theapportioner
May 18th, 2003, 10:25 PM
Why aren't we sending our troops?? The humanitarian disaster in the Congo is greater than that under Saddam, and there's probably as many WMD there as there are in Iraq: that is to say, none. And of course, being the generous Americans that we are, nation building in and of itself justifies intervention... right??
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Fleeing from a bloodbath
May 16th 2003
From The Economist Global Agenda
As the UN attacks the world’s big powers for ignoring the bloodbath in Congo and hundreds of thousands flee the slaughter in Ituri province, another unpromising ceasefire is signed
JUST as America is said to be pushing for him to be chosen as the United Nations’ representative in Iraq, the UN’s human-rights commissioner, Sérgio Vieira de Mello, has lashed out at the world’s main powers for being so obsessed with Iraq that they are ignoring the appalling death toll—more than 3m, maybe almost 5m—in Congo’s five-year civil war. “Congo is truly the immediate problem…But who is paying attention?” asked Mr Vieira de Mello on Thursday May 15th. “There is an urgent need to demonstrate that the lives of the Congolese are as important as the lives of the Iraqis or any other life on this planet.”
On Friday, Congo’s president, Joseph Kabila, signed a ceasefire with leaders of militia groups linked to the rival Hema and Lendu tribes that have been fighting for control of the region around Bunia, in the north-eastern province of Ituri. Hundreds have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes since Uganda withdrew its occupying troops from Bunia earlier this month. Around 10,000 terrified civilians have taken refuge in the UN compound in the town. With little food or clean water, their babies are already dying. The 700 or so UN peacekeepers there, mostly from Uruguay, have found themselves cowering under a shower of mortars and grenades, while the tribal militias have looted, murdered and maimed their victims on the rutted roads outside the compound. On Friday, the UN began sending reinforcements to the town, promising to increase its troop numbers to 850 by the end of the month.
But a much bigger peacekeeping force is likely to be needed, since the ceasefire’s chances do not look good: previous accords signed by Congo’s rival militias have not held; and the current one has not been signed by either Uganda or Rwanda, which started the civil war by invading Congo in 1998, and continue to back some of the warring factions.
Kofi Annan, the UN’s secretary-general, has begged the big powers to form another “coalition of the willing” and dispatch a more adequate peacekeeping force. But so far, only France has agreed to send troops—and only in principle. Whether it will actually do so remains in doubt. Wary of becoming embroiled in an unstoppable slaughter, and of the damaging publicity that this might bring, the French government wants allies. But America has refused to join, and Britain is already fully committed in Iraq. There are no other likely candidates among—in Mr Annan’s careful phrase—“governments with capacity”. And the plight of his hapless Uruguayans has shown, not for the first time, the futility of sending ill-equipped soldiers to police third-world wars.
Congo is not Rwanda: it lacks the sophisticated, authoritarian political arrangements that enabled the Hutu government in 1994 to order the extermination of the Tutsis, and nearly to succeed in wiping them out. It is a small mercy, but the killing in Ituri province is less systematic. Panicked into action, Mr Annan is presenting Ituri’s war as a special case for intervention. It is not, in fact, so special; rather a particularly grisly example of a dozen or more micro-conflicts bubbling in eastern Congo, most of them within Rwanda’s sphere of influence to the south. These conflicts feature a bewildering and constantly mutating horde of rebel and tribally based militias, most of them armed either by Rwanda, Uganda or Congo’s government in Kinshasa. Uganda, which shares a border with Ituri province, has armed both the Hema and the Lendu, pitting each against the other and fuelling a wave of tit-for-tat massacres.
A recent estimate by an American aid agency, the International Rescue Committee, puts the death toll in Congo’s civil war at between 3.1m and 4.7m people, most of whom perished from the starvation and disease that result when civilians are in almost perpetual flight from armed men.
No help in sight
Who will put an end to this nightmare? Clearly it cannot be the under-funded and under-soldiered UN. Nor can it be the Congolese government, which sent 600 policemen to Ituri ahead of the Ugandan withdrawal, only to see them sell their guns to the Lendu militia, and then take refuge themselves in the UN barracks. A little embarrassed, the government next sent its human-rights minister with a suitcase full of cash and orders to buy off all sides. Now, he is in the barracks too, being treated for hypertension.
All this is meat and drink to Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, who has labelled the UN peacekeepers a bunch of “dangerous tourists”. This is rich, coming from the head of the regime most culpable for events in Ituri, and which continues to meddle there. On leaving Bunia, Ugandan soldiers donated their artillery to Hema militiamen, including many who belonged to a murderous gang that the Ugandans had attacked and driven from the town in March. With these weapons, the Hemas retook Bunia from the Lendus on May 12th, sending the pendulum of tribal murder swinging the other way.
