Pygmies beg UN for aid to save them from Congo cannibals (4 years of civil war) Paging Kofi

UK Times OnLine ^ | May 22, 2003 | Michael Dynes

[FairOpinion]

PYGMY leaders have called on the UN to set up an international tribunal to put government and rebel fighters from the Democratic Republic of Congo on trial for acts of cannibalism against their people. Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti pygmies, told the UN’s Indigenous People’s Forum that during the four-year civil war his people had been hunted down and eaten.

“In living memory, we have seen cruelty, massacres, and genocide, but we have never seen human beings hunted down as though they were game animals,” he said.

“Pygmies are being pursued in the forests. People have been eaten. This is nothing more, nothing less, than a crime against humanity.”

More than 600,000 pygmies are believed to live in the Congo’s vast jungles, where they eke out a subsistence existence. Both sides in the war regard them as “subhuman”, and believe that their flesh can confer magical powers.

UN human rights activists reported this year that rebels had cooked and eaten at least a dozen pygmies. Some of the worst atrocities took place when the Congolese Liberation Movement, one of the main rebel groups, tried to take the town of Mambasa from the rival Congolese Rally for Democracy last year.

Mr Makelo called on the forum to ask the UN Security Council to recognise cannibalism as a crime against humanity and an act of genocide.

There were reports yesterday of cannibalism against other Congolese in the mineral-rich province of Ituri in the east. Fierce clashes between ethnic Hema and Lendu militias this month are know to have resulted in more than 300 deaths. A mass grave containing the remains of more than 30 men, women and children was found near the town, UN officials said.

Church leaders and residents have accused Lendu militiamen of killing civilians, cutting open their chests, removing hearts, lungs and livers, and eating them.

Father Joseph Deneckere, a Belgian priest who has lived in the Congo since 1970, said that traditional superstitious beliefs, entrenched hatreds and attempts to settle old scores lay behind the atrocities. “Some of the victims had their sexual organs missing after tribal fighters cut them off to use as charms,” he said. Tribal fighters had also been seen wandering around the bush with human organs “draped from their weapons”. Acquitto Kisembo, a resident of Bunia, the town at the centre of the fighting, said: “The sight of a corpse with a missing liver or heart is horrific, especially when you know those parts were eaten, and that the same could happen to you.” UN officials have opened a formal investigation into the allegations, which they describe as credible.

The region remains dangerously tense, despite last week’s ceasefire, the UN says. Gunmen with rocket-propelled grenades roam the streets of Bunia. Eighty per cent of the 350,000 inhabitants have fled.

About 750, mostly Uruguayan, UN peacekeepers are stationed there, but they do not have the authority to use lethal force. Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, has asked France to lead an emergency force to stabilise the region. It has agreed to do so, but has insisted that other countries join. Britain, which is considering contributing, says that it is a “stop-gap operation” to reinforce the existing UN contingent.

[FairOpinion]

Where is the UN? Where is Amnesty International? I guess they are too busy accusing the US of various nonsensical things regarding Iraq, to stop the massacre in Congo, which has been going on for 4 years.

Why isn't the UN trying to work Congo, instead of trying to run Iraq? Can you imagine the real civil war Iraq would decend into if the UN were running it?

[Blue Screen of Death]

Where is the UN? Where is Amnesty International?

Giving lectures on cultural relativism and multicultural tolerance.

[MidlandDesperado]

Taste anything like chicken?

[visualops]

The UN doesn't care about the peasants.

[Lijahsbubbe]

Koffi is busy making sure the Great Oprressors, Israel and the US are kept in check. (and then he reports back daily to Beelzebub)

[SamiGirl]

"Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, has asked France to lead an emergency force to stabilise the region."

Oh yeah, France will save them. Yeah, that's it, the French army, known throughout history for their bravery and victories, will be the saviors. (sarcasm off)

[Bedford Forrest]

Oh, the humanity of it all. Quite obviously, Holy Joey Lieberman, Robert Reich, Barbara Mikulski, Nadless Nadler, Tiny Tommy Poofter Daschle, and other vertically challenged National Socialists should stay the f*$k out of the Congo for a while. Although, upon reflection, Mikulski would probably be safe. Even cannibals have their limits.

