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South Sudan, horrific ethnic conflict, what, if anything, should we do?

BobStackFan4Life said:
I figure there's a joke involved here but I'm not getting it. Anyway, you really can't comment on why you were there? Just one question, were you armed and are you a good shot?
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No inside joke, just a reference to areas associated with violence. No, no comment, expert.
 
Okay. I'll drop the subject, though I'm sure I'm not the only one who is intrigued and wishes you could elaborate. But I respect your privacy. :thumbsup:
 
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Anyone keeping up with what's been going on next door in Central African Republic (CAR)? There the fighting is between Muslims and Christians. Some really disturbing vids on YouTube of what's happening. The level of inhumanity is just unreal.
"The UN agency for children says attacks against children have reached new levels of viciousness in the Central African Republic (CAR), where fighting between Muslim Seleka rebels and Christian militias left more than 1,000 people dead and displaced an estimated 400,000 in Bangui, the capital, this month. According to Unicef, at least at least two children have been beheaded, and one of them mutilated, in the violence that has gripped Bangui since early December. "We are witnessing unprecedented levels of violence against children. More and more children are being recruited into armed groups, and they are also being directly targeted in atrocious revenge attacks," said Souleymane Diabate, Unicef representative in CAR. "Targeted attacks against children are a violation of international humanitarian and human rights law and must stop immediately. Concrete action is needed now to prevent violence against children."
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/dec/30/children-beheaded-mutilated-central-african-republic-violence-unicef
 
The CAR is all kinds of fucked up. Read once that the country has more machetes per capita than anywhere in the world. Also one year in the early 2000s I think Bangui was named the world's most dangerous city. Iraq-war-era Baghdad was No. 2.
 
I had to stop watching some of the vids from CAR they were so depressing. It was like some insane version of Mad Max, only more fucked up.
 
ONW said:
Having spent time on the border between S.Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (another recently delineated country), the situation is FUBAR.
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December 2013 Kinshasa attacks
Attacks in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were launched by supporters of religious leader Paul Joseph Mukungubila against television studios, the airport and a military base in the capital on 30 December 2013. The state security forces responded, killing around 54 of the attackers. A further 47 of Mukungubila's supporters were killed in separate clashes in the cities of Lubumbashi and Kolwezi and around 100 people were arrested.
Attacks by men armed with knives were made against the state broadcaster's studios, N'Djili International Airport and the Colonel Tshatshi Military Camp from around 7.00am local time.[2] Religious leader and former presidential candidate Paul Joseph Mukungubila claimed responsibility for the violence. An army colonel was killed during fighting at the military base but the information minister, Lambert Mende, claimed the government would preserve order "at any price" and stated that there was no chance of the attackers "maintain[ing] their positions, even for a single hour".[3][2] Mende stated that 54 of the attackers had been killed.[1] A Congolese civilian working for the United Nations' MONUSCO programme was injured by gunfire at the airport.[2]

Mukungubila's men had forced two of the broadcaster's staff members to read a political statement critical of President Joseph Kabila on television. The statement said that "Gideon Mukungubila has come to free you from the slavery of the Rwandan", an apparent reference to the installation of Kabila's father as president by Rwandan-backed troops in a 1996–1997 rebellion.[3] The government was able to shut down the broadcasts.[2]
Aftermath

Mukungubila denied he was launching a coup and stated the violence was in response to government harassment of his followers. In response to the attacks police and military checkpoints were set up throughout Kinshasa.[3] A separate exchange of fire between security forces and gunmen in Lubumbashi in Katanga Province was initially said to be sparked by a disarmament programme and not related to the attacks in Kinshasa.[3] However later sources stated that the Lubumbashi engagement occurred when security forces assaulted a church linked to Mukungubila, killing 45 people.[1][4] A number of arrests were made in Lubumbashi.[3] One further person died in a related incident in Kolwezi.[1]

Mai Mai rebels also seized the airport in Kindu, Maniema Province prior to being driven back by UN and government forces on the same day but it is not known if this was related to the events in Kinshasa.[2] A warrant was issued by the Congolese government for the arrest of Mukungubila.[1]

Paul Joseph Mukungubila Mutombo, also known as Gideon Mukungubila, is a Christian religious leader and self-proclaimed prophet in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was an unsuccessful presidential candidate in the 2006 general election. In December 2013, about 100 Mukungubila's followers attacked the state TV headquarters, N'djili Airport and a military base around Kinshasa. Mukungubila stated that he was responding to government harassment, and forced state TV staff members to read a statement proclaiming, "Gideon Mukungubila has come to free you from the slavery of the Rwandan."[1]
 
