UNSC Addresses Violence In The DRC

Adriana Vaca
10-24-08

On Tuesday the UN Security Council voiced its concern over the renewed violence in the DRC. Recent incidents include the capture of a military camp by the rebels headed by Laurent Nkunda and the defection of two lawmakers over to the rebel side.

In a statement read by this month’s council president Zhang Yesui, the council strongly condemned Nkunda’s calls for national rebellion, as well as the recruitment of child soldiers and the violence against women, and urged all sides of the conflict to immediately lay down their arms, without any negotiations for disarmament, repatriation, resettlement, and reintegration. They mentioned particularly foreign armed forces that are on Congolese soil, such as the Rwandan rebel group FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) and urged the government to discourage the FARDC (Armed Forces of the DRC) from cooperating with them.

The council also reaffirmed their support for the MONUC, and in response to the Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon’s request for additional capacities for the MONUC, asked for his recommendations and analysis of the situation in his next report to them.

I don’t know what would have to happen for the cease-fire to be implemented, much less for it to stick. The previous cease-fire, signed in January, was effective for mere months before the fighting was reinitiated in August. While reinforcing the UN’s troops in the Nord and Sud Kivu is a good thing, it’s not going to be enough to quell the violence by force, without removing the underlying reasons for the conflict in the first place. In any event, they obviously haven’t been effective enough in stopping atrocities like the extreme and barbaric rape of women and girls, or the recruitment of child soldiers.


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