Posted on 05/28/2006 9:07:10 PM PDT by Lorianne
Sitting on a bed in a refugee camp in Katanga, a cursed province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaïre), Mukeya Ulumba, 28, recounts the epic losses she has suffered in recent months. Several of her relatives and neighbors were killed when antigovernment rebels stormed their village last November, moving from house to house in a murder spree that lasted for hours. Ulumba and her husband managed to flee with their four children, leaving behind their life's possessions, a ravaged community of torched houses and the bloodied corpses of family members and friends. Now Ulumba is struggling to save another...
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Very Sad. I pray for peace.
L
My best friend here in Canada was a Sgt. (artillery) in Congo a long time ago and he still is messed up from it. He has one other lad alive from his time there but he is now into drugs in Nanaimo; everyone else committed suicide or died prematurely. He is a firm believer that we (the West) should intervene in Somalia and the Congo, etc...
I can't remember where he's from but I seem to recall an African economist who said the kindest thing we could do for them is to stop sending them aid of any kind.
I'm very sorry for your friend. I hope you're able to talk some sense into him.
Best of luck.
L
I know it doesn’t do any good to get annoyed but I can’t help it. I just get annoyed that when such things happen it is always left up to us to make it right and when we do, our so called European allies complains that we do it all wrong. I mean, the same people that never lift a finger to help in the first place or if they do, it’s always a minimal effort on their part and people never asks about the Unite Nations.
What is their roll in this world? I have an idea what it is suppose to be but what is their roll really? What is the U.N. really for?
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html
"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"
The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.
L
Yeah, he got thrown from Cyprus into the Congo and it was a bad experience for him. I see him every two or three weeks, but he buys copious amounts of beer and then gets gooned. He has a great job as an industrial welder now, but he hates the UN and the pre-Harper govt. I think he is going through some stuff that Yanks went though in Vietnam. I support him fully. F the Congo.
Pikamax,
Thanks to the link on the Kenyan economist. He sounds like he's on the
same wavelength as the guy I was talking about...and finally tracked down:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/botswana/transcript.html
Turns out the show was "Wide Angle" on PBS.
And he's at American University.
did they blame Bush or the US?
I would wanna read the whole article but Time Mag requires a "log in" info to have it... im not a Time Mag subscriber.
But as some folks have mentioned before in FR, the African leaders have been too dependent and corrupt that it turns out to be having business for their own interests rather than for their nation. I'd say that western countries should stop sending aids to these nations. Ohhh and tell Bono (U2) to redirect his campaign for African aid and instead send it to rescue the Karen people, Montagnards in Vietnam and many more..
Does anyone know about canada's involvement in the Congo....please email me at anislandwriter@yahoo.ca. I am totally ignorant of this conflict and wonder why my good friend is having problems. Google does not provide enough data. I know he was in Cyprus, then was sent to the Congo. The UN and Canada blacked out a lot of the data over there...
2000 : (A MIDDLEMAN IN NAIROBI, KENYA OFFERS TO SUPPLY IRAQ WITH URANIUM FROM CONGO) Saddam Hussein's intelligence archives show a middleman in Nairobi, Kenya, offered to supply Iraq with Congo uranium in 2000, Newsweek reported in its May 17 issue. A note in the intelligence service's file suggested Iraq was then under too much international scrutiny to pursue the deal but recommended Iraq "maintain contact" with the middleman. -- "AP: Miners Drawn to Illegal Congo Uranium," from our sister station WJLA-TV, Monday May 31, 2004 2:29pm, http://www.wjla.com/headlines/0504/150347.html.
The middleman in Nairobi wouldn't be the guy below? Or be linked to him? :
....Iraqi diplomat in Nairobi, Fallah Hassan Al Rubdie was in discussion with the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan guerrilla group ...---- APRIL 2003 : (ITURI PROVINCE, CONGO : AS UGANDAN ARMY LEAVES, UNARMED UN OBSERVER TEAMS ARE SENT IN WITH LITTLE PREP) ...The U.N. military observers agree. Several were sent in teams of four to other remote parts of Ituri at the same time as Oran and Banda in April. They were urged to go quickly with little preparation, they said. And after they arrived they received little attention from MONUC officials, they said. "After we got there, they forgot us. Nobody told us what we had to do there," said another U.N. military observer. "I didn't even know which group was Hema and which was Lendu."