BobStackFan4Life said:
Anyone keeping up with what's been going on next door in Central African Republic (CAR)? There the fighting is between Muslims and Christians. Some really disturbing vids on YouTube of what's happening. The level of inhumanity is just unreal.
"The UN agency for children says attacks against children have reached new levels of viciousness in the Central African Republic (CAR), where fighting between Muslim Seleka rebels and Christian militias left more than 1,000 people dead and displaced an estimated 400,000 in Bangui, the capital, this month. According to Unicef, at least at least two children have been beheaded, and one of them mutilated, in the violence that has gripped Bangui since early December. "We are witnessing unprecedented levels of violence against children. More and more children are being recruited into armed groups, and they are also being directly targeted in atrocious revenge attacks," said Souleymane Diabate, Unicef representative in CAR. "Targeted attacks against children are a violation of international humanitarian and human rights law and must stop immediately. Concrete action is needed now to prevent violence against children."
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/dec/30/children-beheaded-mutilated-central-african-republic-violence-unicef
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Yes, Bob.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/18/world/africa/central-african-republic-violence/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Convoy attack kills 3 children, 19 adults in Central African Republic
 
I think we sit this one out, unless they have some big ass oil fields then we would need to get in there.
 
olddke said:
I think we sit this one out, unless they have some big ass oil fields then we would need to get in there.
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I'm going to assume you are joking or senile.

"DR Congo is estimated to have $24 trillion (equivalent to the combined Gross Domestic Product of Europe and the United States) worth of untapped deposits of raw mineral ores, including the world’s largest reserves of cobalt and significant quantities of the world’s diamonds, gold and copper."

http://www.newsaboutcongo.com/2009/03/congo-with-24-trillion-in-mineral-wealth-but-still-poor.html
 
ONW said:
I'm going to assume you are joking or senile.

"DR Congo is estimated to have $24 trillion (equivalent to the combined Gross Domestic Product of Europe and the United States) worth of untapped deposits of raw mineral ores, including the world’s largest reserves of cobalt and significant quantities of the world’s diamonds, gold and copper."

http://www.newsaboutcongo.com/2009/03/congo-with-24-trillion-in-mineral-wealth-but-still-poor.html
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Possibly both, had family that lived in DR Congo for 3 years out of the last 5 though, so I might have heard about abundant natural resources but that type of info rarely sticks with me. I tend to focus on the really important stuff like sports and television.
 
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olddke said:
Possibly both, had family that lived in DR Congo for 3 years out of the last 5 though, so I might have heard about abundant natural resources but that type of info rarely sticks with me. I tend to focus on the really important stuff like sports and television.
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LOL! "Hey, I guess they're right. Senior citizens, although slow and dangerous behind the wheel, can still serve a purpose. I'll be right back. Don't you go dying on me! "
 
Thousands of Muslims try to flee the capital of the Central African Republic while Christians taunted "We're going to kill you all."
Amnesty has warned that a campaign of ethnic cleansing is causing a Muslim exodus. On Friday Donatella Rovera, a senior crisis adviser at Amnesty, described the scene at a village in the north-west of the country.

"We saw bodies littering the streets," she said. "Several of them had been partially burned. Others had been partly eaten by dogs and other animals. One was the body of a little baby who could not have been more than seven or eight months old. We saw more than 20 bodies but we think that there were several more.

She continued: "All the houses of the Muslim population had been burned or looted and in one of the houses I found a little girl of about 11. She was the only Muslim survivor of the village: the others had either fled or been killed. She was crouching in a corner. She had been hiding there since the day of the massacre. She had not eaten or drunk anything. She was terrified and could not stand at all.

"She said that her father had been killed and her mother had been killed. She was not speaking very much. There had not been any peacekeepers there at all even though this place was a place that had already seen confrontation between anti-balaka and Seleka forces earlier."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/14/muslim-convoy-central-african-republic-exodus
 
Was it CAR where some random Christian was lynched the other day for no reason at all? Sectarian violence is the worst.
 
FDLR are nasty bastards. They (Hutus) set up shop west of the Rwanda border after the 1994 massacre. One of their leaders is on trial currently at the Hague after "turning himself in to the US Embassy last year."
 
I know we can't police the world, but it makes me more than a little sick that of all the places where we do intervene, places like Rwanda and Sudan are not among them.
 
It would be nice if Europe would take on that responsibility since they fucked up so horrifically there.
 
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