The planned withdrawal of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in DR Congo (MONUSCO) will only mark the force’s "monumental failure,” says a researcher.
The UN force deployed 25 years to help restore peace and security will be leaving when peace is still a dream for millions of people in eastern DR Congo, where more than 130 militias roam freely.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently communicated to the Security Council about the planned withdrawal of the MONUSCO.
ALSO READ: UN troops in DR Congo ‘set to be withdrawn’
But experts say despite being one of the longest and most expensive UN missions, MONUSCO has done little to help the Congolese people get peace.
"There was insecurity before MONUSCO came to DRC and there is still insecurity more than two decades down the road,” said Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, a political scientist and researcher. "Rebel groups are going around killing people and looting people’s properties in DRC."
As of February 2023, MONUSCO had 17,753 personnel, including over 12,000 troops and some 1,600 police officers.
ALSO READ: DR Congo: Three killed as rioters torch UN convoy
For Lonzen Rugira, a researcher, the MONUSCO is a well-resourced peacekeeping mission, and yet it has become "a monumental failure.”
"They had the resources – political, diplomatic, and financial – to get the job done but they couldn’t. They will leave DRC as unstable as they found it. The good thing for them is that they are unaccountable. Otherwise, heads would be rolling,” Rugira said.
ALSO READ: Experts: Peacekeeping missions ‘at a crossroads,’ need a rethink
In July 2022, the MONUSCO faced a wave of demonstrations targeting its personnel, premises and assets, which prompted the Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi to request the re-evaluation of the joint transition plan, agreed upon in 2021 by the his government and the UN system to advance the mission’s withdrawal from the country.
The performance of the UN Mission in the DR Congo can be assessed on the basis of many facts but even one is enough and that is the Security Council resolutions voted to deal with the terrorist FDLR group, observes Joseph Mutaboba, a retired diplomat and political analyst.
The FDLR is a UN-sanctioned terrorist group which was created and is controlled by elements linked to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
"The Mission has failed to assess, monitor and evaluate the nuisance of these genocidaires until today,” Mutaboba said. "The attitude of authors of those Resolutions has not been helpful either and genocide ideology has invaded the country from top down and those negative forces visibly incorporated in the FARDC and DR Congo’s Republican Guard.”
ALSO READ: Persistent foreign interference destabilises Africa, leaders say
‘Premature withdrawal’?
Guterres said MONUSCO’s "final departure would coincide with the full assumption by the Congolese authorities of their primary responsibility to protect civilians and the deployment of sufficient national armed forces and national police to maintain a secure environment for civilians at risk.”
While Guterres warned that a "premature withdrawal” of MONUSCO could put civilians at risk, he said the UN and MONUSCO "would continue to support the implementation of existing security sector reform plans geared towards enhancing the professionalism and efficiency of the national armed forces and the national police, and the deployment of national security forces to fully assume the responsibility to protect civilians.”
"Why haven’t they done that over the last 20 years?” asks Golooba-Mutebi. "They were waiting until they are leaving and then they do it? That would mean that they were tolerating insurgents deliberately.”
Lessons from a ‘failed’ UN mission
The UN peacekeeping model has been a subject of debate, with some experts suggesting that it needs an overhaul or it will be irrelevant in the future.
Mutaboba thinks that if "the host country and the Security Council do not abide by their own standards and Resolutions, the UN Mission sinks in the search for their own justification for not operating and the blame game goes on forever.”
But for Golooba-Mutebi, even in situations of insecurity, the intervention of the UN is the last thing a responsible leadership should think of.
"The lesson is simple, every country should build and develop an army that is capable of defending its territorial integrity,” he said, adding "the UN cannot come from nowhere and take charge of security in your own country.
For Rugira, in order to prevent similar mistakes like those made in DR Congo, the UN should provide the same resources to the people who are affected by conflicts to provide the solutions.
"They have something to lose and as a result, they are inherently accountable due to the consequences of omission or commission.”