Despite pressure from South Africa, Mr Museveni has refused to endorse the mooted French intervention. Perhaps he means to volunteer a return of his own men. That would be bad news for Ituri’s ravaged people—though any intervention might please the Uruguayans, who must want to go home, whatever happens.
___________________________________
Fleeing from a bloodbath
May 16th 2003
From The Economist Global Agenda
As the UN attacks the world’s big powers for ignoring the bloodbath in Congo and hundreds of thousands flee the slaughter in Ituri province, another unpromising ceasefire is signed
JUST as America is said to be pushing for him to be chosen as the United Nations’ representative in Iraq, the UN’s human-rights commissioner, Sérgio Vieira de Mello, has lashed out at the world’s main powers for being so obsessed with Iraq that they are ignoring the appalling death toll—more than 3m, maybe almost 5m—in Congo’s five-year civil war. “Congo is truly the immediate problem…But who is paying attention?” asked Mr Vieira de Mello on Thursday May 15th. “There is an urgent need to demonstrate that the lives of the Congolese are as important as the lives of the Iraqis or any other life on this planet.”
On Friday, Congo’s president, Joseph Kabila, signed a ceasefire with leaders of militia groups linked to the rival Hema and Lendu tribes that have been fighting for control of the region around Bunia, in the north-eastern province of Ituri. Hundreds have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes since Uganda withdrew its occupying troops from Bunia earlier this month. Around 10,000 terrified civilians have taken refuge in the UN compound in the town. With little food or clean water, their babies are already dying. The 700 or so UN peacekeepers there, mostly from Uruguay, have found themselves cowering under a shower of mortars and grenades, while the tribal militias have looted, murdered and maimed their victims on the rutted roads outside the compound. On Friday, the UN began sending reinforcements to the town, promising to increase its troop numbers to 850 by the end of the month.
But a much bigger peacekeeping force is likely to be needed, since the ceasefire’s chances do not look good: previous accords signed by Congo’s rival militias have not held; and the current one has not been signed by either Uganda or Rwanda, which started the civil war by invading Congo in 1998, and continue to back some of the warring factions.
Kofi Annan, the UN’s secretary-general, has begged the big powers to form another “coalition of the willing” and dispatch a more adequate peacekeeping force. But so far, only France has agreed to send troops—and only in principle. Whether it will actually do so remains in doubt. Wary of becoming embroiled in an unstoppable slaughter, and of the damaging publicity that this might bring, the French government wants allies. But America has refused to join, and Britain is already fully committed in Iraq. There are no other likely candidates among—in Mr Annan’s careful phrase—“governments with capacity”. And the plight of his hapless Uruguayans has shown, not for the first time, the futility of sending ill-equipped soldiers to police third-world wars.
Congo is not Rwanda: it lacks the sophisticated, authoritarian political arrangements that enabled the Hutu government in 1994 to order the extermination of the Tutsis, and nearly to succeed in wiping them out. It is a small mercy, but the killing in Ituri province is less systematic. Panicked into action, Mr Annan is presenting Ituri’s war as a special case for intervention. It is not, in fact, so special; rather a particularly grisly example of a dozen or more micro-conflicts bubbling in eastern Congo, most of them within Rwanda’s sphere of influence to the south. These conflicts feature a bewildering and constantly mutating horde of rebel and tribally based militias, most of them armed either by Rwanda, Uganda or Congo’s government in Kinshasa. Uganda, which shares a border with Ituri province, has armed both the Hema and the Lendu, pitting each against the other and fuelling a wave of tit-for-tat massacres.
A recent estimate by an American aid agency, the International Rescue Committee, puts the death toll in Congo’s civil war at between 3.1m and 4.7m people, most of whom perished from the starvation and disease that result when civilians are in almost perpetual flight from armed men.
No help in sight
Who will put an end to this nightmare? Clearly it cannot be the under-funded and under-soldiered UN. Nor can it be the Congolese government, which sent 600 policemen to Ituri ahead of the Ugandan withdrawal, only to see them sell their guns to the Lendu militia, and then take refuge themselves in the UN barracks. A little embarrassed, the government next sent its human-rights minister with a suitcase full of cash and orders to buy off all sides. Now, he is in the barracks too, being treated for hypertension.
All this is meat and drink to Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, who has labelled the UN peacekeepers a bunch of “dangerous tourists”. This is rich, coming from the head of the regime most culpable for events in Ituri, and which continues to meddle there. On leaving Bunia, Ugandan soldiers donated their artillery to Hema militiamen, including many who belonged to a murderous gang that the Ugandans had attacked and driven from the town in March. With these weapons, the Hemas retook Bunia from the Lendus on May 12th, sending the pendulum of tribal murder swinging the other way.
Despite pressure from South Africa, Mr Museveni has refused to endorse the mooted French intervention. Perhaps he means to volunteer a return of his own men. That would be bad news for Ituri’s ravaged people—though any intervention might please the Uruguayans, who must want to go home, whatever happens.