MONUSCO forces have just come up against demonstrations by North Kivu residents as they entered Kasindi on Ugandan-Congolese territory. A few days earlier, the Ministry of Defense of Burundi had announced a 90% ready contingent to intervene on behalf of the regional force of the EAC. The shooting took place on Sunday July 31 in the territory of Beni, in Kasindi on the border
MONUSCO forces have just come up against demonstrations by North Kivu residents as they entered Kasindi on Ugandan-Congolese territory. A few days earlier, the Ministry of Defense of Burundi had announced a 90% ready contingent to intervene on behalf of the regional force of the EAC.
The shooting took place on Sunday July 31 in the territory of Beni, in Kasindi on the border between Uganda and Congo. It caused two deaths and dozens of injuries. Returning from leave, the blue helmets of MONUSCO came up against a mass of demonstrators. They allegedly started shooting “to clear their way”, reports the BBC.
Violent protests against MONUSCO had taken place a week before, killing around twenty people according to the BBC. The demonstrations made in the Goma region were for the departure of this UN mission in the region. MONUSCO premises had even been vandalized.
Several statements followed, condemning this July 25 attack against MONUSCO premises and appealing to the population for calm.
“MONUSCO has no other agenda in the Democratic Republic of Congo, except to restore peace. Do not believe the manipulators, they risk achieving their goal and it is counterproductive for everyone,” said the special representative of the UN Secretary General ai in the DRC on July 28.
Present in the DRC since 1999, MONUSCO has more than 10,000 peacekeepers on Congolese territory and has been accused by the Congolese of not being able to restore security in eastern DRC for all these years.
After the Kasindi incident, the DRC suspended all peacekeepers involved in this shooting before Bintou Keita, representative of the UN mission in the DRC, confirmed the arrest of the latter.
A regional force of the East African Community
Disappeared since 2013, the rebel movement M23 resurfaced at the beginning of this year, thus fueling tensions in the province of North Kivu, but also within the EAC.
Kinshasa, recently welcomed into the EAC, accuses Kigali of having an alliance with this rebel movement, qualified by certain media and by the circles of the North Kivutian population as “Tutsi”.
The clashes create a regional conflict, the Congolese population repeatedly attacks the Rwandans on their territory. Visits between Heads of State of the sub-region follow one another.
The third conclave of Nairobi summit is quickly organized by Uhuru Kenyatta, outgoing president of the EAC, Monday, June 21, summit during which the heads of state of this community agreed to create a regional force to neutralize the armed groups raging in the DRC.
Tuesday, June 26, during a press briefing on the achievements of his ministry for the fourth quarter of the 2021-2022 budget year, the Burundian Defense Minister, Alain Tribert Mutabazi, announced that a Burundian contingent was at 90% of the preparations to intervene in the DRC on behalf of the EAC regional force.
Issues in a sub-region…
The regional force of the States of the East African Community intervenes in a rather tense context between countries, but also and above all between the DRC and its peers in the EAC.
Burundi is expected to fight alongside other countries of the sub-region in eastern DRC as conflicts oppose Burundi and a member of the said community. Despite efforts made since the arrival of the Ndayishimiye government, relations between Kigali and Gitega are still not in good shape. Gitega continues to plead for the surrender of Burundian refugees involved in the coup of May 13, 2015, a sine qua non condition for the reopening of the Burundian-Rwandan border as a sign of reconciliation between the two countries.
The government of Félix Tshisekedi, meanwhile, accuses that of Paul Kagame of being the head and the heart of the M23 rebel movement which has been causing deaths and injuries in the province of North Kivu for several years now. Allegations formally denied by Kigali.
Rwanda supported the M23 rebels. This is one of the conclusions of a report by experts commissioned by the UN unveiled Thursday, August 4, by AFP.
For its part, Congolese civil society reports an unofficial presence of Burundian soldiers in South Kivu. What the NGO Initiative for Human Rights in Burundi (IDHB) confirms.
The IDHB speaks of a Burundian military incursion, whose mission would be to fight armed groups against the government of Gitega, including the Red-Tabara, but also certain other groups such as the Mai-Mai Kijangala.
For several years now, civil society reports have spoken of the presence of rebel movements associated with countries of the sub-region such as Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda in eastern DRC.
“A false answer to avoid dealing with a real problem”
Thierry Vircoulon, coordinator of the Observatory for Central and Southern Africa at IFRI, has been observing the political situation in the region for several years. He doubts the effectiveness of this force in eastern DRC.
Why this relentlessness of the population against MONUSCO supposed to come to the aid of the FARDC to defeat the rebel groups raging in the east of the DRC?
MONUSCO is the perfect scapegoat because:
First, it is ineffective, that is to say, it has not been able to fulfill its mandate for years, as shown by the long series of massacres of civilians in eastern DRC and its absence of a proposal to end the Congolese conflict since 2012.
Secondly, it embodies for the Kivutians the duplicity of the UN Security Council which maintains a force of more than 10,000 men in the name of peace, but is completely disinterested in the Congolese conflict. The latter has not been at the origin of any initiative since the previous M23 crisis in 2012/13.
Thirdly, the Congolese politico-military class shirks its responsibilities on MONUSCO by accusing it of not resolving the conflict and of not restoring security in eastern DRC.
A regional force will be set up by the EAC to fight armed groups in eastern DRC, any comments?
The M23 being supported by Rwanda, the formation of this regional force is equivalent to the formation of an anti-Rwanda coalition within the EAC. Moreover, if this force is requested by the Congolese government, it is rejected by many Kivutians, including in the security services.
Could the EAC force be the silver bullet for security in eastern DRC?
The games of alliances between the armed groups in Kivu and the neighboring countries, which have been going on for years, will be exacerbated in this situation and everyone risks having their own “targets” in the maquis of the armed groups. Once again, the governments of the region, including the DRC, favor a military response to a governance problem. They choose a false answer to avoid dealing with a real problem: that of the generalized corruption of the regimes.
Isn’t it likely to come up against the hostility of the population in this context of anti-foreign presence?
The regional force is already perceived with great suspicion by the Kivutians. The difficult and cruel memory of the presence of the armies of their Rwandan, Ugandan and Burundian neighbors is still very much alive and many interpretations of the true intentions of this force are already circulating in eastern DRC. The discourse on the desire to balkanize the DRC is still popular among the Congolese population, which very often sees itself as a victim of conspiracies hatched from abroad.
Interview by Keyna Iteriteka