CONGO — Last week, Congo President Laurent Kabila further angered Tutsi rebels by changing the country’s national anthem from the traditional "Cimbulia san twa" ("The ancient cradle of our mother earth") to Warrant’s "Cherry Pie."

The new national anthem was played for the first time at a government troop inspection led by a visibly rockin’ President Kabila.

"President Kabila feels ‘Cherry Pie’ much better captures the spirit of all peoples in our ancient homeland," said a government spokesperson at a brief press conference attended solely by detained journalists and chickens. "Besides, as you all know from his presidential decree, President Kabila thinks Warrant rocks!"

Rebel forces retaliated with an immediate mass cancellation of their Columbia House Record Club memberships. At a checkpoint and photomat on the outskirts of Kindu, a masked rebel soldier delivered strong words about Kabila’s actions.

"This is outrage!" said the soldier. "Outrage! The devil Kabila takes a sacred song of our people and replaces it with a Warrant song? He does this knowing full well that the Congo has a long, proud tradition of being huge Faster Pussycat fans!" (A call to Faster Pussycat’s label WEA/Elektra Entertainment confirmed that 100 percent of Faster Pussycat’s record sales for the last five years have been in the Congo.)

To further back the rebel’s claim, November’s issue of Tiger Beat magazine published the results from a poll of Tutsi-led rebels ages 18 – 25 whose annual income is between three chickens and four emaciated cows (margin of error 2.5 goats). Those polled overwhelmingly selected Faster Pussycat’s "Arizona Indian Doll" as the only acceptable anthem for the great and ancient nation of Congo.

In an eleventh-hour bid to prevent further bloodshed in the region, world leaders have asked neighboring countries to immediately halt the export of deadly sticks, rocks and dirt clods into Congo while the United Nations Security Council frantically tries to arrange a Warrant/Faster Pussycat brokered peace agreement.

"Usually, we can quickly scare two warring sides into agreement with the threat of Clockwork Orange-like exposure to Madeline Albright boudoir photos, but in this case, we may need to arrange a Warrant/Faster Pussycat reunion tour," said U.S. special envoy to Congo, Aldo Nova.

The Tutsi rebels are likely to quickly dismiss any plan that falls short of their stated goals of deposing President Kabila, setting up their own brutal puppet regime, opening a "totally bitchin’" all-ages dance club and finding a really good domestic Chardonnay for under $10.