In the east of the country, several dozen people demonstrated at the end of July to demand the departure of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Monusco). In total, these demonstrations and a “incident” involving soldiers from the Monusco Intervention Brigade, who opened fire in Kasindi (on the border between Uganda and the DRC), killed 36 people, including 4 peacekeepers, according to an official report. On August 3, Kinshasa finally expelled Mathias Gillmann, the spokesperson for the UN mission.
Franceinfo Africa: how to explain this anti-Monusco feeling?
Jean-Claude Mputu: anti-Monusco sentiment is quite strong, latent and well anchored within part of the population, particularly in the East. But not only. As for the populations living in the East, they see the patrols, the Monusco tanks and hear the speeches of the mission: “We are here to protect civilians, the Congo…” However, they realize that the massacres and the assassinations continue, sometimes under the nose and the beard of the UN Mission without it intervening. Added to this is the resumption of clashes with the M23 (the rebellion of the March 23 Movement) and the somewhat ambiguous speeches of the United Nations. In particular the recent declarations of the special representative of the secretary general of the United Nations, Bintou Keita. She essentially stated that the M23 was increasingly armed and that, faced with this, Monusco and the Congolese army could lack the means (remarks taken up by the spokesperson for Monusco and which were put forward by Kinshasa to justify his expulsion, Ed).
Furthermore, the fact that the Security Council and the Monusco representation in Kinshasa did not publicly and clearly condemn the Rwandan support for M23 caused the population to begin to internalize the idea that Monusco would be complicit or would support, one way or another, the attacks of the M23, but above all would protect Rwanda. And the politicians took advantage of this natural feeling of distrust of the population to make remarks which suggested that Monusco would be, in some way, responsible for the insecurity and that it should leave. These speeches fueled popular anger and led to these protests.
In some cases, and we deplore this, they have been violent. However, neither the police nor the army nor the authorities deployed forces to channel the demonstrators during these days of protest. What they usually do. Which suggests that there are dark minions who pushed for these demonstrations.
The acting special representative of the UN secretary general in the DRC, Khassim Diagne, had assured that “no blue helmet opened fire on the civilian population” in Goma during the demonstrations but there has been Kasindi since. ..
The dead in Goma and Beni were hit by bullets. Monusco has a nice game to say that it did not fire. But unfortunately for her, what happened in Kasindi shows that blue helmets are capable of shooting unarmed civilians.
Do the populations understand that Monusco cannot directly confront the M23 rebels or the others as they would like?
Monusco’s mandate is to protect populations. In accordance with its mandate, the UN mission should, at a minimum, ensure their protection when they are attacked by rebels. People do not understand that the latter kill in a village located a few meters from a Monusco base without any reaction from the blue helmets. A large part of the Congolese does not actually understand that Monusco is only a support force. It is not up to her to wage war or end the war in the Congo.
But there are Monusco agents who are involved in the trafficking of raw materials. Therefore, for the population in general, Monusco is there to participate in the looting of the DRC and not to protect it as it says.
The UN also cannot comment if it considers that it has no evidence. Do the Congolese also understand this when they reproach him for not denouncing the Rwandan “aggressions” in the East?
Political leaders and intellectuals understand this. But we cannot ask a resident of Goma, to whom Monusco repeats every day that it is there to protect him and defend the DRC, to understand that Monusco cannot openly say that his country is being attacked by the Rwanda. The most dangerous for me are the political leaders who understand the situation but suggest that Monusco is responsible for the chaos that is taking place. It is not the fault of the populations but of the political leaders, who, to hide their inability to protect them, add fuel to the fire.
A report by experts commissioned by the UN now recognizes incursions by the Rwandan army in the east of your country. Which should put an end to this reproach…
The new UN report confirms the obvious. Congolese civil society has always said what the government struggled to admit publicly and what the United Nations knew but dared not say. This confidential report is a leaked document. We are therefore waiting for it to be published and for the Security Council to be able to draw the consequences, that is to say condemn and sanction Kigali for its interventions in the DRC. I remind you that it has been more than 20 years that Rwanda massacres the Congolese with impunity and plunders our resources. We hope that, this time, the UN will draw the conclusions from such a report and that it will mark the beginning of a new era if we want peace to return to the sub-region.
If Monusco is no longer the solution for the Congolese, what is it?
The only viable solution is internal. DRC leaders need to get serious. If we blame Monusco for 20 years of presence without result, which of our government has the primary responsibility to protect and defend us? Where is our army? It is Monusco which supplies our troops on the ground. The Mission’s helicopters provide air support. How can we understand that for two decades our leaders have not been able to build an army capable of securing our borders? It is a question of resources, training and political will.
The Congo and the Congolese must give themselves the means to have the responsible authorities who take care of our armed forces, rather than buying cars that cost thousands of dollars. The soldiers do not even have a regular ration, no tent or camp worthy of the name under which to sleep and the military governors (who are present in the provinces where the state of siege has been declared) enrich themselves, by becoming mining traders, instead of waging war.
The blue helmets are witnesses to all this. Why do you want Iranians, Moroccans or even Pakistanis to come and wage war on the ADF (Allied Democratic Forces, a rebellion of Ugandan origin affiliated with the Islamic State group, editor’s note) and at the M23 when they see that we are not able to feed our soldiers and give them the means they need. Nowhere else have UN forces ended a war. If the army protected our territorial integrity, there would be no rebels and therefore we would not need Monusco.
What is the future of MONUSCO in the DRC?
A hasty departure from the UN Mission is not desirable. If she leaves, who replaces her? Monusco, beyond its security missions, is also humanitarian, the protection of human rights, political facilitation, electoral support, thousands of jobs for the Congolese and therefore a certain economic power. On several aspects, Monusco’s mission is not a failure.
This is why his future must be decided in all rationality because behind this requested and desired departure hides several issues, two of which seem essential to me. First, a major political issue: the elections will be held next year and the UN Mission will become, over the months, an embarrassing witness. Getting rid of Monusco means giving yourself free rein to carry out any type of tampering and possibly massacres without witnesses. Then, Rwanda and Uganda as well as the other neighboring countries would like to find themselves alone, also without witnesses, with their armies in the East to continue, among other things, to plunder our resources.
Monusco must leave and there is no doubt but, once again, within an organized framework and in connection with a responsible Congolese power. Moreover, there is already a resolution of the Security Council which fixes the departure of Monusco and defines specifications for each party. The government therefore knows what it has to do for Monusco to leave in order and in good time.