Posted on 05/11/2003 7:05:32 PM PDT by blam
Orgy of killing as Congo teeters on brink of genocide
By Adrian Blomfield in Uvira
(Filed: 12/05/2003)
Wielding machetes and rocket-launchers, hordes of tribal warriors and drug-crazed children marauded through the Congolese town of Bunia yesterday, unleashing an orgy of killing and forcing tens of thousands of terrified refugees across the Ugandan border.
United Nations officials warned the Security Council that the crisis was potentially a genocide in the making, drawing parallels with Rwanda, where between 500,000 and one million people, mainly Tutsis, were killed by Hutus in 1994.
"Bunia is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said.
As the situation spiralled out of control, international humanitarian organisations evacuated 50 aid workers and their families from the town.
Reports from UN officials and aid workers said Uruguayan peacekeepers returned fire after gunmen believed to be from the Lendu ethnic group lobbed mortars at thousands of residents, mainly members of the Hema tribe, seeking refuge in the UN compound.
There were no details about casualties, although two UN soldiers were said to be wounded. With only 600 troops in Bunia, a town of about 350,000 in the east of the war-ravaged country, the UN has been unable to control the rapidly deteriorating situation.
"We can't do anything," a peacekeeper said by telephone from the UN compound. "We do not have enough manpower. We do not have a mandate. We have sent repeated warnings that this was going to happen. We have asked for reinforcements. Every request was ignored."
South African President Thabo Mbeki is expected to ask Mr Annan this week to extend the peacekeepers' mandate to allow them to return fire if civilians come under attack.
The UN will have to act extremely quickly. There is little concrete information about how many could have been killed since the fighting broke out six days ago.
Lendu warriors reportedly smashed their way into a church and massacred 40 Hemas cowering inside.
In a separate incident Father Raphael Ngoma, a Catholic priest who played a key role in revealing the massacres of hundreds of people in the nearby town of Drodro last month, was found murdered in a diocesan house where he was in hiding. Three other people were also killed.
Matters could be even worse elsewhere in Ituri province, where Lendu and Hema are struggling for supremacy following the withdrawal of Ugandan troops from the region two weeks ago.
Ituri has suffered some of the worst atrocities in Congo's five-year war, the deadliest conflict since the Second World War. Aid agencies estimate that more than a million people have lost their lives.
At least 50,000 civilians have been killed in the province in ethnic violence fanned by Uganda which, with Rwanda, invaded Congo in 1998 in an attempt to topple dictator Laurent Kabila.
Uganda has exploited tribal differences between Hema and Lendu, successively arming both tribes. The subsequent instability provided "justification" for the continued presence of its troops in the mineral-rich province.
The plundered wealth from Ituri's mines has lined the pockets of President Yoweri Museveni's family and cronies.
Under intense international pressure Ugandan troops began withdrawing from the province late last month.
Hopes for a lasting peace in the Congo had been bolstered when the country's two main rebel factions, backed by Rwanda and Uganda, signed a power-sharing agreement earlier this year. But even as the warring sides talk, the conflict in rebel-held eastern Congo continues to worsen.
Gee, you could almost believe they were "palestinians". Wait a minute - hasn't the UN and Belgium had almost as many fingers in the pie in Congo as they have in Gaza?
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They only protest in those instances when it will have the effect of weakening the United States.
Exactly. ...And to a lesser degree, Israel.
It's deja vu all over again. As I remember it, there was a Canadian guy who held some position in the UN's Africa operation who repeatedly, desperately tried to warn the higher-ups that a big massacre was coming down the pipe in Rwanda, but to no avail. Are these massacres part of UN's population control plan or something?
GOD GAVE THE F******* MANDATE!!!!!
Hard to get used to the fact that men slaughter people because they were "just following orders".
Harder still to get used to people with the means to protect innocent life who'll do nothing....'cause they don't have a "mandate". Their brains and souls have been sucked from their bodies by socialist idiology.
Thank you. You said it better than I. What good is a rifle and a full magazine if you are not going to use it?
After the slaughter in Rwanda I read an interview with a Norwegian peacekeeper who was seeing a psychotherapist, due to the mental trauma of the things he witnessed there. The slaughter took place right in front of him, women being hacked to death so close that the blood splattered on his uniform, but he could not intervene, he had no orders. He had a rifle and a full magazine, but stood by and did nothing. Now, of course, he has to see a therapist.
Makes me ill. I find it hard to imagine a Texan with a loaded gun standing by as a woman is raped and butchered right in front of him, orders or no.
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