starting quixotic Marxist revolts that fell apart. He had never administered anything larger than a small socialist commune in the mountains of eastern Zaire in the 1970s.Now Laurent Desire Kabila has succeeded in ousting President Mobutu Sese Seko and becoming the next ruler of Zaire, a vast country of more than 40 million people whose tribal and regional conflicts would try the skills of the most masterful statesman.

There are plenty of reasons to be upset about what's going on in the Congo. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's angry response to a student who asked her what her husband thought about a matter of local importance is not one of them. The United Nations reports that there have been 200,000 acts of sexual violence in the Congo since 1998, 65 percent against children. Since January, more than half of the thousands of rapes reported were perpetrated by the Congolese army, according to Human Rights Watch.

Congo rebels withdraw from front lines RWINDI, Congo: Rebels in Congo pulled hundreds of fighters back from several front-line positions as promised yesterday in what the United Nations said was a welcome step toward brokering peace in the volatile nation. Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda told U.N. envoy Olusegun Obasanjo over the weekend that he was committed to a cease-fire and U.N. peace efforts. Rebels announced Tuesday that their fighters would immediately withdraw 25 miles from hot spots north of Goma to prevent further fighting.

Headphones interfere with heart devices NEW ORLEANS: A new study indicates that headphones can interfere with heart devices such as a pacemaker or an implanted defibrillator. "Headphones contain magnets, and some of these magnets are powerful," said the study's leader, Dr. William Maisel, a cardiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and a consultant to the Food and Drug Administration. "The headphone interaction applies whether or not the headphones are plugged in to the music player and whether or not the music player is on or off."

Fears stir that Congo violence will spread GOMA, Congo: Congo's warring rivals traded accusations yesterday that Angola, Zimbabwe and Rwanda are mobilizing forces to fight in Congo, and the prime minister flew into this besieged city to assess weeks of fighting that have displaced a quarter-million people. The accusations of foreign involvement, reminiscent of a disastrous 1998-2002 war that drew in eight African nations, stoked fears of a wider conflict in this mineral-rich nation. Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito arrived in Goma just before dusk yesterday with half his Cabinet and met with U.N. envoy Alan Doss and U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy as well as local officials.

Car hits Israeli soldiers, injuring 13; driver shot JERUSALEM: A driver plowed a BMW into a group of soldiers at a busy intersection near Jerusalem's Old City late yesterday, injuring 13 of them before he was shot to death, Israeli police and the rescue service said. Jerusalem police commander Ilan Franco said a soldier in the group killed the driver, who was not immediately identified. Franco said he was a Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem who apparently acted alone. Israel TV said the car was registered to a resident of Jabel Mukaber, an Arab village inside the city limits.

The militia of young men raided a village and took away a woman after peeling off the child that was strapped on her back. They then frog-marched her to a nearby bush where, in front of her husband and older children, they raped and then killed her. This is one of the tales from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where war is an enduring fact of life. Dr. Denis Mukwege, the director and chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Panzi Hospital in Bukavu in eastern Congo, has heard of, and sometimes witnessed, such heartrending scenes.

MUSIC KEITH URBAN AND CARRIE UNDERWOOD / / 7:30 p.m., Wednesday. 1st Mariner Arena, 201 W. Baltimore St. $43-$73. 410-547-7328 or ticketmaster.com ....................... This is definitely a picture-perfect tour, headlined by two of country music's most beautiful people. And beyond the stylish gear and great hair, Urban and Underwood are talented artists, imbuing country with accessible pop textures. It also doesn't hurt that each has sold truckloads of albums. ....................

Exhibit `Panama' paintings Go see Panama: Paintings cre ated in the Congo aesthetic tra ditions developed and practiced at Taller Portobelo in Portobelo at Sub-Basement Artist Studi os, 118 N. Howard St. in the Atrium at Market Center. The gallery is open today by ap pointment only. Call 410-659-6950 or subbasementartiststudios.com.

Kinshasa, Congo -- Under the swirling lights at the nightclub L'Atmosphere, Congolese music's hottest new star is in full swing. "This love was like a novel by Shakespeare," croons Fally Ipupa as his backup singers harmonize and the single-plucked guitars run circles around each other. "You turn it into one by Daniel Dafoe/ I stay isolated like Robinson Crusoe." Fally, as everyone calls him, has a weakness for Americana. His hat of choice is a New York Yankees cap. His jeans ride low in belated emulation of the boxers-baring hip-hop style.

UNICEF permitted interviews with the children in this story only on condition that their real names not be used since they remain at risk of being targeted by militant groups. BUKAVU, Democratic Republic of the Congo -- The day his childhood ended, he was a 12-year-old boy playing cards with friends in his village. Then five gun-toting men appeared. As horrified parents looked on, the men marched the crying, barefoot boys single file into the world of child soldiering. Hers ended when she was just 10. Marauding soldiers had killed her uncle and scores of others in her village; they were looting and, she says, "doing everything."