UN Congo mission offers model
18 hours ago
The following editorial appeared in Saturday's Washington Post:
For years, a U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo was a glaring testament to the
organization's fecklessness. The largest such force in the world, with
19,000 troops, the "stabilization mission" cost $1.5 billion a year but
utterly failed to pacify eastern Congo, which has been a battleground for
warlords and the armies of neighboring powers for nearly two decades. At its
low point a year ago, the U.N. blue helmets watched passively as a vicious
force of defectors from the Congolese army occupied and ravaged the city of
Goma.
Now, at last, the U.N. Congo mission has a victory to savor SEmD as well as
a potential model for future peacekeeping missions. This month a special
U.N. "intervention brigade," made up of 3,000 soldiers from Tanzania, South
Africa and Malawi, joined the Congolese army in routing the defectors, whose
M23 militia had been wreaking havoc for 18 months. Fleeing to Uganda, which,
along with Rwanda, had been their sponsor, the rebels disbanded and were
disarmed. Their military commander, Sultani Makenga, who is wanted for war
crimes, is being held by the Ugandan army.
A peace deal between Congo's government and the rebels fell through last
week, prompting Uganda to warn that the M23 could revive. But thanks to the
United Nations' unprecedented use of muscle, the region has its best shot at
peace in years. The force, authorized last March by the U.N. Security
Council, is the first with a mandate to undertake offensive operations. Its
presence helped discipline the Congolese army and SEmD combined with heavy
pressure from the United States and European Union SEmD induced Rwanda to
cease its support for the rebels.
Encouragingly, the capable Brazilian commander of the U.N. force, Gen.
Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz, has been saying he intends to follow up by
taking on the score of smaller militias still operating in eastern Congo.
The most significant is the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda,
which was formed by ethnic Hutu extremists who carried out the 1994 genocide
against Rwandan Tutsis.
Until that force is eliminated, Rwanda will retain an incentive - an excuse,
some say - for backing Congolese proxies.
In the meantime, the success in Congo ought to prompt some reflection in the
United Nations' department of peacekeeping operations, which oversees nearly
100,000 troops all over the world. Many of its operations have been
embarrassing failures: Consider the mission in southern Lebanon, which since
2006 has stood by while the Hezbollah militia has deployed tens of thousands
of missiles aimed at Israel, despite a Security Council mandate to "ensure
that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any
kind." More forces prepared to take the offensive could prevent such
debacles or even reverse them; that is what has happened in Congo.
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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