GOOD THING THE UNITED NATIONS ISN’T IN CHARGE IN IRAQ:
Wielding machetes and rocket-launchers, hordes of tribal warriors and drug-crazed children marauded through the Congolese town of Bunia yesterday, unleashing an orgy of killing and forcing tens of thousands of terrified refugees across the Ugandan border.
United Nations officials warned the Security Council that the crisis was potentially a genocide in the making, drawing parallels with Rwanda, where between 500,000 and one million people, mainly Tutsis, were killed by Hutus in 1994.
“Bunia is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe,” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said. . . .
There were no details about casualties, although two UN soldiers were said to be wounded. With only 600 troops in Bunia, a town of about 350,000 in the east of the war-ravaged country, the UN has been unable to control the rapidly deteriorating situation.
“We can’t do anything,” a peacekeeper said by telephone from the UN compound. “We do not have enough manpower. We do not have a mandate. We have sent repeated warnings that this was going to happen. We have asked for reinforcements. Every request was ignored.”
But don’t worry, the relief agencies have taken decisive action:
As the situation spiralled out of control, international humanitarian organisations evacuated 50 aid workers and their families from the town.
And the U.N. has agreed to consider talking about possibly deciding to allow the peacekeepers to consider returning fire if doing so might protect civilians. But, on the upside, there are no reports of art objects being stolen!