UN demands justice for DRC peacekeepers’ killers

UNITED NATIONS – The UN Security Council on Wednesday denounced the killing of eight UN soldiers in Congo this week and pressed Congo’s government to quickly bring the attackers to justice.

Eight Guatemalan peacekeepers were killed and five seriously wounded on Monday in a battle with rebels from neighbouring Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army or LRA. They were among about 80 Guatemalan soldiers who came under attack during a reconnaissance mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Garamba National Park, on the border with Sudan.”The LRA have conducted a long-running and vicious insurgency in northern Uganda which has caused the death, abduction and displacement of thousands of innocent civilians in Uganda, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” the council said in a unanimous statement.It called on Congo’s transitional government “immediately to take all necessary measures to bring to justice those responsible for this attack.”The LRA, led by a Christian mystic, Joseph Kony, has wreaked havoc in northern Uganda for two decades, uprooting more than 1,6 million people and kidnapping more than 10 000 children to force them into fighting, forced labour and sexual slavery.The 15 700-strong UN force in Congo, the world body’s largest and costliest mission, is helping implement a 2003 peace agreement ending a five-year civil war in the vast central African nation the size of Western Europe.But an upsurge in rebel and militia violence across the volatile east this month and the shaky state of the government army is threatening to undermine the peace process.The UN troops have stepped up operations against Congolese, Ugandan and Rwandan rebel groups and militias operating in the east during the last year.But the offensive has now taken the lives of 20 peacekeepers.Security has become a top priority as the deadline nears for general elections due by the end of June, so the transitional authorities installed as part of the peace process can cede power to a democratically elected government.- Nampa-ReutersThey were among about 80 Guatemalan soldiers who came under attack during a reconnaissance mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Garamba National Park, on the border with Sudan.”The LRA have conducted a long-running and vicious insurgency in northern Uganda which has caused the death, abduction and displacement of thousands of innocent civilians in Uganda, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” the council said in a unanimous statement.It called on Congo’s transitional government “immediately to take all necessary measures to bring to justice those responsible for this attack.”The LRA, led by a Christian mystic, Joseph Kony, has wreaked havoc in northern Uganda for two decades, uprooting more than 1,6 million people and kidnapping more than 10 000 children to force them into fighting, forced labour and sexual slavery.The 15 700-strong UN force in Congo, the world body’s largest and costliest mission, is helping implement a 2003 peace agreement ending a five-year civil war in the vast central African nation the size of Western Europe.But an upsurge in rebel and militia violence across the volatile east this month and the shaky state of the government army is threatening to undermine the peace process.The UN troops have stepped up operations against Congolese, Ugandan and Rwandan rebel groups and militias operating in the east during the last year.But the offensive has now taken the lives of 20 peacekeepers.Security has become a top priority as the deadline nears for general elections due by the end of June, so the transitional authorities installed as part of the peace process can cede power to a democratically elected government.- Nampa-Reuters