Goma is very quiet. From the news, one might think that bullets are whizzing by our heads in this city in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is hard to imagine that militias and Congo’s army are conducting a war 30 miles from here, and that armed men are raping women, abducting children as soldiers, and shooting unarmed men.

Christophe Mutaka, from Groupe Martin Luther King, told us that visiting Goma is almost like being in North America—you can't really see the impact of the conflict without going to the villages and internally displaced persons (IDP) camps surrounding the city. War has displaced 250,000 people since August 2008, due to the recent surge in the conflict among General Laurent Nkunda's militia, the national army, and other groups who struggle to control this resource-rich area.

When CPTers left for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) this month, the headlines reflected dismal peacemaking prospects.  Five million Congolese have died since 1996 because of ongoing wars.  A quarter million people displaced themselves this fall because of fighting between rebel forces and Congolese troops.  The Lord's Resistance Army from Uganda crossed into the DRC to kidnap students for soldiers and female companions.  United Nations and other relief agencies have not delivered food because of the fighting.  Angola, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, and Uganda reportedly sent or were ready to send troops into the Congo because of the unrest.  Human rights monitors are reporting crisis situations.

Uganda is recovering from the violence of civil war. How does a victim community reconcile with those members who have done the killing?

Twenty years of war between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the government forces in Northern Uganda drove all the people off the land and into IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps. Now fragile peace talks are in process, resettlement on the land has begun and LRA soldiers are returning to their communities with amnesty. The LRA abducted many of the soldiers from these communities as children but they have committed horrible massacres. Is reintegration possible? How can justice prevail?