Global Policy Forum

By Somini Sengupta

The whiz of bullets overhead had barely died down when the boys of Bunia went to the movies. Dozens of little boys, teenage boys and bored young men packed into a dark sweaty room, sat on its window ledges and stood in its narrow doorway, all to watch Congolese music videos and one shoot-'em-up movie after another.

Dueling ethnic militias may have turned Bunia into a war zone. Most shops in the main market are gutted. Hairdressers, butchers, the town's only Internet cafe — all remain shuttered. But the town's movie theaters are open and alive. Kung-fu pictures are among their most popular features, as are any movies starring Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jackie Chan or Arnold Schwarzenegger. At the Cinéma Usu-Usu today, a stone's throw from the United Nations office responsible for peacekeeping operations here, "Mortal Kombat" was the afternoon feature.

The Sunday afternoon feature at Cinéma Mabizi, a short distance away, was a Cantonese-language action picture called "Iron Angels." Papi Bahati, 19, pointed to a crudely painted poster and explained the plot — or, rather, explained it as best as he could, considering that he understood not a word of dialogue. "This one is fighting with his older brother because of money," he said, as a crowd of his fellow cinéastes murmured and screamed in approval. "His older brother wants to take all the money. In the end, he kills his brother. Those two girls are helping him." Actually, he said, correcting himself, the hero refuses to kill his brother. His female partners, shown on the poster with tight leather vests and guns at the ready, do the job for him.

That plot of internecine warfare was all the more notable in that it had captured the imagination of the boys of Bunia. Here on Saturday, militias representing the town's two major ethnic groups, the Hema and the Lendu, tore at each other with machine guns and mortars for five hours, bringing the town to a terrified standstill. For generations, the Hema and Lendu people have lived side by side here, in the capital of the northeastern province Ituri. Only in recent years, aided by the armies of neighboring countries, have they fought mercilessly for its spoils: diamonds, gold, timber and coltan, a mineral used in cellphones. The last massacre here, carried out over several days last month, littered the town with at least 430 bodies. The latest skirmish, on Saturday, was tame by comparison: four people dead, five wounded, a village burned less than an hour's drive away.

The next day, the boys at Cinéma Mabizi, a one-room affair with a few chairs and a color television mounted on a high shelf, were delighted to have a reprieve.

"There's nothing to do," said one boy.

"No school," said another.

"Nothing to eat," said a third. He, like many of his pals, sat inside the Mabizi from 10 in the morning until past 5 in the afternoon. He would have had to skip lunch anyway, he said, so he fed his appetite instead with five Congolese music videos and three action movies.

"Iron Angels" was the final treat. When the credits rolled, the boys piled out in their dirty flip-flops, demonstrated the hip gyrations of Werra Son, the Congolese pop star whose videos they watched in the morning, then did a few faux karate chops before a peeling painting of Mr. Stallone. Night was coming. The boys would have to be home by 6:30.

On the main road, pickup trucks roared by, loaded up with gun-toting Bunia boys. They belonged to the ethnic Hema militia that now controls this town. They wear oversized fatigues. Those who have none seem to favor Tupac Shakur T-shirts and American flag do-rags on their heads.

Minutes after the movies let out and the sun set for the night, French fighter jets roared over Bunia, capable of dropping laser-guided bombs. They are part of a United Nations-authorized effort to restore law and order to the town.

The boys of Bunia said they would be back at the movies by 10 the next morning, provided they could scrounge the price of admission: 40 francs, or about 11 cents.

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