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East/Subsaharan Africa
Another Rwanda Horror Forming in Congo. UN is Impotent.
2003-05-21
Edited...
Allegations of cannibalism and mass murder are coming from Congolese civilians of the Hema ethnic group who have fled across the border into western Uganda.
Terrified civilians have fled in their thousands. It is impossible to verify some of the more extreme claims - for example that the ethnic Lendu militia have eaten the hearts of Hema victims or worn their intestines as a grisly headdress. But there is no doubt about the fear felt by fleeing civilians.
I don't think I'd hang around and make sure they were just rumors, either. The penalty for being wrong is being lunch...
United Nations officials are taking the allegations of cannibalism seriously and plan to investigate.
There it is. The UN "plans to investigate". That pretty much sums up the impotence of the UN.
Don't worry. I'm sure they're preparing the memo right this moment and that its processing will be expedited, as long as it's in the correct format...
Amos Namanga Ngongi, head of the UN mission in Congo, told reporters that the reports were too persistent to be entirely without foundation. In the fishing village of Ntoroko, at the southern tip of Lake Albert, the authorities claim 12,000 refugees have crossed the border over the last month. During the exodus from the Ituri district, most of the refugees benefited from the protection of the withdrawing Ugandan troops. "We would all have been massacred on the way if it weren't for the large numbers of Ugandan soldiers," whispers Antoinette. Antoinette says the Lendu militia around Bunia town have been killing the Hema in large numbers. Between Bunia and the border, she claims to have seen empty villages where Hema once lived. She says now they are occupied by the Lendu and their allied Ngiti militias. The small UN force have failed to halt the violence.
The losing streak is still intact, unfortunately.
All of the refugees I met were critical of the United Nations for not protecting them from the militias.
"It's a cultural thing. We didn't want to get involved. The natives have been doing this sort of thing for years, now..."
"I don't know if the minds of those at the UN headquarters are functioning well," says Ngadjole Lonema who describes himself as a businessman from Bunia. He criticises the UN for deploying as few as 700 peacekeepers on the ground while the Ugandan army has been withdrawing some 9,000 troops from Congo.
Were they supposed to be peacekeepers? I thought they were observers. And two of them were killed and eaten...
I asked Ngadjole Lonema what advice he would give to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. "He must deploy at least 15,000 troops immediately to prevent the Hema being eliminated from the map of Congo. If he doesn't act quickly he will count the dead bodies like they were counted in Rwanda in 1994." While hope is currently pinned on a ceasefire between the opposing factions, many suggest that militias capable of carrying out horrendous human rights atrocities are unlikely to turn into a disciplined force overnight. So the immediate deployment of a large peacekeeping force is essential.
Posted by:ColoradoConservative

#20  Excelent novel on the Belgian Congo"The Posionwood Bible".
Posted by: Raptor   2003-05-22 07:14:20  

#19  I think bomb-a-rama got it right. Why does this story never get written in a font size greater than 10?
Posted by: Becky   2003-05-21 23:15:10  

#18  I hate to disagree with the optimists, but I'm afraid I must. Africa is indeed a disaster in the early stages, and it's going to get a LOT worse, and there's very little we can do to affect that. Starvation and genocidal civil war is just the warm-up to the main event - aids is a ticking time-bomb that's just about ready to explode. And not just in Africa, although that's likely to be the worst.

I think it's going to get uglier than anyone can imagine. And, mind you, I'm not saying we shouldn't try to help - I just don't think we can do much.
Posted by: mojo   2003-05-21 21:08:11  

#17  If the US decided to send troops (without the UN) would the anti-War left howl in rage or mumble sullenly.
Posted by: Yank   2003-05-21 18:16:29  

#16  Building on what ZF said, why then, can't Europe or the EU send a force or a combined force to take care of this? After all, they're much closer to the conflict area, and Blacque Jacque Chirac seems to think that Europe is a logical counterweight to American power, so why doesn't they take care of this little problem?

They can't? Oh, never mind then.....
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2003-05-21 16:19:09  

#15  This is going to come off the wrong way, but what the heck... Any deployment to the Congo is going to end up costing lots of moola, especially if we deploy in enough strength to keep our casualties low. Our forces, both active duty and reserve, tip-of-the-spear and logistics, have been working their butts off dealing with Iraq and preparing for potential war with North Korea. We do not need another distraction; there are plenty of other brushfire wars in Africa that should be dealt with, but have no real effect on our national security.

The atrocities in the Congo are sad, but bottom line is that our military exists to protect Americans from harm. When we're not stretched, and the world is at peace, we can extend the tasks undertaken to humanitarian relief operations. This is not one of those times. We need to keep every man ready for war on the Korean peninsula, or whatever contingencies may occur in the Muslim world. Every defense dollar is precious; our weapons systems could be upgraded or better-maintained to preserve or improve war-fighting readiness. Pouring them down the drain with a mission in the Congo borders on criminal negligence with respect to America's security.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2003-05-21 15:48:23  

#14  Belgium had by far the worst colonial record, especially when the Congo was the personal property of the odious King Leopold II. Germany was horrible as well, especially in Namibia. Japan, however, was the only imperial power that deliberately tried to destroy an entire culture --forcing the Koreans to take Japanese names and supposedly even planning on eliminating the Korean language. And what was the most ameliorative colonial regime? Probably the US. In 1946, the Philippines was, after Japan, the best-educated and most socially developed country in Asia.
Posted by: closet neo-con   2003-05-21 14:35:32  

#13  both above anon's were me
Posted by: liberalhawk   2003-05-21 13:42:32  

#12  closet - so rwanda was a rigid, class dominated society, It was Belgium that eliminated the possibility of "rising" from hutu to tutsi, and treated the distinction as a more rigid racial one.

