The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or MONUSCO as commonly known, has been deployed to DR Congo since 1999. MONUSCO is the largest and most expensive mission in UN peacekeeping history, and not fewer than 257 of its personnel have died in line of duty as of January 31, 2023. The mission, as per its factsheet on the UN website, was dispatched – among other responsibilities – to “use all necessary means” for the protection of civilians. 23 years later, the situation in the country’s restive east has, probably, only got more volatile. Hate speech and targeted killing of civilians, particularly against the Tutsi community and Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese, has become the order of the day. Others have fled to neighbouring countries, including Rwanda that already hosts about 80,000 Congolese refugees for close to 25 years. What is taking place in Eastern DR Congo today, as Alice Wairimu Nderitu – the UN Special Advisor on Genocide Prevention – has warned, is not different from the events that preceded the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Just like in DR Congo, there was a United Nations force that did so little to stop what was happening, and a government that actively made one section of its population a target for persecution. If a United Nations mission spends several billions of dollars annually for over 20 years and there is nothing to show for it, how does one justify their deployment for so long? Or, they are there to maintain the status quo. The idea that the MONUSCO presence would protect civilians and help stabilize the region has not worked. There is no peace for the peacekeepers to keep, especially for the group of people who have been othered on the basis of their identity. The passivity of the UN force is an embarrassing failure at best, and complicity at worst.
