Clashes between government forces and Laurent Nkunda's men surged in August, sparking a humanitarian crisis that has uprooted more than 250,000 people from their homes and prompted the UN to approve 3,100 more peacekeepers for the troubled Central African nation.
Nkunda said he is fighting to protect Congo's minorities, especially ethnic Tutsis he said are threatened by Hutu militias from Rwanda who fled here after participating in Rwanda's 1994 genocide. Critics say Nkunda is more interested in raw power, though, and that his war has only increased resentment against Tutsis.
Nkunda was heavily guarded by scores of rebel fighters, who crisscrossed Rutshuru's main road in jeeps they had captured from the army resembling World War II era relics. Rebels spread out along the edges of the crumbling stadium, patting down the roughly 3,000 who entered.
After arriving in a white sport utility vehicle, Nkunda, carrying his trademark cane topped with an eagle's head, raised his thin arms and danced with a group of girls to a traditional, heavily distorted, Rwandan tune that boomed from a broken loudspeaker.
He began his speech by saying, "I know there are people who like us and there are some who don't. But I want to talk."
Sporting a military uniform, the wiry rebel leader called for unity among the vast Central African nation's myriad ethnic groups, saying conflict among them was destroying efforts to rebuild the country.
He compared his movement to the country's Belgian colonizers, saying God sent them both "and nobody can fight the will of God."
But he also said "the will of God is peace and I want peace."
Nkunda's fighters captured Rutshuru in late October, taking over the main road running north from Goma. The move enabled Nkunda to link the territory straddling a volcanic mountain chain on Congo's eastern border with a formerly isolated rebel stronghold of Kitchanga to the west.
Most of the area is rural pastureland, and its greatest value may lay in giving rebels a stronger hand to force the government to negotiate. Today, rebels are collecting road taxes and replacing town officials and police with their own.
Many Congolese believe the rebels are heavily made up of Rwandan soldiers, and see the rebellion partly as a Rwandan invasion. Rwanda denies its troops are involved.
Nkunda criticized the 17,000-strong UN peacekeeping force, questioning why it had never gone after Rwandan Hutu militias that he said were at the heart of the conflict.
As a young Congolese in exile in Uganda, Nkunda fought with Tutsi-led Rwandan forces that stopped Rwanda's genocide 14 years ago, ousting that country's Hutu government.
He went on to become a senior commander within the Rwandan-organized Congolese rebel group, which held a huge swath of the east during a 1998-2002 war.
After a peace deal ended that fighting, he joined Congo's army but quit in 2004 to launch his rebellion.
"People say we are Rwandans, but it's not true," Nkunda said yesterday. "We are all Congolese."
