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POLITICS-DR CONGO: U.N. MILITARY OBSERVERS ROLE UNDER FIRE.
by Juakali Kambale
KINSHASA, May 20 (IPS/GIN) -- Recent killings of civilians and U.N. military observers in Ituri district have sparked a debate over the role of the U.N. Observer Mission to the Congo in seeking a solution to the ethnic unrest in the northeast Democratic Republic of Congo.
The hostilities between Hemas, traditionally cattle-raisers, and Lendus, predominantly farmers, in Bunia, the capital of Ituri district, prompted the deployment of a U.N. contingent in the city.
The fighting, in which more than 200 civilians were killed last month, has stopped but tension remains high in the city, according to a U.N. staff in Bunia.
Relations between the Congolese militias and the United Nations are so bad that the militias executed two U.N. military observers in Mongbwalo in eastern DR Congo. The bodies of the observers have been found a week after the men went missing on May 13.
"Apparently they were executed," said Hamadoun Toure, the spokesperson of the U.N. secretary general's special representative to DR Congo.
The two U.N. observers, a Jordanian and a Nigerian, were buried in a shallow grave in Mongbwalo, about 70 kilometers north of Bunia.