World>Terrorism & Security
posted March 3, 2005, updated 12:00 p.m.

UN downplays deadly confrontation in Congo

But residents say 'tough' UN response against militias ignores civilian suffering.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

The United Nation's history in the Congo can be described as a "troubled" one. That may be why the UN reacted quickly to defend the actions of UN peacekeeping troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), who killed 60 militiamen in a fierce gunbattle Wednesday.

The Associated Press reports that 242 Pakistani peacekeepers from the UN Mission in the Congo, known as MONUC, were on a mission to dismantle a militia headquarters "in lawless Ituri province in eastern Congo" when they came under fire. The troops returned the fire and were assisted by Indian helicopter gunships.

'The UN has traditionally kept peace. It hasn't done war fighting, but when you're confronted with people who are fighting you, you have to exercise self-defense and take them out, basically,' Britain's UN Ambassador Emyr Jones-Parry said.

Ituri province is the same area where nine UN troops from Bangledesh were killed last Friday. The AllAfrica.com reports that the nine men were not killed in battle, but were kept alive and then executed by militiamen.


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The International Online of South Africa reports that the area is "awash" in guns, fueled by the gold and diamond trade. The Washington Post reports that a peace agreement has been in place in the region since 2002, but "at least seven militias vie for control of the area's diamonds and gold."

None of Ituri's militias is part of the peace deal. With no representatives in Congo's transitional government, they have little interest in national elections planned for this year, analysts said. 'If the UN looks for militia, they are going to find them,' said Jim Terrie, an expert on the Ituri region at the Nairobi chapter of the International Crisis Group. Even if the UN forces are 'acting more robustly' in pursuing those who killed the Bangladeshis, he said, 'they need to take a different path to achieve peace and not just justice for a small group.'

The BBC reports that the militia members killed in Tuesday's gunbattle, belonged to the ethnic Lendu Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI), the same group that is believed to have killed the Bangladeshi peacekeepers. AllAfrica.com reported Wednesday that government justice officials arrested several FNI militia leaders Tuesday.

The Daily Telegraph, however, reports that criticism of the UN operation in Congo is mounting after it emerged that up to one-third of those killed were civilians used by the militia as human shields. Congelese officials in the area say that 20 women and children died, including several after the helicopter gunships set their huts on fire.

'What we are sure of is that the militiamen were using civilians as human shields,' said Eliane Nabaa, a UN spokesman in Ituri's main town of Bunia. 'We think the majority of those killed, maybe all, were militiamen but we are investigating to see if there were civilians among the dead.'

Reuters reports that "ordinary Congalese" are outraged at the UN's actions because the body's new "get tough" policies on militias in the country take no account of civilian suffering. Many in the town of Bunia, near Ituri province, say the UN's actions were "misplaced revenge" for last week's ambush killings, and show that UN lives count more than civilian lives. Almost 3 million people have died in fighting in the Congo.

'Nine people die and it triggers a huge bombardment, but how many thousands of people died here?' said Christophe, a businessman sitting astride his parked motorbike on a rutted pavement in this ramshackle mining town ... 'There are those who bleed milk and those who bleed blood,' he said, using a proverb to signal the incident showed African lives were worth less to the United Nations than those of foreigners.

The Post reports that the UN mission in the Congo, one of the "largest and most expensive" of the organization's peacekeeping operations, has been heavily criticized in the past for standing aside when violence flared in past incicents in Ituri province. In May of 2003, a UN contingent from Uruguay watched as militias killed 500 people in Bunia, including several shot as they were trying to make their way into the UN compound for protection.

Last year, a breakaway faction of the Congolese army attacked Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province, while UN troops watched and made no effort to stop them. A few days later, thousands of people in the capital of Kinshasa demonstrated and burned UN vehicles in protest.

Allegations of sex crimes

Voice of America reports on the other dark moment for the UN in the country: the allegation that UN peacekeeping troops used food and money to buy sexual favors from woman and girls, some as young as 12. The US Congress held hearings Monday on the reports, which Congressmen called "shameful."

An editorial in the Kenyan newspaper, The Nation, notes that the head UN envoy in DRC, former US Ambassador William Lacy Swing, will likely announce his regignation soon because of his failure to deal with the soldiers and sex issue. The paper said the UN needs to " re-examine its criteria for recruiting soldiers to its peacekeeping missions in the first place, the training these soldiers get, and their all-round suitability as peacekeepers."

The greatest criticism that the world body faces today is the immoral opulence displayed by its staff in a sea of strife and poverty. Some of the staff have doubtful qualification and scant knowledge of local culture. In the same breath, the world body should be applauded for exposing the rot within its system, for self-criticism is the first step towards self-improvement.

Although many UN soldiers serving in the DRC accused of these crimes have been sent back to their countries, The Scotsman reports that most go completely unpunished for their actions. But Jordan's UN Ambassador Prince Zeid al Hussein, who is writing a report on the situation, is apparently going to recomment that "foreign soldiers accused of wrongdoing be court-martialed in the country where the claims were made."

Finally, a report released Monday by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said deployments of peacekeepers (and civilian contractors) in the Balkans had " only boosted demand for trafficked women and put money in the pockets of organized crime.'

The report, released yesterday, accused the UN, the US Defense Department and NATO of failing to adhere to their "zero-tolerance" policies of soldiers having sex with local women.