Finally, the NY Times is speaking out:
For more than four years, the deadliest fighting since World War II has raged in the vast Central African nation of Congo. More than 3 million people are dead. In some parts of the country, organized society has collapsed, with tribal vengeance giving way to genocide. For those in the war’s path, childhood ends abruptly. Parents are butchered in front of their children and militias turn the orphans into killers by their early teens. Neighboring countries are inflaming the conflict, arming rival militias and looting resources.
Sadly, the United Nations has seemed powerless to reverse Congo’s deadly disintegration. Before the arrival of a small French-led military force this month, international action has been timid. The new contingent, better equipped and with a stronger U.N. mandate to use force, may now contain the anarchy in one particularly violent area, the northeastern regional capital of Bunia. But the new force has only about 1,400 soldiers and is scheduled to begin pulling out in September. The rest of Congo remains at the mercy of marauding militias.
To expand the Bunia operation nationwide could require a U.N. army as large as 100,000. There is no chance of the Security Council’s sending or paying for a force that large. Peace will come to Congo, if it comes at all, only by strengthening diplomatic efforts to bring together the country’s main factions in a transitional government. Even that won’t have a chance unless the neighboring governments of Rwanda and Uganda order their local proxies to stop fighting.
If we let those people get slaughtered without doing anything meaningful, none of us deserves to sleep peacefully for the rest of our lives.