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| November 25, 2008 |
Congo's people urgently need protection as their country slides toward mass atrocities
The leader of Congo's Tutsi rebels staged his first public rally over the weekend in newly conquered territory.Laurent Nkunda told the crowd not to be afraid. But two former high ranking United Nations officials are warning that the conditions look frighteningly similar to those before the Rwanda genocide in 1994.
UN officials are calling on the British Government to support a deployment of European forces to protect the Congolese population. The current conflict owes its origins to the Rwandan genocide. The mass murder of General Nkunda's fellow Tutsis by Hutu militias allows him to claim he is defending a minority.
Jean-Marie Guehenno, the former chief of UN peacekeeping, believes that the extra UN troops being sent to the Congo need to be elite soldiers from Europe.