Extended more than eight times since its birth, in November 1999, MONUSCO’s mandate was renewed again in December 2022 by the UN Security Council, for another year. This happened despite growing protests against the presence of UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

 

In August 2022, angry citizens again called for the blue helmets’ departure.

 

The UN mission took over from an earlier UN peacekeeping operation – the United Nations Organization Mission in Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) – on July 1, 2010.

 

The new mission is authorized to use all necessary means to carry out its mandate relating, among others, to the protection of civilians, humanitarian personnel and human rights defenders under imminent threat of physical violence and to support the Congolese government in its stabilization and peace consolidation efforts.

 

Citizens have been questioning why, despite an annual budget of more than $1.1billion, an arsenal of modern weapons, and a mandate to protect the population, more than 120 armed groups still roam the region causing death, displacement and a dire humanitarian crisis. Citizens across eastern DRC continue to live in unsafe conditions, harassed, tortured and killed by armed groups as well as ineffective and abusive government security forces.

 

In 1999, when the Mission was founded, it was tasked with neutralizing armed groups, reducing the threat posed to state authority, and civilian security space for stabilization activities.

 

But to date, South and North Kivu Provinces especially remain lawless with dozens of marauding militias who continue to kill, rape young women and girls, maim, and terrorize innocent civilians. 

 

According to Phil Clark from SOAS University of London, MONUSCO has struggled to maintain cordial relations with the government in Kinshasa and, instead, "cautiously aligned itself with the Congolese army, even when the army has been committing atrocities against the civilians."

 

Such relations between the peacekeepers and the Congolese government created bad blood amongst the local populations who don't see MONUSCO as a neutral actor in a somewhat volatile situation.

 

In March 2023, the Islamic State-backed terrorist group, ADF, killed over 100 civilians in Beni territory, North Kivu province. In only three months of 2023, a series of attacks attributed to the CODECO militia group left over 50 civilians dead in Ituri Province. Dozens of people were also killed in the war between the Congolese army and the M23 rebel group. Hundreds fled their homes and thousands were internally displaced. The DRC remains one of the world's most complex and protracted humanitarian crises in the world.

 

This peacekeeping mission that has over 16,300 uniformed personnel – it has more than 18,000 total personnel including non uniformed personnel – has totally failed to protect the population and restore normalcy. Military personnel include contingent troops, experts on mission and staff officers. They are funded through a separate account approved on an annual basis by the UN General Assembly. The mission’s approved budget: (07/2021–06/2022) is $1,123,346,000.

 

But even with all this huge funding, they only stand by, idly, while people are being attacked and killed. The best they can do is give fake intelligence that Rwanda supports the M23.

 

According to reports, Congolese political and military authorities are relying on the human and technical intelligence produced by MONUSCO to plan a military offensive.

 

“It was UN drones that made it possible, from the start of the crisis, to document the presence of RDF troops alongside the M23. That evidence was sent to the UN group of experts and then used by the Congolese government to support its accusations against Rwanda in both diplomatic and media circles,” the African Intelligence Website recently reported.

 

Surprisingly, the UN Mission is not providing intelligence on how the Rwandan genocidal militia, FDLR, and Congolese soldiers closely collaborate in spreading terror mainly targeting Congolese ethnic Tutsi communities.

 

The UN Mission doesn’t want to jeopardize its relationship with its partners in crime, the military and political elites in Kinshasa.

 

The peacekeepers are fully aware of the direct contact between the Congolese political, military authorities and FDLR leaders, including Maj Gen Pacifique Ntawunguka, alias Omega, who is under sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council. They know that FARDC regularly provides weapons, ammunition, vehicles and uniforms to the genocidal terrorist group but choose to remain silent.

 

The UN Mission knows that this collaboration is at the heart of the insecurity affecting eastern DRC and the wider region.

 

But it withholds information to safeguard its ties with Kinshasa.

 

The peacekeeping mission’s job is to do whatever it can to protect civilians but it has proven, over three decades, unable to or uninterested.

 

Multi-national mining companies in the country continue to push the UN to renew MONUSCO's mandate.

 

Ideally, MONUSCO's scattered bases are meant to protect civilians – but,  according to analysts, they are there partly to watch over foreign interests as well because the UN Mission also creates lucrative business deals for some of the troop contributing countries.