OXYMORON OF THE DAY -- UN PEACEKEEPER

Congo observers slaughtered after unanswered pleas (Knight-Ridder, 6/11/2003)

For six days, two terrified United Nations military observers phoned their superiors - as many as four times a day - begging to be evacuated from their remote outpost in northeastern Congo.

They were receiving death threats, they said. They were alone and unarmed in Mongbwalu, a former gold-mining town ruled by the cannibalistic Lendu tribal militias. A U.N. helicopter from the town of Bunia could have retrieved them in 35 minutes.

But the United Nations, handcuffed by its own rules and bureaucracy, never sent a chopper. On May 18, 10 days after the two peacekeepers made their first distress call, the United Nations finally flew some armed peacekeepers to Mongbwalu.

They found the mutilated bodies of Maj. Safwat al Oran, 37, of Jordan, and Capt. Siddon Davis Banda, 29, of Malawi.

Their decomposed corpses had been tossed into a canal and covered with dirt, according to those who saw the bodies. They were shot in the eyes. Their stomachs were split open and their hearts and livers were missing. One man's brain was gone....

Col. Daniel Vollot, the MONUC sector commander in Bunia, said ... that MONUC isn't responsible for the deaths of Banda and Oran.

"We can't feel guilty," said Vollot. "Certainly, if we had arrived two or three days before, they would be alive. It's difficult, but I don't feel guilty about that."

Here's a related story: EU soldiers in Congo find their hands are tied (Guardian, 6/13/2003)

The village of Katoto was smouldering, and one house still burning, after the reported massacre of 121 people on Saturday during the latest Lendu attack. Bloodied mattresses lay scattered outside a looted mud hut. Throughout the attack the French troops stayed in their barracks. Their mandate did not permit them to venture outside Bunia, their commander said, nor to intervene in battles between armed groups.

Is there any doubt that the purpose of these missions is not to help people on the ground, but to feed the egos and political careers of the sponsoring politicians? Jacques Chirac and Kofi Annan will eat sumptuously and sleep on silk tonight, but they are not storing up treasure in heaven. Posted by Paul Jaminet at June 13, 2003 3:50 PM