Global Policy Forum

UN Ignoring Crisis in Western Africa

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By Thalif Deen

Inter Press Service
May 21, 2003

The international community is paying too much attention to Iraq and too little to a growing military and humanitarian crisis in West Africa, senior UN officials warn. The clashes between Lendu and Hema tribal factions in the embattled Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are threatening to escalate into a genocidal war, they say.


UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned on Monday the killings of two UN military observers from Jordan and Malawi, along with two local Red Cross workers. The killings were "appalling and shocking acts," he said. Despite a request for urgent action by Annan, the international community has been too slow to respond to a proposal to create a new rapid deployment force (RDF) to contain the violence in the town of Bunia in north-eastern DRC. As the situation went out of control last week, mobs destroyed UN vehicles and other property, while the UN sector commander was slightly injured when he was attacked with a machete.

Only France has so far volunteered to provide a large contingent of about 1,000 troops for the proposed RDF - but is not willing to go it alone. The only other two countries offering a limited number of troops are Britain and Pakistan. "And so, we're hoping other nations will step forward," UN spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters on Friday. Eckhard said that nations contributing troops would have to have the capacity to deploy them within days. "The situation is deteriorating badly."

On Monday, Ugandan troops completed their pullout from the country, followed by more than 1,000 refugees, reported Agence France Presse (AFP). The soldiers' withdrawal, after five years, has sparked the latest fighting in the Ituri region, reports say. Annan has been seeking help from South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is talking to other African leaders who may be willing to provide additional troops for the proposed military force.

The UN's current 5,000-strong peacekeeping team in DRC - known by the acronym MONUC - has neither the troop strength nor the mandate to resolve the crisis, senior UN officials say. The town of Bunia is currently under the protection of 700 troops from Uruguay who are part of MONUC. The London 'Economist' magazine says that "the United Nations is justifiably wary of getting sucked into the Congolese maelstrom, but its inaction has unacceptable human costs." Sergio Vieria de Mello, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has expressed "grave concern" over reports of indiscriminate killings in Bunia, and in particular, at reports that civilians are being killed because of their ethnicity".

Carla del Ponte, prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia, warned last week that the ethnic conflict in DRC may constitute "genocide", and therefore the international community has the obligation to intervene in DRC. In 1994, the Security Council was accused to failing to act against the genocide in Rwanda, where more than half a million people were killed.

UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Carolyn McAskie told reporters last week that the situation in DRC was a "rather nasty cocktail" of rebel groups and local authorities playing on ethnic hatred. The fighting for control of the town of Bunia, she said, had "shades of Rwanda in 1994". "The form of the fighting was that whole villages were rising up and slaughtering each other. That conjured up visions of what had happened in Rwanda, where men, women and children rose up and attacked their neighbours." McAskie said that more than 3,000 people had sought shelter at the UN Mission headquarters in Bunia, and another 5,000 at the airport. The civil war in DRC, which began in 1998, has involved five neighbouring countries - Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia. Although there have been several peace pacts, the fighting has continued unabated.

The situations in two other West African countries have also taken a turn for the worse. Last week, the Security Council approved a new peacekeeping force for the politically troubled Ivory Coast while the crisis in Liberia has continued to deteriorate. Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, UN Special Representative for West Africa, told reporters, "it is essential that the international community, notwithstanding its current focus on Iraq, North Korea and elsewhere, should continue to keep in mind the grave situation in West Africa". But about three days after his warning last week, a 15-member, seven-nation Security Council delegation to West Africa postponed its visit because of the Council's preoccupation with Iraq.

Currently, there are more than 200,000 internally displaced persons in Liberia, with 60 per cent of them in Monrovia. Over 300,000 Liberians are refugees in neighbouring countries, including Sierra Leone and Guinea.


More Information on DRC
More Information on Rwanda
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FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.