"Massacre" at UN Camp

[Akira 0]

News

Quote[/b] ]180 Congo Refugees Massacred in Burundi

By ALOYS NIYOYITA

GATUMBA, Burundi (AP) - Attackers armed with machetes and automatic weapons raided a U.N. refugee camp in western Burundi, shooting and hacking to death at least 180 men, women and children, U.N. officials said.

Burundian Hutu rebels claimed responsibility, insisting the camp for Congolese Tutsi refugees fleeing tribal fighting was a hide-out for Burundi army soldiers and Congolese tribal militiamen.

But most of the victims appeared to be women and children. Their charred remains lay among the cooking utensils and the smoldering remnants of their former homes on Saturday.

The attack late Friday echoed the killing during the 1994 genocide in Burundi's neighbor Rwanda and raised fears of retaliatory violence that could undo peace efforts in Congo.

The camp, 12 miles from the border with Congo, sheltered ethnic Tutsi refugees, known as the Banyamulenge, who fled fighting in Congo's troubled border province of South Kivu, U.N. officials visiting the camp after the attack said.

``People were sleeping when the attack happened,'' Eliana Nabaa, spokeswoman of the U.N. mission in Congo said. ``People were killed as they tried to escape.''

Isabelle Abric, spokeswoman for the U.N. mission in Burundi, said 159 people were killed on the spot and 101 others were wounded in the attack in Gatumba. At least 30 of the wounded died later in hospital, she said.

Leaflets distributed before the raid warned refugees to leave the camp or face attacks by a coalition of Burundian, Rwandan and Congolese factions seeking ``to fight the Tutsi colonization in the region,'' survivors said.

The attackers spoke languages and dialects from the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi and were believed to have crossed into Burundi from Congo, witnesses told The Associated Press. They asked not to be named for fear of retribution.

Later Saturday, Burundian officials and aid workers moved the refugees to a nearby school where they will be protected by the army, said Louis Niyonzima, the local mayor.

A spokesman of the U.N. refugee agency said the attackers raided a nearby army camp before attacking the refugees.

``These guys were armed with grenades, machetes, and automatic weapons. While the attack was going on they were beating drums,'' said Fernando del Mundo, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva.

Pasteur Habimana, spokesman for the National Liberation Forces, justified the attack, saying Burundian soldiers were hiding in the camp, located about a half mile from an army position.

``We were also attacked by armed Banyamulenge militiamen who lived in this camp,'' he said. ``The camp was a genuine Banyamulenge militiamen headquarters.''

The National Liberation Forces is the last main rebel movement fighting the government in Burundi's 10-year-old civil war, which has killed some 260,000 people.

War broke out in 1993, when Hutus took up arms after Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the country's first democratically elected president, a Hutu. Burundi's Tutsi minority has effectively run the country for all but a few months since independence in 1962.

Army spokesman Col. Adolphe Manirakiza denied rebel claims that Burundian troops fled into the camp and said there was no attack on the nearby army position.

Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye described the massacre as ``a shame'' and asked the Congolese government to assist in investigations.

``What I can say is that it is Burundi which has been attacked. The attackers killed innocent refugees who sought refuge in Burundi,'' Ndayizeye said. The rebels ``declared that they attacked a military camp and that the soldiers fled in this camp but I saw no soldier's body except those of young children, women and old persons.''

Congo's President Laurent Kabila said he ``energetically condemns this ignoble act,'' and demanded an international investigation.

In a statement, Kabila also called on the Burundian government and the U.N. refugee agency to secure the area and protect ``the vulnerable population.''

The attack occurred one day after Congolese Vice President Azarias Ruberwa visited the camp to encourage the refugees to return home.

United Nations officials are studying whether the attack was carried out with the assistance of Congolese tribal fighters known as the Mayi Mayi or Rwandan rebels based in eastern Congo, Nabaa said.

The Rwandan insurgents include members of the former army and the extremists Interahamwe militia who fled to Congo after playing a key role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

More than 500,000 minority Tutsis and political moderates from the Hutu majority were killed in the 100-day slaughter organized by the extremist Hutu government then in power.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame said Friday's massacre proves ``that there have been incidents that are ignored by the international community and the U.N. where people are being killed in eastern Congo, being targeted for who they are.''