[TrebleRebel]

I keep hearing the echoes of Nelson Mandela, as he exclaims the US is guilty of atrocities against humanity, and how we 'just don't give a damn.' Wonder where he is now...

[Gamecock]

[WorkingClassFilth]

Cannibals chasing pygmies around in the Congo.

Some of the victims had their sexual organs missing after tribal fighters cut them off to use as charms.

Gunmen with rocket-propelled grenades roam the streets of Bunia.

UN peacekeepers are stationed there, but they do not have the authority to use lethal force.

Is there anyone sane left in the world - anyone at all?

I'm close, very close, to cokplete abandonment of my paleo reservations about foreign entanglements. I'm thinking, very strongly, that the only thing left for the sake of the entire world is to impose, unilaterally, PAX AMERICANA. The entire world is way too deep in the weeds...

[Tawiskaro]

I think the U.N. has bitten off more than it can chew.

[MilspecRob]

I read this story this morning. I had to dump my breakfast meal. Words just fail.

[Wilhelm Tell]

UN peacekeepers are stationed there, but they do not have the authority to use lethal force.

Of what possible use are "peacekeepers" who do not have the authority to use lethal force? I am suspicious of a PAX AMERICANA but maybe we could at least airlift some modern guns and ammo so the pygmies can defend themselves. That people are being hunted and eaten like animals should disgust everyone. I am so tired of "humanitarians" who disarm victims, preach "tolerance," and yawn as genocide happens.

[SauronOfMordor]

I'm close, very close, to cokplete abandonment of my paleo reservations about foreign entanglements. I'm thinking, very strongly, that the only thing left for the sake of the entire world is to impose, unilaterally, PAX AMERICANA. The entire world is way too deep in the weeds...

The problem is that it would not work. There just are not enough American troops to keep the savages of the world from eating each other, and not enough money in the American economy to fund the peacekeeping costs

Kipling understood it:

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

[FairOpinion]

"I'm close, very close, to cokplete abandonment of my paleo reservations about foreign entanglements. I'm thinking, very strongly, that the only thing left for the sake of the entire world is to impose, unilaterally, PAX AMERICANA. The entire world is way too deep in the weeds... "

---

Welcome to reality!

[FairOpinion]

"I am so tired of "humanitarians" who disarm victims, preach "tolerance," and yawn as genocide happens. "

---

Exactly. That is why I posted it, not just for the horrendous news value, but to point out the hypocrisy of these so-called humanitarians, the UN, Amnesty International, the Red Cross, who are having hysterics, screming and accusing the US of war crimes, because a few civilians died in the process of liberating millions, despite our going out of our way to avoid casualties, and then do nothing, except stand by and keep "discussing the situation" while real atrocities go on for years.

[Lijahsbubbe]

Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, has asked France to lead an emergency force to stabilise the region.

I didn't even notice this sentence when I first scanned the article. If I had, I would have seriously thought this was satire. You can't even make up something this crazy!

[WorkingClassFilth]

I'm not thrilled with the concept either, but I am absolutely convinced that the world is incapable of any sane, reasonable or measured policies any more.

The Left has so thoroughly erased common sense morality in the West, our influence is nill in the rest of the world. Without Western influence, good-bye world stability. Not being shy, I'll even state for the record that the rest of the world is brimming with primitive and savage cultures as well, and that don't bode well a'tall for the overall health of things.

Personally, I don't think Americans have the stomach or make-up to install and hold a long-term PAX AMERICANA, but we do have a marvelous penchant (as Mencken said) for occasionally spitting on our hands, hoisting the Jolly Roger and commencing to slitting throats.

Some period of time where the dominant foreign policy of the US was to unilaterally crush barbarism and depose dictators in the most emphatic and permanent way might be the best thing the world has seen in the last 100 years.

The alternative is more of the above, in every way, until it finally reaches our own shores...

[harpseal]

I am so tired of "humanitarians" who disarm victims, preach "tolerance," and yawn as genocide happens.

But but they say they mean well.

[AD from SpringBay]

Where is the UN?

I'm sorry, but until the Congo develops something worth a few greenbacks, Koffi won't care. In this manner he greatly resembles Jesse Jackson.