UN plans to send intervention force into eastern Congo

[hellheaven1987]

The UN wants to set up an intervention force to fight rebels fuelling conflict in DR Congo, says a UN official.

Meanwhile, eight African presidents are set to sign a UN-brokered accord aimed at bringing stability to the region.

As many as 800,000 people have been displaced since the M23 rebel group took up arms against the Kinshasa government last May.

It accuses President Joseph Kabila of failing to honour an earlier peace deal to integrate rebels into the army.

M23 say they want to improve living conditions for the people of eastern DR Congo, but the UN say they are supported by Rwanda, which has been heavily involved in its eastern neighbour since those responsible for the country's genocide fled there en masse in 1994.

Source

Perhaps "inspire" by French intervention in Mali, it seems UN finally decides to tough up towards the various militia groups in eastern Congo by sending a force to fight rebels actively. Nevertheless, since the idea is still in embryonic stage it is not sure who is going to contribute the men and resource. Ultimately, it may take few more months for the actual plan to come out, and damned God knows when the force would even be actually deployed.

[Thorn777]

Saying coming a little late to the party kinda understates this...whatever it is they are going there now.

[Vanoi]

Saying coming a little late to the party kinda understates this...whatever it is they are going there now.

If i'm not mistaken, UN peacekeeping forces have already been involved in the conflict. They just haven't really done much peacekeeping.

[Thorn777]

They have been keeping the peace ever since helping out in independent Africa's first ever coup and the murder of Lumumba. The head of state who called upon the UN to help keep the peace, which got them the mandate, but this mostly US financed mission did the exact opposite.

So I wonder whats on the plate this time. Im not really convinced its the millions of dead, raped, and mutilated we gonna help and keep since they have been murdering, raping, mutilating for a good decade in a row now.

[Adar]

The UN have aldready been there several times. For example Operation Artemis where a French led force tried to stabilize the situation after Ugandan peace keepers had been withdrawn.

They have been keeping the peace ever since helping out in independent Africa's first ever coup and the murder of Lumumba. The head of state who called upon the UN to help keep the peace, which got them the mandate, but this mostly US financed mission did the exact opposite.

So I wonder whats on the plate this time. Im not really convinced its the millions of dead, raped, and mutilated we gonna help and keep since they have been murdering, raping, mutilating for a good decade in a row now.

Does this look like a successful puppet of the Belgians? (please note, gory image of dead person)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Because that is the general secretary of the United Nations who was murdered by Belgian mercenaries fighting for the Katangan government.

Furthermore it is rather grotesque to describe Lumumba as the good guy. When the UN refused to invade Katanga as Lumumba wanted, he brought in Soviet support and went on a killing spree murdering that displaced over a million people in the Kasai province.

[Thorn777]

[QUOTE]

The UN have aldready been there several times. For example Operation Artemis where a French led force tried to stabilize the situation after Ugandan peace keepers had been withdrawn.



Does this look like a successful puppet of the Belgians? (please note, gory image of dead person)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Because that is the general secretary of the United Nations who was murdered by Belgian mercenaries fighting for the Katangan government.

1. How did you come to that conclusion? You seem to know more than everyone else.
2. And if so, you know the Belgian mercenaries where hired guns, which the title mercenary strongly suggests?
3. You know Katanga province seceding was a joint Belgian, US and UK project?
4. Now go a bit past your "Belgian mercenaries"...

Now, as far as your supposed point goes...Hammarskjöld and Lumumba where personal friends. Hammerskjöld a great many times advocated on behalf of Lumumba(or rather principal), opposing western smear campaigns. Hammerskjöld was a thorn in the side to the western powers involved.

Now, this is all fact, and I never claimed the UN was one big evil cabal. Its rather another one of those in fundamental principal great global institutions, like also the Worldbank, set up after WW2 and build on the fundaments of a political and popular generation that genuinely wanted a better world and the giant reset after WW2 made allot possible.

But as time progressed, institutions as these, but also national institutions like the CIA, where quickly circumvented by as it seems corporate interests and reactionary hardliners. Take the Worldbank being completely put upside down by the corporatist and intelligence guy Robert McNamara, or how the CIA started from the get-go by Wallstreet lawyers, greatly expanded their powers from mere information gathering to murderous covert actions en masse, despite having no mandate in its statutes that allows them to.

The UN of course is a much more open and democratic place that you cant just put guys in charge of. So surely you get good people up there like Hammerskjöld, or Hans Blicx, or Scott Ritter, but if push comes to shove then a Hammerskjöld can be blown up in a plane, and today now that the UN is no longer an alround popular institution, often like also on this board laughed at etc, you can simply ignore a Scott Ritter or Blicx. But of course when you can put an Amano in place the importance of the UN is highlighted again.

To me the corruption of the UN is a process, not an event, and after Hammarskjöld died and the UN went in it sure acted like a good boy.

Furthermore it is rather grotesque to describe Lumumba as the good guy. When the UN refused to invade Katanga as Lumumba wanted, he brought in Soviet support and went on a killing spree murdering that displaced over a million people in the Kasai province.

You are being grotesque. What would you think when some foreign powers together with some greedy and murderous locals take your richest Swedish province? Which then also went to be an operation-platform for terrorism and destabilization.

Lumumba was a head of state, not Ghandi. And the UN(point in case) got the mandate over "invading katanga" hence agreed to it, but instead they went all over the Congo, except Katanga....

