Goma 2010 looks a lot different from Goma 2009. Or 2008. Or 2007.

Gone are the rebel threats to the city centre and the droves of refugees carrying anything they owned up and down the same roads as the front lines shifted back and forth.

Today, there are towering, luminescent streetlights and no curfew. Office buildings are being erected; and people have come to see the gorillas.

The fear of an all-out war with neighbouring Rwanda, which could have sucked in other countries, is over.

Now the two countries are building gas-power plants along Lake Kivu.

People are dancing, diplomats are applauding; there is a level of optimism in the air that hasn’t been there for years.

The reason for much of the difference is a man, once mighty, now living in obscurity in a house somewhere in Rwanda.

After a year, former rebel leader Laurent Nkunda, who once unleashed terror on eastern Congo, remains under a silent detention of sorts by the Rwandan government.

His numerous attempts through the Rwandan justice system to seek release have all failed, and now his case sits at the country’s Supreme Court.

A couple of weeks ago, the case was delayed and postponed again, this time after a letter from the chief witness, Army Chief of Staff James Kabarebe, saying he could not make it due to state duties.

It turns out, some of the state duties included trips to Goma, where he met with Congolese counterparts, and even the president, for military discussions.

Mr Nkunda’s lawyer claims impunity from the Rwandan government, saying his client is even ready to face trial in the DR Congo rather than being held in an illegal custody.

Stephane Bourgon, who has been working throughout the year seeking the release of the Congolese rebel from Rwandan authority, said the courts were not independent and that the absence of Gen Kabarebe was inexcusable.

“Even though several hundred people came to witness this historical event before the Supreme Court, their expectations unfortunately, could not be satisfied,” said Mr Bourgon in a press statement.

“If justice in Rwanda were independent, as it should be, the Supreme Court will have to rule without delay on the real question, namely the illegal detention of Laurent Nkunda.”

Diplomacy to the rescue

Meanwhile, the real decision on Mr Nkunda’s fate remains in the hands of politicians, and with the delay of the case, diplomacy has taken over.

The awkward diplomatic quagmire of Mr Nkunda was mentioned in talks between the two governments and militaries during recent concluding ceremonies of Congo’s Kimia-II operations in the country’s east, targeting the remnants of the Interahamwe militias who fled Rwanda after the genocide.

Rwanda and Congo have called the operations — using Mr Nkunda’s soldiers more than anyone else as the major offensive force — a major success, arguing that the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda have been crippled.

On the other hand, the United Nations, foreign governments and a laundry list of humanitarian organisations have called the operations disastrous and crimes against humanity as both the FDLR and Congolese army have been implicated in nearly 10,000 cases of rape in the Kivu region.

Gen Kabarebe, who has been President Paul Kagame’s go-to guy for some of the country’s more controversial ventures — including Rwanda’s involvement in the Congo — is alleged to have been a key player in brokering the new friendship between Rwanda and Congo, as well as plotting the downfall of Mr Nkunda and his subsequent arrest.

He’s been meeting with the Congolese government – whom Gen Kabarebe has helped destroy and resurrect in the past — over what to do with Mr Nkunda.

On paper, Rwanda argues that one of the key obstacles to handing Mr Nkunda over to the Congo is that the latter still employs the death penalty, though no one has been executed in years.

The Congolese government has indicted Mr Nkunda for war crimes, which the International Criminal Court is thinking about it.

“The seriousness of the situation must weigh in the balance of talks between Kabila and Kabarebe and their teams,” wrote one Congolese Tutsi living abroad last week. “There will be no peace without the return of this guy and only those who are blinded by selfish interests do not understand.”

In late 2009, loyalists to Mr Nkunda put out a public statement calling for new negotiations, saying the humanitarian situation in eastern Congo was “catastrophic,” and that “hopes of peace are more distant than ever.”

“The bulk of the army has remained loyal to its leader, Gen Laurent Nkunda,” the statement read. “It is, therefore, unrealistic to think that things can be done without him.”

Outside of the active soldiers themselves, Mr Nkunda’s camp remains strong.

Researchers say the era of Bosco Ntaganda — who took over the CNDP’s name when Mr Nkunda was arrested and remains a senior officer in Congolese operations against the Hutu rebels — is winding down.

Kiwanja slaughter

The notoriously violent, corrupt and renegade general was implicated in the slaughter of dozens of civilians in the village of Kiwanja.

He was indicted by the ICC for crimes committed in Ituri Province in 2003.

Recently, he formed a politico-military group known as FLEC in towns outside Goma, where he levies his own taxes and recruits disgruntled militants as a side job from his work with the United Nations and army.

Mr Ntaganda was cast into the spotlight in January 2009, when Rwanda and Congo joined up to arrest Mr Nkunda and focused military and global attention on the Hutu rebels.

Virtually nothing has been heard of or from Mr Nkunda since.

His lawyer, his most active spokesperson, has admitted that he has still not been allowed to even meet Mr Nkunda.

A ring of his closest allies, including a slate of former CNDP officials, claim to have access but won’t speak out.

While his family is said to be able to visit him, no one will say how he is.

In fact, since his arrest the only statement is a political manifesto he penned days before his arrest that surfaced only towards the end of last year.

Among other things, Mr Nkunda argues that “intangible borders” have separated what otherwise is a natural nation of eastern Congo, Rwanda and neighbouring Burundi.

He argues that ethnic Hutu and Tutsi people have lived in the three “transvolcanic” countries since time immemorial.

He is getting little bits of that dream. Rwanda and Congo, along with neighbouring Burundi, have restarted a trade and economic co-operation bloc known as CEPGL (the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries).

Congo, along with Sudan, has voiced its desire to join the East African Community.

Rwanda’s airline flies from Kigali to Goma.

Bus companies link Goma to Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura. Trade is flourishing.

In that document, Mr Nkunda attempted to distance himself from his future captors, but did call Rwandan President Paul Kagame the “unofficial mediator” in the Hutu-Tutsi saga and the Kivu conflict.

Long silenced, the general remains a key currency on the bargaining table.