DR Congo town relieved to see the back of M23 rebels

Kiwanja (DR Congo) (AFP) - Small restaurants once again fire up their stoves at night in Kiwanja as residents venture out after dusk for the first time in months after rebels were driven from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo town.

Brand new national flags have gone up and the streets swarm with soldiers a week after government troops seized the town from the M23 rebels in a lightning offensive against the insurgents in the lush, hilly region bordering Uganda.

After over a year of occupation by the rebels in the verdant town, ringed by mountains, residents of Kiwanja are relieved to see the back of looting, theft, intimidation and daily fear for their lives.

The economy is picking up as life returns to normal and a strict nighttime curfew has fallen by the wayside.

"The M23 hurt us, they mistreated us," a 17-year-old boy told AFP in the town, 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Goma, the capital of the mineral-rich and conflict-torn east of the country.

They "took shopkeepers' merchandise, looted, abducted young boys. We had a curfew at 6:00 pm. They were hard, not nice to the people and if you had a problem with them, it's over!" he added.

"They took the money for buying the fish that I sell," complained Rehema, a 36-year-old woman living in the town, who said her sister's house had been looted by the rebels.

In a hotel courtyard, an army officer delivers a strict warning to his soldiers deployed in the town

"We are in a town which has just emerged from war. You must behave yourselves or I will replace you. Don't bother the population, ask for 500 francs ($0.5/0.37 euros) or a cigarette..."

Kinshasa and the UN mission in the country MONUSCO -- which has a large base in the town -- reported looting by the rebels in the town between June and August.

Angry locals set fire to the rebels' huts in July, after which several residents told AFP young men were rounded up and taken away by the insurgents.

Kiwanja previously came into the spotlight in November 2008, when about 150 people were massacred there -- many of them by the CNDP militia, a predecessor to M23 -- despite the presence of the peacekeepers.

The ethnic Tutsi rebels fighting for the CNDP were incorporated into the Congolese army under a 2009 peace deal.

However claiming the pact had not been fully implemented, they mutinied in April 2012 and named themselves M23 after the failed March 23 accord.

Kinshasa and the United Nations have repeatedly accused neighbouring Rwanda of supporting the rebels, who overwhelmed the DRC army to briefly capture regional capital Goma in November last year.

However with a whipped-into-shape Congolese army backed by a new UN brigade with an unprecedented offensive mandate, the M23 has been rapidly routed in two weeks of heavy fighting.

A hairdresser in Kiwanja, speaking anonymously, feels however residents are still in a "red zone", while a man seated in a hotel rails against Rwanda "wanting to disturb people".

The M23 has now fled to the hills in the region after being driven from their bases, and have called for a truce which has so far been ignored by the army which pounded their positions on Monday.