UN ‘War Tourists’ Draw Heat in Congo

It has been 23 years since the peacekeepers arrived in the country. For Congolese, their arrival signaled the end of hostilities and a new dawn for peace, stability and prosperity. Such hope is a distant memory.

On July 31 of this year, a convoy of U.N. soldiers opened fire on civilians in the town of Kasindi, on the Ugandan border, killing two and injuring 15. The incident sparked new outrage, protests and the ransacking of U.N. offices.

The U.N. forces in Congo, known as MONUSCO, first deployed in 1999 and were instrumental in maintaining a temporary ceasefire between belligerents. Initially begun as a war to end more than 30 years of rule by Mobuto Sese Seko in 1996, the conflict persisted when foreign allies of rebel leader-cum-President Laurent-Désiré Kabila turned against him after he requested their withdrawal. This was the beginning of a regional war: One side consisted of Kabila’s Congolese army and new foreign allies Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe; the other side consisted of Congolese rebels supported by Kabila’s former allies Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. Congo’s strategic location at the heart of Africa, bordering nine nations, as well as troubled leadership and immense natural resources — including raw mineral deposits estimated to be worth $24 trillion — all add fuel to the ongoing violence.

Nor has the presence of 17,783 peacekeepers successfully subdued the violence or pushed out the foreign-backed rebels. Abduction, murder, rape and other atrocities are widespread, especially in eastern Congo, where around 120 armed groups were still active as of the most recent count, in 2020.

Between June 2017 and June 2019, the Kivu Security Tracker, a joint project of Human Rights Watch and New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, reported the killing of 1,900 civilians and the abduction of more than 3,300 in the provinces of North and South Kivu. This means armed groups on average killed 79 people and abducted 138 others every month during this period, at the doorstep of the peacekeepers whose presence is concentrated in these provinces.

“We are slaughtered like animals every day. We can’t work in our farms, we are afraid to send our children to school for fear that rebels will kill or abduct us. The U.N. soldiers have failed,” Henri Kambale, a street vendor in the North Kivu city of Beni, told OZY by phone.

Stewart Muhindo, a Congolese researcher and activist affiliated with LUCHA, a nonviolent, nonpartisan civil-society movement based in Congo, says the U.N. peacekeeping mission has been unable to deliver on its mandate. Yet he rejects the idea that the mission has been a total failure. He believes it has contributed significantly to the reunification and democratization of the country.

One considerable victory for the U.N. forces came in 2013, when the Force Intervention Brigade, an offensive-oriented military arm of the peacekeeping mission, helped defeat and expel the M23 rebel group from its stronghold in North Kivu.

But the previously defunct M23 reemerged this year and seized the strategic town of Bunagana, in North Kivu, a hub for cross-border trade between Congo and its eastern neighbors — and MONUSCO forces did not intervene. The Congolese national army, known as FARDC, fought the rebels unsuccessfully. Meanwhile, a leaked U.N. report indicated that Rwanda is providing support to the M23, though Rwanda has denied this.

Angry Congolese civilians descended into the streets to demand MONUSCO’s immediate departure. Goma, the capital city of North Kivu, became the center of civilian protests on July 25, and unrest soon spread to other cities. Protesters vandalized, looted and set fire to U.N. buildings. Thirty-six people, including four U.N. peacekeepers, died in the violence. It was the most lethal anti-MONUSCO protest to date.

Then, a convoy of U.N. soldiers, returning on July 31 following a period of leave, attempted to reenter Congo at the town of Kasindi on the Ugandan border. The soldiers were not granted immediate entry. They subsequently drew arms and opened fire. The soldiers’ motive is unknown; protesters believe they were angry at being denied reentry by border officials. Immediately following the shooting, MONUSCO issued a statement calling the violence “unspeakable and irresponsible.” According to the same statement, the perpetrators were arrested and will face legal proceedings in their countries of origin. MONUSCO did not respond to OZY’s request for additional comment.

Anelka Mwanya Kakule is a leader of anti-MONUSCO protests in the North Kivu city of Butembo.

“A forced entry by a foreign army into the borders of a sovereign country is an act of utter sabotage. And as if that was not enough, the so-called peacekeepers went on to shoot and kill peaceful civilians in their country,” Kakule said.