Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-15-Speech-4-123"
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"en.20030515.7.4-123"2
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"Congo is a jungle where people behave like animals and where only the law of the jungle applies. The country is massive, rich in resources and has virtually no state structure that can guarantee stability and security for the population. Foreign troops and national militia, with countless child soldiers among them, have free play to plunder the country of its assets of gold, uranium, oil and diamonds to their heart's content, destroy fields and villages, rape women and girls on a massive scale and assist one ethnic population group in massacring another. The last shred of civilisation has left Congo. Even animals do not behave like this towards each other in the animal world. The human suffering is too awful for words: more than 2 million casualties and many times more injured, traumatised women and countless AIDS and malaria victims.
How does the international community respond? It sends a handful of lightly-armed UN soldiers, described by Uganda's President, Mr Museveni, as constituting a worthless mission. According to him, they stay in their cars while, 50 metres further along, people are being gunned down. On the diplomatic front, agreements are made about the withdrawal of troops and national reconciliation, but these result in precisely more fighting and more irreconcilability. Since the Ugandan soldiers left Ituri, massacres, plundering and rape have become the order of the day there too. This must stop at all costs. A well-equipped international armed force must be set up to assist MONUC and with an extensive mandate to protect the population as a matter of extreme urgency. We certainly do not only need French soldiers. Only far-reaching federalisation of the country with strong, regional governments can provide an answer. The European Union must insist on this. Without drastic reforms, without an actual, working state structure, the Congolese population is at the mercy of the wild animals among people, and only the rule of the jungle applies."@en1
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