The DR Congo’s Ituri region, a grim photographic exposure
Editor’s note: This is a running story and photo gallery. We are adding new photography every few days, as it comes in, and new text, as the situation changes. As of May 22, we have photos of the innocents, the Lendu and Hema belligerents, the Ugandan army, the pretty blue helmets, and now the French, whose army seems available only for duty in Africa where it feels omnipotent.
Fighting near the town of Bunia in northeastern DR Congo has become worse and shows no end in sight. We believe a detailed analysis of the situation in this region will show that there are Ugandan fingerprints on the feud that now exists between the Hema and Lendu, fingerprints linked to the Ugandan desire to keep forces in the region and maintain control over certain Congolese resources. For its part, the Kinshasa government has been so inept in taking the initiative in this area that one almost laments the day when Mobutu was forced to leave. The UN, of course, remains useless.