Congo says martial law has brought calm. Yet violence is rising

has been on fire, on and off, for three decades. Last year Congo’s president, Félix Tshisekedi, declared a “state of siege” in two especially violent provinces, North Kivu and Ituri. That meant imposing martial law and dispatching generals to replace politicians. The soldiers claim to have restored a measure of peace. “Before we got here, there was almost total insecurity,” says General Johnny Luboya N’Kashama, the governor of Ituri. “People were walking freely in the streets with the heads of their victims.” Now, he suggests, things are much better. To persuade your correspondent that this is true, the Congolese army offers him a guided tour. A convoy of soldiers sporting guns and sunglasses drives him from Bunia, Ituri’s capital, to Irumu, a small town 60km away (see map). At one point the convoy is stalled by a lorry partially submerged in the muddy road. Soldiers dig an alternative route. “The Congolese military—they’re strong,” says their colonel, referring to his soldiers’ spade work. To reward himself, at the next village, he grabs a cold bottle of Heineken beer.