Lack of gov’t authority fuels violence in Congo – UN official

The government of DRC has failed to exert its authority in the Eastern part of the country thereby enabling armed groups to freely roam, kill and displace thousands of civilians, a top UN official has said.The United Nations Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hervé Ladsous, made the remarks yesterday during his visit to Kigali, after holding separate talks with Prime Minister Pierre Damien Habumuryemyi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Louise Mushikiwabo, and Minister of Defence, James Kabarebe.Speaking at a news conference, Ladsous defended the 20,000-strong United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Congo (MONUSCO), arguing the mission is carrying out its mandate under severe constraints with little support from Kinshasa.The force’s 13-year presence in the Congo has been dogged by a string of scandals, ranging from rape to exchanging arms for gold and ivory with militia groups operating in the region.“The problem is not with MONUSCO but with the situation in the region where the authority of the state does not exist and where too many armed groups occupy the space and do what all we know they are doing,” Ladsous said.MONUSCO, with a budget of US$1.3 billion a year, has come under immense scrutiny in recent months in the wake of renewed unrest in eastern DRC, which has displaced thousands of civilians, with many crossing into Rwanda and Uganda.“The crisis in Eastern Congo is yet another episode of a complex situation but it has taken worrying dimensions particularly this year with huge humanitarian implications. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have suffered, been killed and displaced, including refugees from neighbouring countries. The heart of the mandate of MONUSCO remains to protect the civilians,” Ladsous added.His visit to the Great Lakes region is part of preparations for a summit that the UN Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon will convene in New York on September 27 on the Congo crisis.Ladsous commended DRC’s neighbours for mobilising through the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) to come up with a proposal to tackle the DRC crisis.“ICGLR launched the joint verification monitoring mechanism which is expected to materialise in a few days. This was until now a bilateral exercise between DRC and Rwanda but will be enlarged to absorb other countries in the region,” he said.Ladsous does not, however, fully buy into ICGLR’s decision to have an African neutral force in Eastern DRC, which he believes must be ‘first studied in depth’ before being implemented.“Military matters must be considered with utmost care after determining the position of African Union Peace and Security and UN Security Council,” he said.“We must strive to achieve something that is as close as possible to a ceasefire, whether formal or not, and this has to be the message to the countries in the region.”Although he is against a military intervention, Ladsous is of the view that the UN would not initiate peace talks between DRC and M23.“DRC is a sovereign state and should decide whether it wants to talk to anyone. Besides M23 was qualified as a negative force – now the question to the DRC government is, would you decide to talk with a negative force?” he said.Ladsous added that there has been a lull in violence in Eastern DRC over the last few weeks, adding that the situation has the potential to become worse.Rwanda is confident the ongoing regional efforts to restore peace in the war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will deliver the desired breakthrough, Foreign Affairs minister Louise Mushikiwabo told journalists in Kigali on Tuesday.She, however, acknowledged that no solution can be found without Kinshasa’s genuine commitment.An extraordinary summit of the Heads of State from the eleven member states constituting the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) – the second in one month on the Congo crisis – at the weekend laid out a plan to end the unrest.The plan includes a decision to expand the Joint Verification Mechanism (JVM) – previously a bilateral arrangement between Rwanda and DRC designed to verify allegations against either side – to all the ICGLR member states.The JVM will be launched this Friday in Goma, the main city in DRC’s troubled North Kivu province, which has since seen a month-long silence of gunfire between government forces and the M23 rebels. The rebellion started in April when hundreds of soldiers mutinied accusing Kinshasa of going against the spirit and letter of a 2009 peace deal under which former CNDP and PARECO rebels had been integrated into the official army.

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Lack of gov’t authority fuels violence in Congo – UN official