At the time, MONUC needed to have a strong presence in Ituri, said the observers. The Ugandan army, which occupied the province, was leaving in accordance with a multinational peace pact. MONUC was expected to fill the security vacuum.
"The U.N. was very pressured to find a solution to the Congo war," said a third U.N. military observer. "They sent observers too soon to a situation where we can't do our work." -------- "Congo observers slaughtered after unanswered pleas," By SUDARSAN RAGHAVAN, Knight Ridder Newspapers via The Miami Herald, Posted on Wed, Jun. 11, 2003, http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/6066952.htm [* My note : See Iraq & Uganda ...]
* Uganda :
Saddam Hussein's regime was linked to an African Islamist terrorist group, according to intelligence papers. The documents provide the first hard evidence of ties between Iraq and religious terrorism. Secret dossiers detailing the group's discussions with the Iraqi Intelligence Service were found in the spies' Baghdad headquarters, among the detritus of shredding. The papers show how an Iraqi diplomat in Nairobi, Fallah Hassan Al Rubdie, was in discussion with the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan guerrilla group with ties to other anti-Western Islamist organizations. While the United States has long argued that Saddam's regime was aiding Islamist groups, it has struggled until now to provide evidence. ---------- "Papers connect Iraqi spies to African terrorist group," BY PHILIP SMUCKER AND ADRIAN BLOMFIELD, Chicago Sun-Times, April 18, 2003
F*ck Google.
Here's a little info which might explain your friend's distress:
MAY 18, 2003 : (MONGBWALU, ITURI PROVINCE, CONGO : UN FINALLY FLIES IN SOME ARMED PEACEKEEPERS TO CHECK UP ON THE UN OBSERVERS WHO HAD BEGGED FOR DAYS TO BE EVACUATED FROM THEIR OUTPOST; THEY REPORT THAT THE TWO ARE DEAD AND THAT PARTS OF THEIR BODIES HAD BEEN REMOVED- UN THEN LEAVES THE AREA) On May 18, 10 days after the two peacekeepers made their first distress call, the United Nations finally flew some armed peacekeepers to Mongbwalu.
They found the mutilated bodies of Maj. Safwat al Oran, 37, of Jordan, and Capt. Siddon Davis Banda, 29, of Malawi.
Their decomposed corpses had been tossed into a canal and covered with dirt, according to those who saw the bodies. They were shot in the eyes. Their stomachs were split open and their hearts and livers were missing. One man's brain was gone.
The murders laid bare the challenge of bringing peace to one of the world's complex and resilient wars and exposed the limits of the United Nation's efforts to do so.
The U.N. mission in Congo (MONUC) has been criticized by many, including some in its own rank-and-file, for being disorganized and naive. Now, its critics charge, it's also partly responsible for the deaths of the two observers.
"Why didn't they rescue them? They had armed troops here, who could have saved them," said one U.N. observer in Bunia, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
... Col. Daniel Vollot [a Frenchman], the MONUC sector commander in Bunia, said all U.N. employees here work in dangerous, unpredictable conditions and that MONUC isn't responsible for the deaths of Banda and Oran. "We can't feel guilty," said Vollot. "Certainly, if we had arrived two or three days before, they would be alive. It's difficult, but I don't feel guilty about that."
The murders were a serious setback to U.N. operations in Congo's Ituri province, where some 50,000 people have died in fighting between Hema and Lendu tribal armies since 1999. After the killings, the United Nations pulled out all its military observers and sent them to Bunia, Ituri's largest town.
The savage wars of peace,
Fill full the mouth of famine,
And bid the sickness cease
And when your goal is nearest,
Your hope for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen folly,
Bring all your works to naught."
Kipling knew a thing or two.
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