{The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the UN Mission for Stabilisation of Congo (MONUSCO) continued with their talks that began several weeks ago, to agree on the mode of cooperation between the UN peacekeepers and the Congolese army.}
MONUSCO suspended its support for the Congolese army in operations to pursue the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) following the refusal by the Congolese government to meet its demand on suspension from the operation of generals Sikabwe Fall and Bruno Mandefu. The two commanders are suspected of having committed human rights violations in the past. On 26 February 2015, DR Congo’s foreign minister Raymond Tshibanda said the UN was the first to suspend its support to the Congolese army. “It is after this that we responded,” he said.
Speaking on 11March, MONUSCO boss Martin Kobler admitted that “relations between the UN mission and the Congolese government were going through rough times.”
The statement raised diverse interpretations, with a diplomatic source saying this pointed to a complete breakdown of relations between the peacekeepers and the Congolese army. However, Kobler denied information that the two parties had ceased cooperating, adding that “the two parties were collaborating to track down Ugandan rebels – the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in the east of the country.” “Against the ADF, it’s real cooperation, nothing has so far changed,” he affirmed when he addressed the press in Kinshasa.
The differences between the two sides were increased on 26 March when the UN Security Council meeting in New York voted to extend MONUSCO’s mandate for one year until 31 March 2016 through Resolution 2211 of 2015. In the resolution that was adopted unanimously, “the Council urged for cooperation between the Congolese government and MONUSCO in carrying out the operations, to ensure the total neutralisation of FDLR.”
According to the Resolution, only 2 000 peacekeepers were to be withdrawn from this UN mission, yet the DR Congo government had called for the withdrawal of at least 5 000 peacekeepers.
The UN peacekeeping mission in DR Congo remains the largest in the world, with its current figure standing at 20 000 officers and an annual budget of US$1,4 billion.
However, the Resolution gave the Security Council a window for ordering further reductions of the officers, although this was preconditioned on the mission helping to “stabilise and democratise the country.” One of the proposals that angered Kinshasa was that of the withdrawal of the UN’s rapid intervention brigade of 3 000 officers which has been the backbone of the UN force.
{{- Nampa-Xinhua}}
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