The New York Times' hypocrisy over the UN in the Congo

[tim_duncan2000]

As they root out the insurgents who prey on Ituri’s population, United Nations soldiers in the east have at their disposal tanks, armored personnel carriers, Mi-25 attack helicopters, mortars and rocket-propelled grenade launchers - all of which are getting heavy use.

“It may look like war but it’s peacekeeping,” said Lt. Gen. Babacar Gaye of Senegal, the force commander in Congo, of the largest and most robust of the 18 United Nations peacekeeping operations around the world.

At a militia camp in Kagaba recently, the peacekeepers backed up besieged Congolese troops and engaged in a running battle with ethnic Lendu fighters.

In March, after an ambush that killed nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers, the United Nations forces raided a crowded market near Loga to root out fighters preying on the local population. The peacekeepers also conduct what they call “cordon and search” operations, which are essentially hunts for weaponry in remote villages.

Their opponents are tribal fighters who ignored the United Nations deadline of April 1 for disarming. A last opportunity to comply is approaching; after that, the peacekeepers say they will get even tougher.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/23/international/africa/23congo.html?pagewanted=all

Belize042 said it best:

"It may look like war but it’s peacekeeping..."
Can you imagine the way the NYT would savage an American who said that?

"...hunts for weaponry in remote villages."
In Iraq, that's called "heavy-handed, jack-booted fascist tactics."

"Their opponents are tribal fighters who ignored the United Nations deadline of April 1 for disarming."
Which is bad, right, NYT? So you'd say that a group that ignored, say, seventeen U.N. resolutions and deadlines needs to be removed yesterday, right?

(crickets)
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15943#c0007

 

[archangel]

As they root out the insurgents who prey on Ituri’s population, United Nations soldiers in the east have at their disposal tanks, armored personnel carriers, Mi-25 attack helicopters, mortars and rocket-propelled grenade launchers - all of which are getting heavy use.

“It may look like war but it’s peacekeeping,” said Lt. Gen. Babacar Gaye of Senegal, the force commander in Congo, of the largest and most robust of the 18 United Nations peacekeeping operations around the world.

At a militia camp in Kagaba recently, the peacekeepers backed up besieged Congolese troops and engaged in a running battle with ethnic Lendu fighters.

In March, after an ambush that killed nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers, the United Nations forces raided a crowded market near Loga to root out fighters preying on the local population. The peacekeepers also conduct what they call “cordon and search” operations, which are essentially hunts for weaponry in remote villages.


Belize042 said it best:

However as long as the old (NY) times..doesn't suggest we take the lead and follow the UN...great...cause I am about taxed out...one or two more brush wars and I will be living in a cardboard box...NYT can kiss my butt...cause I could care less what they have to say!

 

[waltky]

Women & children slain at local church...

OFFICIAL: 34 DEAD IN EAST CONGO AFTER ATTACK
Jun 7,`14 ) -- Armed fighters attacked a town in eastern Congo late at night, massacring at least 34 people including women and children who were at a local church, officials said Saturday.

Provincial interior minister Jean Julien Miruho said that the violence in Mutarule late Friday also left at least 27 others wounded. Miruho said the identity of the assailants was unknown, though he believed the violence stemmed from livestock disputes in the area, about 40 miles (70 kilometers) from Bukavu. "We cannot say exactly who these attackers were, but we will put together a commission of inquiry that will go to the site Sunday," Miruho told The Associated Press. "It is clear that this attack was linked to the theft of cattle."

Survivors blamed a rebel group from Burundi known as the FNL for the attack, though the claim couldn't immediately be verified. Eastern Congo is home to a myriad of armed groups and militias, many vying for control of the region's vast mineral resources. Many of the rebel groups sowing unrest there originate in other countries in the region, including Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda.

