30 years of UN Security Council resolutions on eastern DR Congo: Has the world mistaken process for progress?

For more than 30 years, eastern DR Congo has remained one of the world’s most persistent theatres of armed conflict. During that period, the United Nations Security Council has debated the crisis hundreds of times, adopted dozens of resolutions, renewed one of its largest peacekeeping operations, year after year, established sanctions committees, appointed Groups of Experts, imposed travel bans and asset freezes, and repeatedly condemned armed groups operating in the region. ALSO READ: The world needs rules for sanctions, too Yet one uncomfortable question refuses to disappear. If the Security Council has correctly identified many of the principal drivers of instability for decades, why has the conflict remained largely unresolved? ALSO READ: Who sanctions the sanctioners? The missing accountability in international affairs This question is not intended to diminish the immense humanitarian work undertaken by UN agencies, nor to overlook the sacrifices of thousands of peacekeepers who have served in exceptionally difficult circumstances. Some of them even lost their lives there. Rather, it concerns the effectiveness of the international political system itself. At what point does the repeated adoption of resolutions become an end in itself rather than a means of achieving peace? ALSO READ: Unilateralism is not justice: Rethinking sanctions against African states The historical record demonstrates that the Security Council has never been unaware of the principal security challenges in eastern DR Congo. Successive resolutions have consistently identified foreign armed groups, domestic militias, illicit exploitation of natural resources, violations of the arms embargo, attacks against civilians, recruitment of children, sexual violence, weak state institutions and regional interference as major sources of instability. The Council has repeatedly called for the disarmament and repatriation of foreign armed groups, including the Kinshasa-backed FDLR genocidal militia, strengthened sanctions mechanisms, and progressively expanded MONUSCO’s mandate. The latter is the UN peacekeeping mission in the country. ALSO READ: When sanctions become strategy: The limits of economic pressure in eastern DR Congo The legal architecture is therefore extensive. What remains uncertain is whether it has been matched by comparable political determination. One explanation lies in the nature of the Security Council itself. The Council legislates, authorises and recommends, but it does not directly enforce its own decisions. It possesses no standing military force, no independent police service and no international investigative agency capable of implementing resolutions without the cooperation of sovereign states. Every sanction ultimately depends upon national governments. Every arrest depends upon domestic authorities. Every arms embargo requires border controls, customs enforcement, financial investigations and judicial cooperation. ALSO READ: Rwanda’s impossible choice This structural limitation has often transformed implementation into the weakest link of the international system. ALSO READ: The bad and the ugly of the UN in the Great Lakes region Eastern DR Congo illustrates this dilemma perhaps more clearly than any other contemporary conflict. The Council has repeatedly demanded that armed groups be neutralised. Yet many of these organisations have survived for decades, changed names, reorganised command structures, established new alliances and adapted to changing political realities. Military operations have frequently dispersed combatants without eliminating the networks that sustain them. Sanctions have sometimes isolated leaders internationally while leaving their local operational capabilities largely intact. ALSO READ: We are misreading the FDLR threat: It is dangerous incubator of genocide ideology, not just an armed group The result has been what might be called an implementation paradox. International attention remains remarkably high, yet durable security remains elusive. The persistence of FDLR exemplifies this paradox. For many years, the organisation has remained under UN sanctions and has repeatedly been identified as a terrorist group and as a threat to regional peace and security. Its leaders have been designated, its activities documented and its disarmament repeatedly demanded. Nevertheless, reports by successive UN Groups of Experts have continued to describe its operational presence, recruitment activities and evolving relationships with other armed actors. ALSO READ: Following the money: Inside FDLR's war economy and the networks that sustained it This inevitably raises broader institutional questions. Have sanctions against FDLR become primarily symbolic rather than coercive? Have annual mandate renewals become substitutes for strategic reassessment? Has the international community become accustomed to managing instability rather than resolving it? Have Eminent Members of the UN Security Council been locked in their own strategic and geopolitical interests exemplified in the run after so-called strategic minerals and rare earths? History will tell. These questions deserve careful consideration because the credibility of the Security Council depends not only upon the quality of its resolutions but also upon their practical consequences. None of this implies that responsibility rests exclusively with the United Nations. The Congolese state bears the primary responsibility for exercising sovereign authority throughout its territory. Regional governments equally bear obligations to cooperate in preventing cross-border insecurity. Armed groups themselves remain directly responsible for their crimes under international law. International partners cannot impose peace where political commitment and good governance remain absent. Nevertheless, the United Nations occupies a unique position because it has served simultaneously as mediator, peacekeeper, sanctions administrator, humanitarian coordinator and international witness throughout this prolonged crisis. After three decades, it is legitimate to ask whether the international response requires fundamental adaptation. Future Security Council engagement should place greater emphasis on measurable implementation rather than procedural continuity. Every major resolution should contain clear benchmarks against which progress can be objectively assessed. Sanctions implementation should be systematically reviewed, not merely renewed. Governments found supporting directly or indirectly sanctioned armed groups such as FDLR should face credible consequences. Reports by Groups of Experts, if they are really experts, should generate transparent follow-up rather than becoming annual archival documents whose drafts are prewritten before timely simulated field missions. Above all, political accountability should accompany legal commitments. Peace cannot be measured by the number of resolutions adopted. Nor can institutional credibility be measured by the length of peacekeeping mandates. Ultimately, success must be judged by whether civilians are safer, armed groups are dismantled, displaced communities return home, state authority is restored and neighbouring countries no longer face security threats originating from eastern DR Congo. Minerals can come next, in a better and safe environment for all. Three decades after the Security Council first began constructing its legal framework for the eastern DR Congo, these remain the standards by which history will assess its performance. The international community has produced an impressive body of resolutions. I witnessed their production first hand and I am still quizzing their performance. The next challenge is to ensure that history remembers them not merely as well-written documents, but as decisions that changed realities on the ground. I am not assigning primary blame to any one actor. I just examined the gap between legal authority and practical implementation, while inviting my readers to consider whether the Security Council’s methods after three decades require fundamental reassessment. The writer is a political and diplomatic analyst specialising on Africa and countries of the Great Lakes Region.

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30 years of UN Security Council resolutions on eastern DR Congo: Has the world mistaken process for progress?