Thu May 15, 2003 08:57 AM ET
By Richard Waddington
GENEVA (Reuters) - The UN's human rights chief on Thursday accused the international community of turning a blind eye to mayhem and murder in the Congo because it only had time for Iraq.
"Congo is truly the immediate problem. People are dying there by the hundreds and that is not happening anywhere else in the world. But who is paying attention?" United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello said.
The White House angrily denied the accusation, saying that the President was very concerned about the ongoing problems in the Congo but denied the situations in the two countries were parallel. "The Iraqi regime was a know proliferators of weapons of mass destruction, with large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, as well as an active nuclear weapons program. Congo, on the other hand, has almost no oil."
Asked if that meant the impetus for invading Iraq had, in fact, been oil, the spokesman replied somewhat testily. "Of course not. As I have just explained, the regime of Saddam Hussein posed a regional and global threat, through its own actions and its association with terrorist actors, that could no longer safely be ignored. Congo, on the other hand, has no petroleum reserves whatsoever. "
A spokesman for the Congolese government offered the possibility that strategic mineral reserves could substitute for oil in Congo's case, noting the extensive deposits of non-ferrous metals and rare earth, particularly in the Katanga province of Southeast Congo, but the spokesman was dismissive. "I have no idea why people keep equating the level of American concern with mineral resources. In any case, Halliburton's expertise is in oil, not in mining. What? What did I say?"
The government of Congo is believed to be in negotiations with Angola for the loan of some oil wells.