TAPED to the window is a notice inviting all the town's young men to join the military struggle. Essential attributes, it says, are "a readiness to make the supreme sacrifice" and "the will to liberate our people from dictatorial oppression".
Three and a half months after its occupation by Zairean rebels, however there is little sign of military activity in Goma.
Bombing raids on nearby Bukavu and other parts of eastern Zaire have reignited fears of a government campaign against civilian targets, But among Goma's inhabitants, belief in the rebels' ability to win this war have not been shaken.
Yesterday thousands of residents fled Bukavu after at least 21 people were killed in raids by government warplanes on three rebel held centres. Aid workers reported panic-stricken residents fleeing for safer areas outside the city. Some 500 had fled Bukavu on Monday.
Nevertheless, the government's counter-offensive, billed last month as "total and devastating", has failed to halt the rebel advance. The real fighting is now taking place far to the west deep in the equatorial rain forest.
Since launching their campaign last October, the rebels have taken over a huge swathe of eastern Zaire and renamed it the Democratic Republic of Congo. Not a week passes without the capture of a town or strategic junction.
Led by long-time revolutionary Mr Laurent Kabila, the ADFL the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire, has enjoyed astounding success. With the exception of a couple of battles at the start of the war the Zairean army (FAZ) has hardly bothered to engage the rebels. Instead, the government's demoralised troops have retreated, raping and looting on their way.
"It is not so much that the rebels have succeeded," a western diplomat in the region says. "It's more a question of the FAZ having failed. They're without logistics, training and a will to fight. Even the mercenaries hired by the government have taken a beating."
Suggestions that the rebels' success can only have been achieved with the backing of Rwanda and Uganda are denied by the ADFL and by Zaire's eastern neighbours. Western diplomats in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, insist there is no evidence of direct involvement "by either country.
Some, however, concede that Rwanda might be providing the rebels with military instructors. Sources inside Zaire indicate the ADFL's officer cadre is being trained at a camp inside Uganda.
"We are doing this on our own," says an ADFL spokesman, Mr Raphael Ghenda, seated in his office in central Goma. "The arms we have were left behind by the fleeing Zairean army. I can't say where we bought our uniforms, but we have used the riches of the region to support our struggle."
So brazen has the rebel thrust become that Mr Kabila has given Zaire's President Mobutu Sese Seko until February 21st to resign. If he does not, the rebel leader says he will march his men right across the country and into the capital, Kinshasa.
"There's quite a lot of propaganda with this regime," an aid worker in Goma says, "but, so far, everything they've said has come true. If they say they're going to take a town, they take it. In fact, that's part of their strategy to announce their next step and wait for the FAZ to flee."
The rebels' next objective is Kisangani, Zaire's third-largest city and headquarters of the government's flagging counter-offensive. Strategically located at the head-waters of the country's most significant artery, the Zaire river, Kisangani is viewed as key to control of the sprawling interior.
"The effect on the government of the rebels taking Kisangani would be devastating," says a high-ranking western diplomat in the region. "The negotiations will start if they reach Kisangani. They'll probably take the city by the end of this month."
What shape talks might take is difficult to envisage. Despite his precarious state of health after a cancer operation, Mr Mobutu (66) has vowed to crush the rebels by force.
For his part, Mr Kabila insists no negotiations can begin until the president stands down. Anxious to avoid a costly humanitarian crisis in Zaire - the almost inevitable fall-out of prolonged conflict in Africa's third-largest country - the United States has been actively engaged in mediating between the two sides.
One scenario is that ailing Mr Mobutu, an old Cold War ally, might be prevailed upon to take his plundered fortune and settle quietly in exile. This would leave the way open for Mr Kabila to make a deal with Zaire's legitimate opposition and form an interim government.
On one point most observers are in agreement: Mr Mobutu's star is in decline.