DRC: UN struggles with mandate
By Ob Sisay | Published: 01 December, 2008
A lack of clarity in its mandate means that, despite the deployment of 17,000 troops, the UN mission to the DRC has failed to protect civilians caught up in the recent fighting.
More so than any other nation, the Democratic Republic of Congo has come to represent the worst of the world’s preconceptions about Africa. Existing in a state of almost perpetual uprising since the 1960s, the country as it now stands ranges across the huge Central African hinterland and is pocked with vast natural resources that have led to the constant attention of neighbouring states. Added to this are overtones of ethnic prejudice that have been inflamed and exploited by a number of state and non-state actors.
Sporadic ceasefires have given occasional hope of some form of recovery and demonstrated, at least superficially, that the main players are prepared to come to the negotiating table. A 2002 peace deal signed by President Joseph Kabila put in place short-lived power sharing with the major rebel groups.
A government with Mr Kabila at its head and rebel leaders as vice-presidents was sworn in 2003, and a French-led UN military force deployed as peacekeepers. Further fighting in the east of the country following a suspected coup attempt in 2004 reignited accusations that neighbouring Rwanda was supporting the rebels. For its part, Rwanda has continually claimed that the DRC is harbouring the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide.
Further reconciliation culminated in the agreement in 2005 of a new constitution and UN forces began a process of disarming rebel groups in the north and east to improve security before elections in July 2006. After a run-off between Mr Kabila and opposition candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba, Mr Kabila was again sworn in as president in November 2006. Within a month, the president faced a major offensive by the Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple, led by Laurent Nkunda, a former general in the DRC’s army, an advocate of Tutsi rights and, allegedly, supported by Rwanda.
Mr Nkunda was among the rebels who signed a peace accord in January 2008, but it is his forces that are engaged in fighting around Goma, in the east of the DRC.
Monuc, a force of 17,000 UN soldiers, are currently deployed throughout the country under a mandate to maintain the peace and build the capacity of government forces. Since the violence escalated in October 2008, their ability to fulfil their mandate is now being questioned. To exacerbate their dilemma, the UN mission has been dogged by allegations of profiteering by soldiers and accusations by Mr Nkunda that troops are standing by during the persecutions of ethnic Tutsis, echoing the peacekeepers’ refusal to intervene in the Rwandan genocide.
While there are practical issues in terms of the training and airlift capacity of the force, for Dr Knox Chitiyo, head of the Africa programme at the Royal United Services Institute, a defence think tank, Monuc’s problems stem from a lack of clarity over its objectives. “Monuc was supposed to be in there initially as a peacekeeping force and a monitoring force,” he says. “They were not technically assigned as combat troops or civilian protection troops: that wasn’t what they were trained for, but it is a role that they now have to fulfil.”
The UN hierarchy has admitted that both sides in the conflict have committed human rights abuses, but, to date, Monuc has been slow to intervene. This, once more, is a function of its existing mandate,” Mr Chitiyo says. “Monuc came to monitor peace and also to assist the government in building up the national Congolese forces. Nkunda sees Monuc as an ally of the government, and with some reason. Monuc was there to assist in professionalising the Congo forces. So the rebels clearly see it almost as an ally of the government.”
To take a genuine role in civilian protection would require Monuc to engage government forces if it perceives that they are responsible for abuses. Unless it is able to demonstrate its willingness to do this, Mr Chitiyo says, it is unlikely that the CNDP will accept the UN as anything other than a proxy for Mr Kabila’s government and, by extension, responsible for the government’s attacks on ethnic Tutsis.
“Monuc has to make it very clear that they’re there only to protect civilians, not to get involved in supporting government units. So they have to be very clear and say that they will engage anyone who tries to attack civilians – full stop,” he explains.
Monuc’s position has not been reinforced by the internal politics which culminated in the resignation of General Vicente Diaz de Villegas, the force commander, in October, just as the fighting began to intensify. Though the reason for his departure was not officially confirmed, it is widely believed to be due to internal debate over the force’s mandate.
