Leavenworth Strategist

UN ponders future of Congo mission

(FT) By Harvey Morris in Washington

The United Nations is being forced into a drastic reappraisal of its 10-year military presence in the Democratic Republic of Congo where conflict, displacement, disease and hunger continue to undermine the peace its forces were sent there to keep.

By the end of this year, and most likely this week, the Security Council will meet to extend the mandate of the force, known as Monuc, its French acronym, by just five months instead of the usual 12.

A decade after the UN dispatched a few dozen military observers to monitor a ceasefire in Congo's civil war, Monuc has 19,000 uniformed personnel on the ground trying to help the government of Joseph Kabila, president, establish security amid a plethora of internal conflicts.

In the past year, the peacekeepers have been battered from various sides, castigated by human rights groups that claimed they turned a blind eye to the crimes of allies in government forces and accused of passivity in their mission of protecting civilians.

UN Security Council renews MONUC mandate

(Deutsche Welle) The United Nations Security Council has renewed the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The French-drafted resolution extends the MONUC mission for a period of one year, and authorises it to act independently against rebel armed groups threatening civilians or humanitarian and UN personnel. Recent fighting between government troops and rebel forces led by renegade General Laurent Nkunda has displaced more than a quarter of a million people in North Kivu province in the east of the DRC. Around 6,000 MONUC's 22,000 troops are deployed in North Kivu. The UN mission has been widely criticised for its inability to stop the latest fighting, which broke out last August.   

EU divided on sending troops to Congo

BRUSSELS, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- European Union officials are divided over sending peacekeepers to the eastern Congo to help back U.N. peacekeepers.

The European Union's top foreign policy official, Javier Solana, will meet U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York Monday, The Sunday Times of London reported.

The peacekeepers are working to stop atrocities being committed in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

At their meeting last week, European leaders declined to send a peacekeeping force and humanitarian aid to the former Belgian colony.

Belgian Foreign Minister Karel de Gucht made a plea to his European colleagues to send an armed European Union force to North Kivu in eastern Congo. Only Sweden and Spain supported the initiative. Other nations said the 17,000-strong U.N. mission already on the ground was sufficient.

New U.N. Congo troops may take half year to deploy: Ban

By Louis Charbonneau
Reuters
Friday, December 5, 2008; 8:47 PM

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - It may take up to half a year for the United Nations to deploy 3,000 new peacekeepers in eastern Congo, which is why it would help to have a bridging force from the European Union, the U.N. chief said on Friday.

"Practically speaking, it would take a long time -- the best scenario would be at least four months for United Nations additional peacekeeping forces who could be deployed," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters.

"It would take four to six months," he added.

UN agrees to send 3,100 more peacekeepers to Congo

By TODD PITMAN
GOMA, Congo (AP) — The U.N. Security Council agreed Thursday to send 3,100 more peacekeeping troops to Congo, while rebels said they remained committed to a pullback from the front lines despite an army attack.

There are currently 17,000 peacekeepers in the vast Central African nation — the world's largest U.N. peacekeeping mission — but they have been unable to stop the fighting.

UN Chief Says DRC Fighting is Spreading

By Derek Kilner (VOA), Nairobi, 07 November 2008

A regional summit on the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is under way in Nairobi. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an end to the fighting and warned that the conflict risked spilling over into the wider sub-region. Derek Kilner has more from Nairobi.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined heads of state from east and central Africa, as well as American and European diplomats, for a summit aimed at putting a halt to the recent fighting in eastern DRC between rebels led by Laurent Nkunda, and Congolese government forces. Mr. Ban called on leaders in the region to put pressure on Nkunda, who has launched a renewed offensive in August, despite signing an agreement with the government in January.

UN Reports 'Major Interventions' in DRC Fighting

VOA News (11 September 2008)-
The United Nations says its peacekeepers have intervened this week to stop rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo from advancing on local towns.

In a statement issued Thursday, the U.N. mission in the DRC says its forces stopped fighters of renegade General Laurent Nkunda from moving toward three different localities on Tuesday. It identified the towns as Kirotche and Kanyabayonga in North Kivu province and Minova in South Kivu province.