Ongoing ethnic strife in the region threatens to undermine peace efforts after Congo's 1998-2003 war, which drew at least five countries' armies into fighting. The seeds of that conflict lay in Rwanda's genocide, which sent hundreds of thousands of refugees and suspected genocidal killers into eastern Congo.

Associated Press writer Jack Kahorha contributed to this report from Goma, Congo.

When will people take the problems in Africa seriously?

[Commander-598 0]

If it was a UN camp, where were the UN Personel?

[The Frenchman 0]

Quote[/b] ]When will people take the problems in Africa seriously?

They never will. As stated once in the Sudan Crisis thread.

Quote[/b] ]Quite simple and quite sad: because they're Africans.

[Chill 0]

Wheres the USA? Oh thats right theres no oil there.

[Donnervogel 0]

If it was a UN camp, where were the UN Personel?

well what should "the UN personel" do against a horde of armed killers? UN is NO army. UN personel means doctors, people that build tents and give food to the refugees... unless there is a speacial threat those camps are not or only very lightly guarded.

[Commander-598 0]

Why even bother setting up the camp if your not really going to protect it...

[Donnervogel 0]

Why even bother setting up the camp if your not really going to protect it...

err... the camp is there to FEED people and to give them a temporary HOME. You know... give then a base for living...

And obviously it wasn't expected that a gang of killers with automatic weapons will be going there to kill people. Otherwise they would guard it.

[blackdog~ 0]

Wheres the USA? Oh thats right theres no oil there.

If there were leaflets distributed why weren't their any UN guards with guns? I think that's what the first reply was asking. There WAS warning... this could have probably been prevented.

Seeing how this forum normally operates, 200 pages later it will all be a huge conspiracy where the USA sent CIA operatives in to kill everyone and drill for oil and eventually take over the country to look for weapons of mass destruction but never find any.

And please, if the UN doesn't help the US then I don't think the US will help the UN. It's just not our responsability.

[Donnervogel 0]

Quote[/b] ]And please, if the UN doesn't help the US then I don't think the US will help the UN. It's just not our responsability.

hahaha now you're doing the same thing you critisize.

About previous warnings. I did not hear of them so far and I will wait until the story develops to claim if it was foreseeable or not. Maybe there were warnings. What I emant is that the people responsible for security in the camp did not expect that to happen or the reaction was too late. But as I don't know if there was a warning at all I will wait and see what more information I can get.

[Major Gripe 0]

The rebels must be quaking in their boots the UN has condemned their attack.  

Quote[/b] ]UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 (Reuters) - The U.N. peacekeeping force for Burundi expressed outrage on Saturday at a massacre in which more than 150 refugees were killed and warned those responsible that they would be made to pay.

"ONUB (the U.N. Operation in Burundi) will not hesitate to play its role in protecting civilians and will take all necessary measures towards this," said a statement issued by the U.N. headquarters in New York.

Quote[/b] ]"(It) strongly condemns the massacre and reminds the perpetrators -- which include the rebel FNL of Agathon Rwasa who claimed responsibility for the attack -- that they will answer for their acts against humanity."

If it wasn't such a heinous act this would almost be funny.

[sanctuary 19]

That is horrible, and when i think that only because those poor people have no ressources that can have the interest of one of the major powers, they will not care, at all.

Disgusting, innocent people are dying, this history of those kind of massacres are repeated in Africa, but as long as there is not something of economic interest in the country, let them all die .......

Shame is on the other "major" countries that have the capacity to do something to prevent such massacres to happen.

But that will certainly not prevent all those politicians to sleep ...

[ralphwiggum 6]

turn this into antoher "US v rest of the world" and I'll show some ugly side of me.

[GoOB 0]

I'll show some ugly side of me.

You have multiple ugly sides?

A very sad event indeed...

There were "warnings" but not related to this event ofcourse. One would think that the UN would keep armed guards at a camp so large, in an area so troubled... Even with guards it probably wouldn't have been avoidable.

[DracoPaladore 0]

Thats what I am wondering,  where were the guards?

Especially with a warning or the fact that your in a dangerous area such as that, you'd think they'd send at the most a squad? Maybe a single soldier with a butterknife?

But are there any UN troops there?

If so, where were they?

