It's the UN again!
(Via Watcher of Weasels) The story of UN bumbling in the Congo just keeps getting worse and worse - Congo observers slaughtered after unanswered pleas:

BUNIA, Congo - For six days, two terrified United Nations military observers phoned their superiors - as many as four times a day - begging to be evacuated from their remote outpost in northeastern Congo.

They were receiving death threats, they said. They were alone and unarmed in Mongbwalu, a former gold-mining town ruled by the cannibalistic Lendu tribal militias. A U.N. helicopter from the town of Bunia could have retrieved them in 35 minutes.

But the United Nations, handcuffed by its own rules and bureaucracy, never sent a chopper. On May 18, 10 days after the two peacekeepers made their first distress call, the United Nations finally flew some armed peacekeepers to Mongbwalu.

They found the mutilated bodies of Maj. Safwat al Oran, 37, of Jordan, and Capt. Siddon Davis Banda, 29, of Malawi.

Their decomposed corpses had been tossed into a canal and covered with dirt, according to those who saw the bodies. They were shot in the eyes. Their stomachs were split open and their hearts and livers were missing. One man's brain was gone.

Actually, it was rather worse than that - they were tortured to death.

Let's see, unarmed men dropped amongst armed savages and headquarters won't evacuate them:

"Why didn't they rescue them? They had armed troops here, who could have saved them," said one U.N. observer in Bunia, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"They killed them."

Col. Daniel Vollot, the MONUC sector commander in Bunia, said all U.N. employees here work in dangerous, unpredictable conditions and that MONUC isn't responsible for the deaths of Banda and Oran.

"We can't feel guilty," said Vollot. "Certainly, if we had arrived two or three days before, they would be alive. It's difficult, but I don't feel guilty about that."

Well Danny looks good in his uniform, but it's more than just one REMF.

Vollot acknowledged that Oran and Banda for several days had asked U.N. officials in Kisangani to be pulled out of Mongbwalu.

When asked why U.N. troops weren't sent to pick up the two observers, Vollot said his command's Russian-made Mi-26 helicopters were piloted by civilians. The Russian and Ukrainian pilots were afraid to fly there, and the United Nations didn't want to put their lives at risk, Vollot said.

And under U.N. rules, the ruling Lendu militia had to give permission to land a helicopter in Mongbwalu. It also was unclear which Lendu militia was in charge of the town, he said.

So his soldiers had to wait for clearance from the Lendu chief, and only MONUC headquarters in Kinshasa, the capital, could authorize a rescue operation.

"These are the rules of the United Nations," said Vollot.

Why would any nation send their citizens to be part of a United Nations peacekeeping force? Just shoot 'em and get it over with.

Hit the article for more on why the UN's desire to appear to be doing something caused the observers to be dropped into this hellhole in the first place, and how other UN observers decided not to wait for HQ and made tracks for the Ugandan border and safety.