Grotesque?

[Adar]

1. How did you come to that conclusion? You seem to know more than everyone else.
2. And if so, you know the Belgian mercenaries where hired guns, which the title mercenary strongly suggests?
3. You know Katanga province seceding was a joint Belgian, US and UK project?
4. Now go a bit past your "Belgian mercenaries"...

1) A lot of information brought about by the fifty year anniversary, BBC got one summary of it here.
2) With close ties to the Belgian government. Just like former SAS men had an odd habbit of showing up to further British interests even after leaving the service.

The simple fact is that Lumumba was closely aligned with Soviet and more than willing to support massacres against his opponents. The British and Belgian companies had a strong interest to oppose him and therefore worked hard to support the opposition. Lumumba responded by requesting aid from Soviet who helped by transporting ANC soldiers to Kongo. This of course got America actively involved.

And in the middle of this you had the UN led coalition consisting of a large amount of Swedish and Irish soldiers. If Lumumba had been smarter and less vicious, he would have surived as both the UN, America and Soviet supported decolonization of Africa.

Theres a very good book describing the whole situation in chronological order written by a Swede who served throughout most of the conflict due to being raised in Congo and speaking several local languages.

[Slaytaninc]

Furthermore it is rather grotesque to describe Lumumba as the good guy. When the UN refused to invade Katanga as Lumumba wanted, he brought in Soviet support and went on a killing spree murdering that displaced over a million people in the Kasai province.

See, I never knew that. I just always heard him talked about as being a "good guy" who was just a victim of "The West"

[Thorn777]

See, I never knew that. I just always heard him talked about as being a "good guy" who was just a victim of "The West"

And now you know even less. Degression at work.

[Slaytaninc]

And now you know even less. Degression at work.

Wow, what a brilliant comeback.

If you really want to sway me you'll provide some source material that is less biased than a YouTube video. Otherwise, bug off.

[LaMuerte]

Rare minerals?

[King Gambrinus]

Rare minerals?

Pretty standard tactics from the UN security council: watch the Civil War unfold, intervene at the death claiming to be "liberators", divide the treasure amongst themselves after.

[Rijul.J.Ballal]

What is the point now? dear good what does the UN do all the time?

[NRohirrim]

It'd only result in spread of hiv, ebola and naughty stuff like that throughout the world.

[hellheaven1987]

It'd only result in spread of hiv, ebola and naughty stuff like that throughout the world.

A worried sign was that a new kind of Ebola, able to transmit airbornly, has appeared in Great Lake region last year.

[Keyser]

A worried sign was that a new kind of Ebola, able to transmit airbornly, has appeared in Great Lake region last year.

I thought it rather was that they discovered that Ebola (period, not a new kind) transmited partially airbornly, via water particles actually, from respiration. They thought that's how people were infected by animals like pigs, in confined spaces like hoghouses.

[Col. Tartleton]

At this point being recolonized sounds pretty good I bet.

Maybe they'll learn.

[King Gambrinus]

At this point being recolonized sounds pretty good I bet.

Maybe they'll learn.

Yes, recolonisation would be a good thing for Congo. They'll all unite to drive out the colonisers and hopefully stay that way.

You know, like China did when Japan tried to...

oh wait...

[Adar]

Yes, recolonisation would be a good thing for Congo. They'll all unite to drive out the colonisers and hopefully stay that way.

It have already been tried, in the 60s. Even went so far that they slaughered any black person who spoke with the wrong accent.

Did not work out very well but Western Congo is very different from eastern Congo. In Western Congo they have cell phones, a mining industry and a lot of other fancy stuff. Eastern Congo is a rebel infested hellhole where Hutus and Tutsis are killing each other.

[Menelik_I]

UN or not I hope someone destroy these militias, because as France demonstrated in both Ivory Coast and Mali that there is no better negotiation technique than a bullet to the brains.

I doubt Kabila and his Rwandan overlords would be able to sabotage the stabilization of the region this time.

For the people complaining about Western Imperialism and singing the praises of Lumumba ... just drop the cute anti-colonial Internet good guy attitude. Go grab "Africa Betrayed" count how many back-stab and killings there was in almost every African country South of the Sahara as soon as the colonial Authorities left. Lumumba would have killed Kasavubu if He had a chance because of power and tribal rivalries, that is just the way things were back then.

That was the place where political slogans where "If you find John of Tribe X and a snake at a cross road you better kill John", and not far away almost identical Hutus and Tutsis butchered each other with machetes after 30 years of a Black on Black Apartheid worse than South Africa itself.

http://www.amazon.com/Africa-Betraye.../dp/0312104006

With independence from colonial rule, Africans had hoped for liberty, prosperity and a new beginning. Instead, they have experienced have brought nothing but economic misery, famine, senseless civil wars, wanton destruction, flagrant violations of human rights and brutal repression. Africa Betrayed is a powerful attack on the dictators who have ruined an entire continent. Dr. Ayittey writes devastatingly on the horrors of black neo-colonialism, arguing that it is naive for commentators to blame Africa's misery on external factors: African leaders have betrayed both the just aspirations of their countrymen and Africa's indigenous political systems, which in no way endorse tyranny. He argues that a second liberation struggle is beginning throughout the continent - one that will sweep away the kleptocracy and rediscover the African traditions that have endured throughout the horrors of both white colonialism and black neo-colonialism.