[blackdog~ 0]

Quote[/b] ]And please, if the UN doesn't help the US then I don't think the US will help the UN. It's just not our responsability.

hahaha now you're doing the same thing you critisize.

About previous warnings. I did not hear of them so far and I will wait until the story develops to claim if it was foreseeable or not. Maybe there were warnings. What I emant is that the people responsible for security in the camp did not expect that to happen or the reaction was too late. But as I don't know if there was a warning at all I will wait and see what more information I can get.

Quote[/b] ]Leaflets distributed before the raid warned refugees to leave the camp or face attacks by a coalition of Burundian, Rwandan and Congolese factions seeking ``to fight the Tutsi colonization in the region,'' survivors said.

[GoOB 0]

I don't think there are currently any troops stationed in the Congo. The French left a few months ago I beleive.

And the UN can't send troops without other countries willing to give them the manpower, and soldiers cost money, money isn't to be found in Africa... Only expenses.

[DB-ERAUPilot 0]

as Bruce Willis said "God already left africa"....

[DracoPaladore 0]

I don't think there are currently any troops stationed in the Congo. The French left a few months ago I beleive.

What a shame

I thought Germany and French were still in Afirca.

Guess I thought wrong.

[GoOB 0]

Well, I think there are troops stationed in Africa. But not in the relavant areas (Congo, Burundi)

[Commander-598 0]

Why even bother setting up the camp if your not really going to protect it...

err... the camp is there to FEED people and to give them a temporary HOME. You know... give then a base for living...

And obviously it wasn't expected that a gang of killers with automatic weapons will be going there to kill people. Otherwise they would guard it.

I'm quite certain that everyone here knows that anything related to Central Africa probably involves some kind of hostility.

Any idiot of a tactician should be able to see that an unguarded camp in the region is like throwing a fat worm in a fish tank.

[Placebo 29]

Wheres the USA? Oh thats right theres no oil there.

You have a warning level of 3, that can become 4 and 5 very, very swiftly, you should be far more careful in controlling those fingers of yours, you have been warned previously not to flamebait. Any and I repeat any further flamebaiting of any kind and you will receive a WL+ and 1 week PR, that will put you perilously close to a permanent ban. And there would be no amnesty this time around.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]Any idiot of a tactician should be able to see that an unguarded camp in the region is like throwing a fat worm in a fish tank.

Yes ? It´s a humanitarian mission with civil contracted guards that run away when they face weapons. There´s no military involved. The UN troop contributions are minimal right now. This is a result of the war on terror and the Iraq war.

Right now there are over 3 million refugees in Africa who have to be supported with food, medicince and shelter. There´s just not enough military capacity to provide shelter for them.

Full stop.

Maybe you think about this.

And to blame it on the UN is the really most annoying thing to do. At least the UN is there...

All the constant UN bashing is just shit.

[The Real Armstrong 0]

When will people take the problems in Africa seriously?

When the system changes. Right now nobody earns anything on helping Africa, as you don't get money or work capacity from it. Africa is a big place and if 180 people die the multi-internationall industries won't notice anything. They can easily get more africans to make shoes for Nike or Adidas and get 2 dollars per week.

Sad but true, that's the world we are living in. You do what you earn on.

[GoOB 0]

Any idiot of a tactician should be able to see that an unguarded camp in the region is like throwing a fat worm in a fish tank.

Tactician? Since when do humanitarian aid require tactics?

[denoir 0]

When an advisor warned him against conflict with the Catholic Church, Josef Stalin contemptuously demanded, “How many divisions does the pope have?â€

Whining about the UN is equally silly. The UN is not a country. It doesn't have a military force. It doesn't have a political will of its own.

The UN is an umbrella organization for all its member states. It can only perform as well as the members allow it to. You can't blame it for not having the resources to do something, when it doesn't get the resources from the member countries.

In that camp, the UN did the little it could - provide food and shelter for refugees. They didn't have any resources available. If you wish to blame somebody, you should blame the member states for not providing adequate resources.

If you wish to blame specific member states then you should look at how much/little troops they provide to the UN relative their military might and how little money they give relative their economic strength. And that would be countries like China, India, USA and Russia. You could also question why the other African countries aren't helping out more. There's plenty of blame to go around, but it should not be directed at the UN.