UN failure as MONUSCO withdraws amid crisis escalation

Author: Daniel Gatimu

• 2023-12-29 06:02:00

The UN Security Council on December 19 unanimously adopted a resolution initiating the phased down operations of the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO).

The resolution renewed the mandate of the mission for a year, including plans for the departure of the blue helmets from eastern DRC by the end of April 2024.

The peacekeepers will withdraw from DRC in three phases starting in December 2023. The drawdown comes despite the escalation of the crisis and violence in the east of the country.

The UN mission is leaving the security situation in DRC worse than they found it more than two decades ago. Clashes between armed groups have increased, and there is widespread violations of human rights, and devastating incidents of gender-based violence displaced more than six million people in DRC.

To date, Congolese Tutsi are victims of repeated attacks perpetrated by the Congolese army, officials and compatriots. They are discriminated through a series of criminal activities targeting them especially through systematic killings, and hate speech. The UN mission failed them. With more than 19,000 troops and an operational budget of about $1 billion, a year, the blue helmets brought no positive change and consistently failed the Congolese population.

To some extent, their withdraw is a replica of what happened in Rwanda in 1994.  When the Genocide against the Tutsi in 1994 started, the UN decided to withdraw their troops. Instead of overseeing national reconciliation and stop the killings, the peacekeepers became eyewitnesses to the 1994 genocide against Tutsi, where more than one million people died.

Local and foreign armed groups have increased from five to more than 260, currently operating with the knowledge of MONUSCO, which is mandated to protect civilians.

The Congolese civilians are the victims of violence and persecutions committed by these armed groups, but the international community and MONUSCO turned a deaf ear.