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UN force kills Congo militiaman
South African peacekeepers with a newly toughened United Nations mandate have shot dead a Congolese militiaman in a skirmish, a UN spokesman said. The force in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo faces a key test of will, with a French-led emergency force pulling out of the town of Bunia after stopping massacres that UN troops had failed to prevent.
| Why would they want to prevent them? No massacres, no jobs... |
The shooting of the militiaman, some 270 kilometres south-west of Bunia, was the first since the UN force got a tougher overall mandate from the Security Council at the end of July. UN mission spokesman Hamadoun Toure said the South Africans were on patrol when they saw three militiamen kill a civilian hostage. The fighters shot at the UN troops, who responded, killing one and injuring another. "There will be zero tolerance for attacks on civilians," Mr Toure told Reuters in Kinshasa.
Tribal Mai-Mai militia attacks have been escalating in eastern Congo since the gradual withdrawal of Rwandan-backed rebels under a peace deal to end a war that has left millions dead since 1998. Although the Mai-Mai and the rebels are officially represented in Congo's new power-sharing government, many Mai-Mai factions feel left out. A French-led European force flew into the town of Bunia after hundreds of civilians were killed in tribal massacres that UN troops were unable to prevent. The French are due to be replaced by a bigger, tougher UN force next month.
| The Frenchies were the bigger, tougher force that replaced the Uruguayans. |
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-08-22 |
