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Keeping Congo together

SYED BADRUL Ahsan writes from Bunia, Congo
The helicopter ride from Entebbe in Uganda to Bunia in the Congo takes close to two hours. As the chopper wades into Congolese territory, it is a vast expanse of pristine green that opens up below. A light rain creates something of a mist before the sun breaks through the clouds again to reveal a landscape that speaks of serenity redolent of undisturbed nature.
But that is only an illusion. On the ground, once the helicopter lands amid what looks like nowhere, it is the desolation brought on by the Congo's murderous politics which strikes the sensibilities.
The airport in Bunia is really an airstrip where the presence of Bangladeshi soldiers and airmen is conspicuous. And all around are helicopters, aircraft and vehicles manned by the United Nations as it tries, through the presence of international peacekeepers, to prevent a country from falling apart.
The men of Bangladesh armed forces take the visitors just arrived through dusty, unpaved roads to quarters maintained by Bangladeshi battalions, simply known as Banbat. As the vehicles bearing the visitors, among whom are senior Bangladesh military'officers and journalists, grind their way through the difficult roads, the catastrophe that Congo has largely been manifests itself all too well.
A woman crosses the street with a basket of pineapples
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on her head, the obvious aim being to sell them at some market nearby. Listless young men stare at the passing vehicles, seemingly unimpressed because they have been seeing them for a long time now. The shops along the roads take one back to the 1950s, when modernity was yet to touch the third world. It is a travel back in time as one passes by homes that are threadbare. Some are derelict, with their residents sitting on the doorstep on an afternoon that is like any other - lazy, quiet and secretly restive.
Bunia is one of the more dangerous places in the Congo today. There are other places, Mahagi for instance, where conditions are a trifle better. In Bunia, one can feel the hostility its residents demonstrate toward the UN and those who are here to keep the peace.
At the Banbat centres, Bangladesh's
soldiers keep their eyes focused on all the four geographical directions for any sign of trouble, of snipers daring to take a potshot at the peacekeepers. Can one take a stroll through the dusty streets in the quiet of the evening? The answer is clear: one should not, for there are the elements who might be on the prowl for victims. It has happened before.
The moon shines bright through the fleecy clouds as one walks back to the guest house with military officers after a dinner at the nearby Rubb I lall in Ndromo Camp. A number of the officers have just arrived on a year's tour of duty. In a place like Bunia, a day's stay is a risky affair. A year is a lifetime.
And the Congo has spent a lifetime trying to make peace with itself. Bangladesh's soldiers are pitching in with help.