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.
Or a pointed stick. Then we'd use for mounting the head, to educate the others.
Pardon me, but I hear this one a lot and it disturbs me. The Africans are poor, sick, and busy killing themselves with machetes and rocket-launchers. I blame the Africans. To do otherwise is to go against the principle of personal responsibility.
I've heard your point also made against Iraq -- how can Iraq possibily be a stable country, since it's borders were dreamed up by Winston Churchill. 'Course I've also heard that Iraq is composed of exactly 3 administrative units of the old Ottoman Empire, and that those 3 units have been lumped together for about 500 years.
Overall, when I hear people blaming European Imperialists for the problems of the 21st century, I start thinking of the whole "Blame America First" mindset. I say again: I blame the Africans.
Do we have to clean up this mess for the UN also?
Hmm......I can just see the leftist salivating at the thought of our Military shooting at children!!!!
This does parrallel the Palistinian problem in a way.
Like in any number of wars across the globe.
And the ones starting the ball rolling in Congo were the Belgians, and they have been aided and abetted by the UN. Nothing new.
Course they are. After everyone assumes room temperature, there'll be peace. And spoils to be shared, of course.
About the only chance for stopping this crap is to colonize the damned continent all over again, and to spend lives to wipe out these bands of criminals.
Not that it'd really work even then, but it's sure as heck not going to happen without colonization.
You know, of course, that most of the black slaves sold from Africa (by Africans, BTW) had been taken prisoner as part of the endless tribal wars that plagued the place.
These guys are just reverting to the old tried-and-true methods of conquest and slaughter.
The Scarecrow: "I do not have a brain."
The Tin Woodsman: "I do not have a heart."
The Cowardly Lion: "I do not have courage."
The UN Peacekeeper: "I do not have a mandate."
They're waiting until the hated US sends troops ---THEN they'll be motivated.
Africa was a tremendously violent place before the advent of the colonizers. I am reminded of the sophomoric philosophy 101 problem, "if a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there, did it make a sound"... If one tribe slaughtered and enslaved another, and failed to write it down, did it really happen? And the answer obviously is, of course.
You are not going to separate the tribes from their machetes, nor their AK-47's, nor their diamond mines or oil fields or bauxite mines or anything else. What is happening right now in the Congo is a full scale war, among Africans, for control of the Congo's resources. Congo is potentially richer than Iraq, and the move is on right now to take it. The Rwandan Tutsis, the Zimbabweans, the Ugandans, and various Congolese factions are moving right now. You might imagine that Libya or Russia or their mafias have their hand in it, and they probably do, but this is an African war among Africans. It isn't about ethnicity. It is about getting control of the richest unclaimed territory on the planet.
You said, lets redraw the borders. That is exactly what is happening. The Africans are redrawing the borders right in front of us. You might have thought it would be a bloodless exercise, but of course this is not a classroom exercise. Borders get drawn at the point that the warring factions run out of breath.
We are not going to stop it, not from the side-lines. What we are discovering is that Africans are humans, and they are prone to the same kinds of greed and hunger for power as anyone in the world. If we choose to stay out of it, we should expect to see a lot more blood shed. We can send in the charities to try and help, but it won't stop until the warring parties have arrived at a balance of power.
Or, we can intervene to stop it, but we had better be prepared to use muscle, and to shrug off the accusations of imperialism and genocide. But the genocide is happening now. And the imperialist wars are being fought now, among African imperialists.
Reg: They bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had. And not just from us! From our fathers, and from our father's fathers.Loretta: And from our father's father's fathers.
Reg: Yeah.
Loretta: And from our father's father's father's fathers.
Reg: Yeah, all right Stan, don't delay with the point. And what have they ever given us in return?
Revolutionary I: The aqueduct?
Reg: What?
Revolutionary I: The aqueduct.
Reg: Oh. Yeah, yeah, they did give us that, ah, that's true, yeah.
Revolutionary II: And the sanitation.
Loretta: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like.
Reg: Yeah, all right, I'll grant you the aqueduct and sanitation, the two things the Romans have done.
Matthias: And the roads.
Reg: Oh, yeah, obviously the roads. I mean the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads...
Revolutionary III: Irrigation.
Revolutionary I: Medicine.
Revolutionary IV: Education.
Reg: Yeah, yeah, all right, fair enough.
Revolutionary V: And the wine.
All revolutionaries except Reg: Oh, yeah! Right!
Rogers: Yeah! Yeah, that's something we'd really miss Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.
Revolutionary VI: Public baths.
Loretta: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.
Rogers: Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it; they're the only ones who could in a place like this.
All revolutionaries except Reg: Hahaha...all right...
Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Revolutionary I: Brought peace?
Reg: Oh, peace! Shut up!
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