Joseph Kabila’s supporter in and outside the DRC are seriously hoping that the solution to the crisis in Eastern DRC is war. That is why they are all rallying behind an increase in peacekeepers. Since the latter are going to take months to assemble, in Alan Doss own words, the EU is being urged to step in with its more performing weaponry and men. Here is the first misjudged step to be taken, for the following reasons:
1) Why is it going to take months to assemble 3100 peacekeepers? Few governments are willing to provide them. It will take some convincing. The only ones that are usually inclined to provide peacekeepers, at least when they are to operate on the theater of African failed States, are those governments for whom, according to a certain Ian William (who considers himself an expert in those matters) “the UN payments [for peacekeeping missions] are lifelines for their defense budgets than for the suffering victims”. Some of those governments are being shunned by Kinshasa, i.e. India, whose forces have, on the other hand, defended so well the FARDC since their first defeats in 2007.
2) Is the EU going to send troupes? Let’s assume that YES. After all both the increase of troupes for MONUC and the EU bridging troupes’ resolutions are being sponsored by France. This is the current chair State of the EU in need of scoring foreign policy success. The Russia and Georgia issue is proving to be tougher than expected, more in the line of waiting for the next US administration to step in. France badly needs a success in Africa and necessarily via UN. The bridge-troupes will even prove to be trickier. Indeed, France is not the suitable actor in the Great Lakes because of its role in the murky project of a genocide underpinning several boarders.
3) Finally everyone is getting it wrong by capitalizing on a MONUC with a different mandate. It is being often forgotten that MONUC had already a stronger mandate, the first one in the history of the UN, that is, the use of force. In Mr. Alain LeRoy’s (*) words, MONUC is expecting “18 transport helicopters and six attack helicopters from Member States, despite earlier authorization for the craft from the Security Council”. He is already regretting that “the States we have asked say they don’t have any available. It’s very damaging because that diminishes the effectiveness of the force. We sincerely hope that certain countries will supply us with these helicopters”. The meaning of all this is that these allies of the DRC government want to perpetuate the war instead of seeking political solutions. They fear facing the respective responsibilities these solutions will be bringing into light.
However the choice of war, even by so called peacekeepers, is not the only misguided perception so many national and international actors, most of them unaccountable to the people, are driving home. The biggest misjudgment has been the UN and the EU complacency that equated the 2006 vote in the DRC with a peaceful transition to true democracy. I am not the only one who thinks this. One of the so called specialists of Africa, Mr Phil Clark of the Center for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University has already said, about the DRC elections, that “ a flawed electoral process that failed to address the issue of minority representation was bound to create more conflicts than it resolved”. Therefore, as long as the UN, EU, DRC government are willing to use guns instead of talking peace, there will be no peace whatsoever. Up to now, surprisingly, it’s the much vilified CNDP that has been unilaterally talking peace and ceasefire, dodging successfully at the same time all bullets and bombs coming its way at the hands of FARDC-FDLR, MAI MAI-PARECO, MONUC-ANGOLAN MERCENARIES, and very soon, European troupes! Instead of maintaining this rhetorical and military support for Kabila, the UN and the EU, for their own credibility should pressure him for political solutions.
(*) Mr. Alain LeRoy is the recently appointed Under-Secretary General for the Peacekeeping Operations at the UN. He replaced another French diplomat at the UN, Mr Jean Marie Guehenno
1) Why is it going to take months to assemble 3100 peacekeepers? Few governments are willing to provide them. It will take some convincing. The only ones that are usually inclined to provide peacekeepers, at least when they are to operate on the theater of African failed States, are those governments for whom, according to a certain Ian William (who considers himself an expert in those matters) “the UN payments [for peacekeeping missions] are lifelines for their defense budgets than for the suffering victims”. Some of those governments are being shunned by Kinshasa, i.e. India, whose forces have, on the other hand, defended so well the FARDC since their first defeats in 2007.
2) Is the EU going to send troupes? Let’s assume that YES. After all both the increase of troupes for MONUC and the EU bridging troupes’ resolutions are being sponsored by France. This is the current chair State of the EU in need of scoring foreign policy success. The Russia and Georgia issue is proving to be tougher than expected, more in the line of waiting for the next US administration to step in. France badly needs a success in Africa and necessarily via UN. The bridge-troupes will even prove to be trickier. Indeed, France is not the suitable actor in the Great Lakes because of its role in the murky project of a genocide underpinning several boarders.
3) Finally everyone is getting it wrong by capitalizing on a MONUC with a different mandate. It is being often forgotten that MONUC had already a stronger mandate, the first one in the history of the UN, that is, the use of force. In Mr. Alain LeRoy’s (*) words, MONUC is expecting “18 transport helicopters and six attack helicopters from Member States, despite earlier authorization for the craft from the Security Council”. He is already regretting that “the States we have asked say they don’t have any available. It’s very damaging because that diminishes the effectiveness of the force. We sincerely hope that certain countries will supply us with these helicopters”. The meaning of all this is that these allies of the DRC government want to perpetuate the war instead of seeking political solutions. They fear facing the respective responsibilities these solutions will be bringing into light.
However the choice of war, even by so called peacekeepers, is not the only misguided perception so many national and international actors, most of them unaccountable to the people, are driving home. The biggest misjudgment has been the UN and the EU complacency that equated the 2006 vote in the DRC with a peaceful transition to true democracy. I am not the only one who thinks this. One of the so called specialists of Africa, Mr Phil Clark of the Center for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University has already said, about the DRC elections, that “ a flawed electoral process that failed to address the issue of minority representation was bound to create more conflicts than it resolved”. Therefore, as long as the UN, EU, DRC government are willing to use guns instead of talking peace, there will be no peace whatsoever. Up to now, surprisingly, it’s the much vilified CNDP that has been unilaterally talking peace and ceasefire, dodging successfully at the same time all bullets and bombs coming its way at the hands of FARDC-FDLR, MAI MAI-PARECO, MONUC-ANGOLAN MERCENARIES, and very soon, European troupes! Instead of maintaining this rhetorical and military support for Kabila, the UN and the EU, for their own credibility should pressure him for political solutions.
(*) Mr. Alain LeRoy is the recently appointed Under-Secretary General for the Peacekeeping Operations at the UN. He replaced another French diplomat at the UN, Mr Jean Marie Guehenno