And this need not be part of a general critique of colonialism. It is widely remarked (back to Conrad I think) that Belgian colonialism in Africa (and German too, i believe) was far more brutal and less ameliorative than say British colonialism.
Posted by: Anonymous   2003-05-21 13:41:32  

#11  ii should have said large areas of africa where genocide is not occurring. Freudian slip, i guess.
Posted by: Anonymous   2003-05-21 13:37:27  

#10  Liberalhawk has an importmant point: according to Transparacy International, Botswana is less corrupt that France (!), and Namibia is less corrupt that Italy.

Blaming the Hutu-Tutsi conflict on colonialism -- as the left always does -- is, however, a bit naive. Sure, Germany and then Belgium did exacerbate the tensions, but they were there already. The Tutsi formed as an amalgam of Nilotic Hima and and Hinda invaders who intermarried to some extent with local "royal" Bantu clans. They established stong kingdoms in both Rwanda and Burundi, and ruled as feudal aristocrats. They did abandon their Nilotic language for the Bantu tongue of their Hutu serfs, but they remained a separate group. One could move from Hutu to Tutsi status through royal favor, but the kingdoms remained rigidly stratified.
Posted by: closet neo-con   2003-05-21 13:13:52  

#9  actually there are large areas of europe where genocide is not occuring. The biggest genocide in africa in recent years in Rwanda, was not classically "tribal" the hutu and tutsi share the same language. It was racial (or pseudo racial, since the two groups are not quite as racially distinct as is sometimes claimed) The situation in Rwanda was aggravated by past belgian policies of divide and rule - not out of the distant past at all.

Uganda and the new regime in rwanda have made great strides towards rule of law and capitalism. Africa is not hopeless, not if we dont give up on it.

The problem of command - i dont have an answer - there are plenty of troops under UN command in different parts of the world - the notion that no nation will put its troops under UN command is simply false. Certainly there'd be reasonable reluctance to put US troops under UN command in Africa - the memory of Somalia.

But at this point there is no request for US troops. If there is, i think we could work around the command question. Besides, i thought the consensus here was that the problem in Somalia was not the UN, but Clintons reluctance to deploy adequate force.
Posted by: liberalhawk   2003-05-21 11:57:50  

#8  

Another Rwanda Horror Forming in Congo. UN is Impotent.



And in other news today, 4 people were slightly injured when........
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2003-05-21 11:21:23  

#7  This is a shame. I blame the USA. And Dick Cheney!
Posted by: Lucky   2003-05-21 11:14:29  

#6  Any day now, the U.N. will pass a resolution formally requesting that the Lendu Militia pass a new bylaw discouraging cannibalism .
Posted by: Jonesy   2003-05-21 11:13:18  

#5  No nation... will want their troops to go into this under UN command. ... Which is probably why the Ugandans are leaving.

The Ugandans are leaving because their army is outnumbered, and there's no good reason to stay. Uganda has no more desire to have their troops killed for UN foolishness than anybody else. They recognized they couldn't control the situation, and wisely pulled back. Taking some of the refugees with them was an act of grace, and will probably be repaid by having dozens of refugee camps to support, with or without aid, for years to come.

Africa is a disaster in the early stages. It's not going to get better until personal freedoms are respected by every single citizen. As long as one group can get guns and impose their will on others, Africa will continue to slide into barbarism.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2003-05-21 11:09:43  

#4  What do you propose Liberalhawk? Africa has always been a big, genocidal tribal mess -- only before the advent of modern medicine and agriculture it was a big, genocidal tribal mess with a low population density. Nothing new here - read John Burger's Horned Death if you want some enlightening (i.e. terrifying) insight into the Central African soul.

I don't mean to sound cynical here; the Hema may be a very noble people. But UN Command + Troops = death.... usually for those same troops.
Posted by: Secret Master   2003-05-21 11:08:56  

#3  Yes, this is another horror story. Anyone waiting for the UN to act will probably end up dead or worse.

However, how long will it be before someone blames the United States?
Posted by: Douglas De Bono   2003-05-21 10:59:36  

#2  i agree with colorado con. Can't just like the other way again.
Posted by: liberalhawk   2003-05-21 10:48:02  

#1  No nation in its right mind, no matter how well intentioned, will want their troops to go into this under UN command. I genuinely feel bad for the Hema, but going in is the foreign policy kiss of death. Which is probably why the Ugandans are leaving.
Posted by: Secret Master   2003-05-21 10:29:25  

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