In November 2023, the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, MONUSCO, agreed on an accelerated withdraw. For more than two decades, MONUSCO has been deployed to eastern DRC to help bring peace and stability. However, they brought no positive change.

In their presence, local and foreign-armed groups have increased from five to more than 260; hundreds of Congolese Tutsi have been killed while thousands more left the country and are living as refugees in neighboring countries.

Fight the root cause of conflict

For three decades, the FDLR, a US sanctioned terrorist group formed by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda found a safe haven in eastern DRC.

The genocidal militia took advantage of Kinshasa’s support to spread genocide ideology in the country and region. Since then, the Congolese Tutsi have been persecuted.

The UN could have advised DRC to expel all FDLR members. Instead, they went to great lengths to portray this group, as a self-defense militia, giving credence to their claims of fighting alongside Congolese army and local armed groups to defend their positions and dependents.

Condemn hate speech

In 2022, during the International Day for Countering Hate Speech, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that hate speech incites violence, undermines diversity and social cohesion, and threatens shared values and principles. He emphasized that it promotes racism, xenophobia, and misogyny, dehumanizes individuals and communities, and seriously affects efforts to promote peace, security, human rights, and sustainable development.

If so, why apply a military solution against victims of hate speech?

The UN mission’s troops have been actively participating in large scale and indiscriminate massacres of Congolese Tutsi. This showed that the blue helmets would rather be in bed with Kinshasa in inciting hate and perpetuating more violence, than try to effectively find a solution to the crisis in eastern DRC.

Protect targeted civilians

As UN claimed that MONUSCO’s mandate was to protect civilians, their prime responsibility should have been to advise the Congolese government to bring to account those inciting violence or committing violence.

This process and discussion would take time and so existing mechanisms must have been used to prevent DRC tipping into ethnic cleansing of its Kinyarwanda-speaking citizens, which would have put a stop to a climate of impunity, and further perpetration.

Unfortunately, the UN constantly failed to respond and deter massacres and investigate calls made by distressed communities. All they do is issue statements without action.

Find sustainable solutions to Congolese refugees

For almost three decades, the UN has showed no interest in resolving the DRC crisis, which resulted into the displacement of millions of Congolese and the death of thousands others. Over 100,000 are hosted in Rwanda. Some have spent more than 20 years in Rwandan refugee camps.

By February 2023, the UN Refugee Agency reported more than one million Congolese refugees and asylum-seekers in countries bordering DRC, with nearly half of them, 479,400, sheltered in Uganda. Other 87,500 are scattered in Burundi, 80,000 in Tanzania, and elsewhere. 

Unfortunately, the UN invested in the resettlement of few refugees to Western countries instead of  putting more efforts in convincing Kinshasa to find a sustainable solution which would allow the refugees to return to their homeland. This reaffirms the idea that there is no hope for restoring peace in DRC.

Encourage political dialogues with the rebels

Political analysts and regional leaders believe that dialogue is the only viable path to a sustainable solution to the persisting hostilities in eastern DRC. However, the UN chose to take military action against the M23 rebels who are facing an existential threat.

On February 10, the Acting Commander of MONUSCO met with Congolese government officials to discuss how to coordinate military action against the M23 as part of operation “Springbok” which was purportedly designed to fight M23 and prevent it from taking over Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province.

The same day saw MONUSCO and the Congolese army coalition jointly engage in the attack against M23 positions in Masisi territory, in North Kivu, which caused the displacement of over 2,000 people.

Despite being the most expensive mission, with more than 19,000 troops, and an operational budget of about $1 billion, a year, the blue helmets failed the Congolese population.

If the UN genuinely wanted to bring peace, it would have done so. However, they failed because their true aim was not peace but their own interests. The UN system is known to serve the interests of certain superpowers with vested interests in DRC's mineral wealth.