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Reports coming out of the DRC, where an estimated 4,7 million people have been killed in what is perhaps Africa’s bloodiest conflict, make depressing reading and make the sincerity of the United Nations in solving conflicts in Africa questionable. The UN is mandated to stop conflicts and maintain peace and security, yet Congolese nationals in the Ituri province of the vast country have been killing each other while the UN stands by. It was not until fairly recently that the UN decided to move in. So far, its involvement has — for want of a better word — been lukewarm. Right from the onset of the war, the UN has never been particularly keen on stopping the conflict in the DRC. This is why Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia moved in. It is worth noting that while the three African countries had their troops deployed in the DRC, the Congolese people were killing each other but certainly not at the rate at which they are putting each other down following the withdrawal of the African peace-keeping force. Reports say that the UN has deployed 700 peacekeepers in the war-torn country, a figure which, given the size of the DRC and the complexity of the situation, we feel is negligible. While these few and ill-equipped "monitors" are sauntering about in the DRC, the fighting is raging on. One journalist recently described the situation in Ituri poignantly when he said the area was about "torched villages, macheted babies in the streets and stoned child warriors indulging in cannibalism and draping themselves with the entrails of their victims". The UN will always be what its members want it to be. Africa has never meant much for the United States or other influential members of the UN Security Council, hence the apparent slow manner in which the UN has been moving over the DRC issue. The DRC war has been going on for the past five years. Would the UN have shown the same sort of apparent indifference to the conflict had the DRC been somewhere at the heart of Europe? We feel that the UN has the capacity — but lacks the will — to mobilise a big enough force to stop the carnage in the DRC. If it had been really serious it would have deployed a substantial force when Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia withdrew their troops. One French Commander in the DRC recently said that several messages had been sent to America that a genocide was imminent and that there was need for more troops but so far nothing has been done. Speaking to a delegation of UN Security Council members on Wednesday, President Joseph Kabila of the DRC said: "You know the situation in Ituri and North Kivu and you are responsible for the international response . . . Rwanda is responsible for fighting in the east and it is time for sanctions to be applied against it." The envoy responded by saying that it would not slap Rwanda with sanctions! It is clear that the UN had the power to act but chose not to. In the meantime, fighting continues under the very noses of UN "peacekeepers". The
Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy" Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie" |
