Daimnation!: What's the UN's exit strategy for the Congo?

November 25, 2007

What's the UN's exit strategy for the Congo?

The UN force, MONUC, was established in 1999. No doubt it is the sort of UN peacekeeping operation in which Canadians who oppose our mission in Afghanistan think we should participate, along with the UN mission in congo that just can't seem to get on the ground. One wonders why they think that way (in fact the Canadian Forces have ten personnel assigned to MONUC, along with eleven helping the existing African Union force in Darfur).

1) DR Congo threatens war on rebels

The head of the army in the Democratic Republic of Congo says he has given up all hope of a peaceful solution to the conflict in eastern Congo.
General Dieudonne Kayembe said force was now the only way to deal with dissident General Laurent Nkunda.

Fighting has continued in the North Kivu province for a third day, with government troops using heavy artillery against rebel forces in Rugari.

Gen Nkunda has threatened UN troops, accusing them of backing the army...

2) U.N. to help Congo disarm dissidents by force

U.N. peacekeepers will help Democratic Republic of Congo's army disarm eastern dissident groups by force in violence-plagued North Kivu province, U.N. and Congolese commanders said.
Army soldiers and fighters loyal to renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda clashed again on Thursday a few miles from Rutshuru, where the dissidents attacked an army base a day earlier and forced thousands of civilians to flee.

"Now that all peaceful means have been explored with no result ... we will enter into a phase where there is no other solution than to constrain them to (reintegrate) without delay or conditions," General Babacar Gaye, military chief of the U.N. peace mission MONUC, said in comments broadcast on Thursday on U.N. radio.

[...]

MONUC's 17,000-strong force has a mandate to operate with the army to reestablish security and protect civilians, but U.N. sources said for the time being it would limit its role to planning and logistical support for Congolese operations.

Sure doesn't sound very touchy-feely to me. For an example of the misinformation that a certain Canadian "expert", much loved by the media, spreads about the Congo (and other things) see this:

Fisking Michael Byers' bilge