Monusco has failed, it needs replacement

Editor,THIS IS in reaction to the article, “DRC security plan to be signed today”, published on January 28, 2013. This misbegotten force (UN mission in DR Congo, MONUSCO,) does not need strengthening; it should be wound up and replaced with one made up entirely of soldiers from Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) neighbours - all the neighbours. In addition, the new force’s role should not suppress DRC’s dissident movements, armed or otherwise, but ensure armed bands from the neighbouring states do not exploit the failure of the DRC state to set up bases on that country’s territory to threaten the security of their home countries. There is absolutely no reason for anyone – United Nations, African Union, and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR)—to do the job that should be done by the Government in Kinshasa. To do so is to encourage moral hazard and refusal by Kinshasa to assume responsibility for its own national security, peace and necessary national reconciliation. Why is the AU playing the game of the UN, which has failed so spectacularly to bring even a modicum of security to Congo’s citizens for more than a decade despite deploying the largest “peacekeeping” force in history with close to an annual budget of US$1.5 billion? Why does anybody think that adding on more to a failure will turn it around when the incompetence or secret agendas by those who control that force is the real cause nobody dares question.Mwene Kalinda

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Monusco has failed, it needs replacement