Massacre in DR Congo

[Guest RevEvil]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...c_massacre_dc_1

[Guest EricMM]

Atrocities in Africa? Get out.

 

That continent is a corrupt hell hole. They need some real leaders, or they'll always squabble.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Does this scream Kosovo or what?

[Guest EricMM]

It just screams 3rd world cultural conflict.

 

Happens everyday

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

And I'm sure the UN will make things better...

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Maybe they could draft a resolution against mass murder. That would help.

[Guest MrRant]

Let France get in there an tell them what to do.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Well, at least the UN would probably send in peacekeepers. Regardless of your opinions of the UN, peacekeepers (with guns) would likely help to subdue the killings.

 

Maybe.

[Guest MrRant]

Unless they send the French there, because even if the HAD guns no one would listen to them.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Touche.

[Guest Mad Dog]

That sounds like a normal day over there.

 

I mean everytime you turn around one tribe is trying to wipe out another or a government has been overthrown.

 

The only country with any sort of stability there is South Africa.

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

Didn't the UN high-tail out of Rwanda some years back, thus commencing the slaughter of hundreds of thousands?...

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Was it that, or did the UN not take action which allowed for something like 800,000 people to be massacred.

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

Maybe, I can't remember...

[Guest Mad Dog]

I think they sent something like 200 peace keepers over there and then they ran with their tails between their legs after the first soldier got killed.

[Guest Will Scarlet]

Well, it's not happening in Europe, so I doubt the UN cares about it all that much.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Well, it's not happening in Europe, so I doubt the UN cares about it all that much.

That's a stupid comment if I've ever heard one.

[Guest Will Scarlet]

That's a stupid comment if I've ever heard one.

 

From what I have heard, the UN seems a lot more Eurocentric than anything. Case in point, prosecuting a lot more war criminals from the Kosovo case than what happened in Rwanda, despite the Rwanda case being much worse in terms of war crimes than the Milosevic one. Besides, isn't Sadaam a war criminal? You don't see the UN going after him.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Case in point, prosecuting a lot more war criminals from the Kosovo case than what happened in Rwanda, despite the Rwanda case being much worse war crimes than the Milosevic one.

 

Um, Milosevic was committing genocide and had already eliminated around 2/3 of the Kosovo population. It's hard to imagine something much worse than that.

[Guest Will Scarlet]

Um, Milosevic was committing genocide and had already eliminated around 2/3 of the Kosovo population. It's hard to imagine something much worse than that.

 

I thought he was committing ethnic cleansing, as opposed to genocide, while the the Rwanda case was genocide.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Ethnic cleansing IS genocide.

[Guest Mad Dog]

The U.N. really didn't do much of anything about either case to be honest.

 

Clinton went it without U.N. approval.

[Guest Will Scarlet]

I guess I received some misinformation about the two cases from my political science teacher, I apologize.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Here's a solid summary of what happened in Rwanda, going day by day.

 

It doesn't beat actually sitting down and reading some of the reports, but it's pretty informative. The general gist is that there were about 2500 UNAMIR troops in Rwanda, and within a week of the genocide's start, that number was pulled back to 270. The biggest blow directly against the UN occurs on April 7th, 1994, when 10 Belgian UNAMIR officers are tricked into giving up their weapons and then subsequently tortured and murdered by the Hutu. From here on out, the UN and US became more concerned with getting their own people out of there.

 

After that, the UN and the US did too little, too late. They spent their time drafting resolutions and condemning the Hutu without doing much to help the Tutsis. In a month and a half 500,000 Tutsis have been killed, and the Security Council is still kicking around, trying to decide whether what's going on qualifies as acts of genocide. Troops aren't deployed until the end of June, and by the time the Hutu have been beaten back at the end of July, 800,000 people are dead.

 

It's one of the most horrible atrocities of the century. I would rank it second only to the Holocaust and personally place it above Milosevic and Kosovo simply because of the utter lack of action on the part of the UN and US. If you want to know more about this--and I personally think everyone should, because the fact that this happened within the last freaking decade and 9 out of 10 people you ask about it have no idea what the hell you're talking about is terrifying--then pick up a copy of the book We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Phillip Gourevitch. It is amazing and terrifying.

 

Ironically enough, this all started 9 years ago yesterday. Wow.

[Guest nikowwf]

The world at large doesn't give a flying fuck about Africans dying. I'm not saying this is right, but its true. A lot of the massacres have occured while UN troops stood by and watched these things occur. (Not literally, but were stationed within striking range where they could have fought it and did nothing)

 

niko