The United Nations faced being "tarnished forever by the shame" of its role in the Congo, the EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, Ms Emma Bonino, said yesterday. Ms Bonino insisted that "somebody, somewhere must finally speak up about this".
"The saga of the commission of inquiry into the massacres in the former Zaire has surpassed the degree of ridicule it has already earned", she said. "It will need a belated somersault by the Secretary-General and by the Security Council to prevent the dignity of these institutions from being forever tarnished by this horror - caused unqualifiably by the acts of a government that was none the less `recognised' by the community of nations."
Ms Bonino chose yesterday's commemoration of five years of the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) to chart a new course for Europe's emergency aid programme, in which "we can in no instance ignore the massive violations of human rights that we witness. Our duty to assist all the victims of all conflicts does not stop us from making the distinction between oppressors and oppressed."
She condemned the hypocrisy which allowed "the political strategies of EU member-states to show a degree of unconcern between humanitarian and diplomatic choices".
Beyond the broad principle that Europe's aid agency must always denounce human rights violations, whatever the political sensitivities, Ms Bonino did not outline a clear new strategy for the EU's humanitarian and emergency food aid budget, now running at close to £1 billion a year.
Most of that is channelled directly to non-governmental organisations working on the ground, and the EU is now so financially important that some NGO spokesmen yesterday shamefacedly asked for anonymity before they would comment on what they saw as a "flawed" strategy.