Fortsetzung: Looking Back at Rwanda and Ahead at Burundi: Regional Links and the Current United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Lara Romaniuk
The Regional Effects of MONUC
Our definition of a "regional approach" suggests that the UN must attempt to anticipate the effects of its mandates beyond the country of focus and, on that basis, implement, or be prepared to implement, regional measures. Following this definition, no UN mission can be considered successful if it somehow yields or provokes instability elsewhere in the region - even if it fulfils its immediate mandate. The UN missions in Rwanda are infamous for their ineptitude to carry out even their immediate mandates. However, the focus here is the regional effects of UN missions in Central Africa. So far the analysis has suggested that the UN missions in Rwanda were indeed failures on a regional level. The consequences of the UN's having forgone a "regional approach" during the 1993-1996 Rwandan missions are three-fold: first, the development of a regional security dilemma, which Rwanda has responded to militarily; second, the onset of civil war in neighbouring Zaire/DRC; and, third, a strained relationship between the Rwandan government and the UN, reflected in MONUC's present difficulty convincing Rwanda to retreat from the DRC. In sum, what the UN is currently having to deal with in the DRC are not strictly developments in Congolese affairs, but the ramifications of their two previous missions in Rwanda. MONUC - the current UN mission in the DRC - will be evaluated on the same basis: namely, its regional approach and, likely, role in regional stability. MONUC can not be considered a successful mission if it fulfils its mandate of peace in the DRC, but incites or exacerbates instability in neighbouring countries.
MONUC - UN Mission in the DRC (November 1999 - ongoing)
The UN resumed its active involvement in the region three years after its retreat from Rwanda, with the establishment of the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) in November 1999. Unlike the many times the UN scrambled to rewrite its mandate to fit changing circumstances in Rwanda, MONUC's official mandate has remained virtually unchanged since its first formulation. Its broad goal is to implement the 1999 Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, which can be said to incorporate three main components: 1- the Joint Military Commission (JMC), which brings together signatories to the Lusaka Agreement under a neutral Chairman; 2- the disarmament, demobilisation, reintegration and repatriation or resettlement of armed groups ("DDRR"); 3- an inter-Congolese national dialogue for national reconciliation under a neutral facilitator. Notwithstanding this succinct synopsis of the peace process in the DRC, the conflict there is of a hard to match complexity. It can be characterised as such largely due to the number and seeming indeterminacy of the players and their motivations.
Four elements, at least, constitute the players in the Congo war: Congolese or foreign; state or non-state; invited or uninvited; official or unofficial. All the players fit into one side of each binary category. For instance, the Forces Patriotiques Rwandaises (RPF) is a "foreign" [as opposed to "Congolese"] force; represents a "state" actor [namely, the Government of Rwanda]; is considered an "uninvited" or "aggressor" force [by the Government of the DRC]; and, finally, is an "official" or "recognised" player [in the UN peace process]. The most important category for the task at hand is the last one - what this analysis is labelling the "official" vs. the "unofficial" player. The "official" player has been invited by the UN to take part in the peace process. All "official" or "recognised" players are by definition signatories of the 1999 Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement. They include the forces of six state actors and two Congolese rebel forces: 1- the Democratic Republic of Congo (Forces Armées Congolaises - FAC); 2- Namibia (Namibia Defence Force - NDF); 3- Zimbabwe; 4- Angola (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola - MPLA); 5- Rwanda (Forces Patriotiques Rwandaises - RPF); 6- Uganda (Uganda Peoples Defence Force - UPDF); 7- Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD); 8- Mouvement pour la Libération du Congo (MLC). [3]
Amongst the "unofficial" players - i.e. those, at best, passively affected by the DRC peace process but playing no active or official role in its development - are: various Congolese ethnic rivals (such as the Lendu, Nande and Hema; the anti-Tutsi Mayi-mayi; and the Tutsi Banyamulenge); other Congolese rebel factions (such as the RCD-ML, RCD-National, and Congrès des progressistes pour la libération - CPL); and a large number of foreign armed rebel groups. These are believed to include: the former Forces Armées Rwandaises (ex-FAR) and Interahamwe militia responsible for the Rwandan genocide; the Ugandan rebels the Allied Democratic Front (ADF), the Former Uganda National Army, the Uganda National Rescue Front II; Lord's Resistance Army (LRA); the West Nile Bank Front (WBNF); the Burundian Forces for the Defence of Democracy of Burundi (FDD); and Angola's the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).
The list of players in the Congo war, both "official" and "unofficial," reveals at once the extent of the regional involvement in the conflict and, as such, the ramifications any UN mandate is likely to have on the region. MONUC was implemented on the assumption that the 1999 Lusaka accord would bring peace in the DRC and, in turn, stability to the region. The first fourteen months of the 1999 Lusaka Agreement were marked by frustration and stagnation, with the parties, including the Government of the DRC, foiling MONUC's mandate at every turn. To date the effects of war have taken the lives of an estimated 2.5 million Congolese. Recently, however, MONUC seems to have made some headway in the implementation of the Lusaka agreement: the younger Kabila appears to be more open to the UN peace process than his father[4]; although fighting persists in Congolese rebel-held territory, the cease-fire agreement is largely respected at front line positions; Namibia is reported to have recalled its troops. More significantly for the subject at hand, the multinational nature of the signatories suggests that MONUC encompasses the region to a degree that neither of the UN missions in Rwanda did.
However, the large number of actors in question (especially the "unofficial"), with competing and diverging interests, is such that the regional effect of the UN mandate is unlikely to be uniform. In fact a closer look at the Lusaka Agreement alongside regional developments suggests that advancements in the DRC peace process, as it is set up by MONUC, may exacerbate violence elsewhere in the region - notably in neighbouring Burundi and Tanzania. MONUC, like the UN missions in Rwanda, may succeed in breaching the equation of "peace in one country = stability in the region" at the heart of the UN's regional approach. Two components of MONUC's peace process in particular are likely to take a great "regional" toll, all while advancing MONUC's immediate mandate of peace in the DRC: the Joint Military Commission (JMC) and the process of the disarmament, demobilisation, reintegration and repatriation or resettlement of armed groups ("DDRR").
[3] Namibia, Zimbabwe and Angola are allies of the DRC. Rwanda and Uganda each back a rival rebel group: Rwanda backs the RCD against the Congolese regime, while Uganda backs the MLC. Rwanda and Uganda initially intervened in Zaire as allies (1996): together they heavily backed Laurent-Desire Kabila against the pro-Hutu Mobutu regime. However, when President Kabila failed to oust the Hutu extremists from, what he renamed, the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda threw their support behind Congolese rebel factions, against Kabila (1998). In turn the Rwanda-Uganda alliance broke down (1999); each government now backs rival Congolese rebel factions. Even the success of Lusaka Accord is in doubt: motivated by a personal vendetta against Kabila, competing financial interests in the DRC's rich natural resources, and, at least in Rwanda's case, the very real security risk posed by the presence of well-armed ex-FAR and Interahamwe in the DRC - MONUC will have a trying time convincing the RPF and the Ugandan army to withdraw from the DRC.
[4] Joseph Kabila was sworn in as president in January 2001 following his father's assassination by a bodyguard.
Fortsetzung: Looking Back at Rwanda and Ahead at Burundi: Regional Links and the Current United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo
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