Congo's military successfully sidelined one major rebel group - M23 - in eastern Congo last year with the help of a U.N. force with a stronger mandate. Congo's military is also working with a Rwandan Hutu militia group known as the FDLR to finally disarm after two decades of violence. In Congo's North Kivu province, Gen. Delphin Kahimbi said the government was giving the FDLR rebels a 30-day notice to voluntarily disarm. An estimated 1,400 FDLR fighters remain in eastern Congo, according to government estimates.

News from The Associated Press

 

[waltky]

More than a million people displaced in DRC...

UN: Congo Military 'Elements' Dug Dozens of Mass Graves
Thursday 27th July, 2017 - Congo military 'elements' are responsible for digging at least 42 mass graves in three Kasai provinces after clashes with alleged militia members in recent months, the United Nations said as experts were appointed Wednesday to look into a growing crisis that has killed hundreds and displaced more than a million people.

Human rights have deteriorated alarmingly due to the 'brutal and disproportionate repression against the Kamuina Nsapu militia by the Congolese defense forces,' the U.N. Joint Human Rights Office in Congo said in a new report. Congolese soldiers have killed more than 428 people, including women and 140 children, in the once-calm Kasai provinces as of June, the office said. The militia has killed at least 37 people during that time, it said.

The U.N. said it regrets the 'lack of efforts' to ensure independent investigations into the serious human rights violations that have included sexual violence and the use of child soldiers. The Catholic church has estimated that more than 3,300 people have died in the fighting in the Kasai provinces since the military killed the militia's traditional chief in August. Congo's government didn't immediately comment on the new U.N. report but has blamed the militia for the mass graves, which the U.N. says number at least 80.

The report also says allegations have come forth since April that a self-defense group, the Bana Mura, may be supported by Congo's military and that it reportedly has committed a number of executions against civilians associated with the Kamwina Nsapu militia. The U.N. human rights chief on Wednesday appointed a three-member panel to investigate alleged abuses in the Kasai region.

UN Congo Military Elements Dug Dozens of Mass Graves

See also:

U.N. Names 3 Rights Experts to Probe Mass Killings in Congo
Thursday 27th July, 2017 - The United Nations named three human rights experts on Wednesday to lead an international investigation into killings and other crimes in the Kasai region of Democratic Republic of Congo, a move that risks a showdown with the government.

Congo has insisted that its own justice system is in charge of the inquiry with the United Nations providing 'technical or logistical support'. Some Western states and campaign groups said they had hoped for a stronger U.N. mandate. The announcement came a day after the U.N. Joint Human Rights Office in Congo (UNJHRO) accused 'elements' of the Congolese army of digging most of dozens of mass graves discovered in recent months in Kasai.

Bacre Waly Ndiaye, a U.N. investigator from Senegal, will lead a fact-finding team that includes Luc Cote, a Canadian who worked on a previous U.N. inquiry into Congo atrocities, and Mauritania's Fatimata M'Baye. They were named by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, who has called for perpetrators to be prosecuted, including the pro-government Bana Mura militia that he said had cut off childrens' limbs and sliced open pregnant women.

Government spokesman Lambert Mende played down any differences over the investigators' mandate as 'semantic' and said the Kinshasa government had instructed its embassies to help the experts procure visas. But he sharply criticized the U.N.'s findings from Tuesday on the mass graves. 'Before the investigators arrive, they have already designated the guilty,' Mende said. More than 3,000 people have been killed and 1.4 million displaced in the violence, part of a wave of unrest that has worsened since President Joseph Kabila refused to step down when his mandate expired in December.

The U.N. Human Rights Council's resolution launching the inquiry last month cited reports of 'recruitment and use of child soldiers, sexual and gender-based violence, destruction of houses, schools, places of worship and state infrastructure by local militias, as well as of mass graves'. Kinshasa has been fighting insurgents in the Kasai region since August and there are fears of a wider conflict in the vast central African country, a tinderbox of ethnic rivalry and competing claims over mineral resources.

UN Names 3 Rights Experts to Probe Mass Killings in Congo