UNREPORTED WORLD: DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO - Channel 4

[KennyM]

Did anyone record this? I caught the last 15 mins as it was on last night at 4am. It was shocking and I'm beginning to think that Alex Jones' was right all along about the UN. If anyone can source this let me know
UNREPORTED WORLD: DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

Unreported World travels to the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, and uncovers shocking evidence of UN troops supporting the Congolese government forces as the army carry out indiscriminate attacks, sometimes on civilian targets.

Friday 23 June 7.35pm

Reporter Aidan Hartley and producer James Brabazon travel to the Ituri region of the country, where they film the combat at close quarters, as government FARDC forces battle militias for control of the country’s vast mineral and timber resources.

Hartley and Brabazon witness combat between government forces and militias first-hand, and speak to survivors of government attacks, soldiers and the director of UN operations. Three and a half million people have been killed in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo so far, and the civilians have found themselves under attack from all sides.

As one survivor tells Unreported World, as far as he is concerned the government army and the UN are both the enemy as they both kill the people.

[KennyM]

UN accused over Congo village massacre

Settlements destroyed and families burned alive in a ruthless campaign to wipe out militias

Aidan Hartley in Ituri, Congo
Sunday June 18, 2006
The Observer http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1800181,00.html

United Nations peacekeepers in the Congo are contributing to the systematic destruction of civilian-occupied villages during combined operations with government forces.

Video evidence filmed by Channel 4's Unreported World shows the total destruction of a hamlet called Kazana in Ituri, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The assault was part of Operation Explorer to dislodge recalcitrant Walendu ethnic militias from the Front de Resistance Patriotique en Ituri (FRPI) before Congo's first democratic elections on 30 July.

South African and Pakistani units of the UN force, known as Monuc, broke UN rules by opening fire using mortars and heavy machineguns when women and children were present and by giving no warning of their attack. Monuc officers, whose mandate is to protect civilians from violence, had claimed the hamlet held only militias and perhaps a few brainwashed camp followers.

But as mortars fell, figures could be seen running in all directions. For days after Kazana's destruction we tracked down traumatised survivors from this and more than a dozen other destroyed villages. Monuc is mandated to provide relief to the victims of conflict, but we saw many terrified women, children and elderly people without food or shelter. They told of rape, torture and other ghastly treatment at the hands of government troops.

'We died because that's our home and that's where they were attacking,' said Alezo Ozunga, a Kazana resident who at 86 was too weak to run when the UN bombardment started. He claimed to have seen around 30 dead or dying civilians, including children.

After seven hours of bombardment, Congolese ground troops high on marijuana and alcohol entered Kazana. Small arms fire erupted and houses began to burn. Suddenly the South Africans became concerned about injured civilians needing help and we joined a platoon of blue helmets advancing on foot.

On Kazana's outskirts militias ambushed our party, fleeing after a 20-minute duel of gunfire. The UN called in mortars but some of these overshot and cut up a party of government troops. In Kazana itself, there were signs that families had been making breakfast. There were mortar impacts, pools of blood and three dead militias. As the blue helmets stood aside and watched, the Congolese army torched the houses. 'These Walendu are hard nuts who need to be taught a lesson,' one soldier told me.

'I feel very bad,' the Congolese government officer leading the Kazana operation said as we watched flames leaping skyward. 'I can't control my soldiers.'

Later, Ozunga said civilians were still in some huts when Kazana was torched. 'They burned human beings,' he said.

Government captain Olivier Mputu declared the Kazana operation a success at 'enlarging the area of security'. He claimed 34 militia, four soldiers but no civilians had been killed.

There can be no democratic elections in Kazana come July's polls. Houses are razed, crops are spoiled, the school which was to be a voting station has been commandeered as a military camp and many survivors said they lost their voting cards during the attack.

Some Monuc officers acknowledge the mandate to protect civilians is not working in Ituri. The 17,000 peacekeepers, though the largest UN force in the world, are spread too thinly in a failed state the size of western Europe. UN troops are ill-equipped, the lack of language skills among contingents such as the Uruguayans means confusion. Monuc has been beset by sexual abuse scandals.

Kazana's devastation violated all Monuc's rules. In his office at Monuc's fortified regional headquarters, the UN's political chief in Ituri, Sharou Shariff, was horrified when told of the attack: 'The standard operating procedures are, when you see women and children and you are in attack mode, then you do not fire. It does shock me and certainly this is the first time I'm hearing this.'

Shariff described the government army as 'uncivilised', and when asked why Monuc gave fire support to this force he said: 'That has been changed. If my understanding is correct, the operation is [henceforth] going to be conducted by Monuc forces.'

Weeks later 1,000 Monuc troops supported a 3,000-strong Congolese government force - supplied with 30 tonnes of UN-delivered ammunition - to attack Tchei, a thickly populated complex of villages west of Kazana.

· Unreported World - The UN's Dirty War, Channel 4, Friday 7.35pm

[uselesseater]

Yes. And those great guys from the UN swap food for sexual favours too - nobody bats an eyelid all hidden in plane view.