{"id":33608,"date":"2017-04-02T11:15:38","date_gmt":"2017-04-02T11:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/dr-congo-peacekeeping-un-votes-to-scale-down\/"},"modified":"2017-04-02T11:15:34","modified_gmt":"2017-04-02T11:15:34","slug":"dr-congo-peacekeeping-un-votes-to-scale-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/dr-congo-peacekeeping-un-votes-to-scale-down\/","title":{"rendered":"DR Congo peacekeeping: UN votes to scale down mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{The UN Security Council has voted to cut the size of Monusco, its largest and most expensive peacekeeping mission, which operates in the Democratic Republic of Congo.}<\/p>\n<p>Under a draft plan, the total of 19,000 peacekeepers will be reduced by 3,000.<br \/>\nThe UN force is already undermanned by close to that number.<\/p>\n<p>The move came as a political deal brokered by the Catholic Church to pave the way to presidential elections collapsed, leaving the country on edge.<\/p>\n<p>Several UN member states have signalled a desire to cut spending on peacekeeping, in particular the new Trump administration in the United States &#8211; which is the largest donor.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Hailey, said the UN was partnering with a &#8220;corrupt&#8221; government in Congo, and called for the downsizing of Monusco.<\/p>\n<p>Monusco was instrumental in defeating the M23, the largest rebel group in DR Congo, by setting up special brigade authorised to resort to use force if necessary.<\/p>\n<p>However it has also faced violent demonstrations and attacks by civilians, who accuse it of being ineffective.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the anti-UN protests have taken place in the eastern region of Kivu, where armed groups continue to commit massacres, especially in the Beni region.<\/p>\n<p>In the region, peacekeepers have often been referred to as &#8220;tourists&#8221; because they are associated with travel in helicopters and 4&#215;4 vehicles.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-19031 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_95415038_monusco.jpg\" alt=\"Monusco is the largest UN peacekeeping mission in the world\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{The UN Security Council has voted to cut the size of Monusco, its largest and most expensive peacekeeping mission, which operates in the Democratic Republic of Congo.} Under a draft plan, the total of 19,000 peacekeepers will be reduced by 3,000. The UN force is already undermanned by close to that number. The move came [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-33608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33608"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=33608"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=33608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}