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
JMC, 'DDRR' - and Burundi
Even though the 1999 Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement excludes the majority of non-state, foreign actors linked to the Congo war, it brings six state players (including the DRC) into agreement, thus actively involving a large segment of the region in the peace process. That said, MONUC's mandate does not encompass one of the regions most vulnerable states - namely, Burundi.
The DRC's eastern neighbour, Burundi, has known ethnic violence all of its modern history. In the last four decades, it has seen the arrival of as many Tutsi refugees from Rwanda following ethnic violence there (most recently during the Rwandan genocide), as it has sent Hutus fleeing to Rwanda following massacres in Burundi. The 1993 assassination of Burundi's first Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, ignited a civil war that continues today.
While MONUC is overseeing the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement in the DRC, a parallel peace process - the Arusha Agreement which would see the formation of a transitional government - is being facilitated in Burundi, with no breakthrough. However, to conceive of the two peace processes as insulated processes - as does the UN Security Council - is misguided. To begin, the Congolese war and the Burundian war are not isolated phenomena: some 14,000 Burundian Hutu rebels - of Front pour la défense de la démocratie (FDD) and Forces Nationales pour la Libération (FNL) - are present in the DRC; the insurgents have been using eastern Congo as a base since the mid-1990s! As for the DRC's effects on Burundi, the implementation of the Lusaka agreement is having a negative impact on that country's peace process.
To further the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, MONUC established a "Joint Military Commission" (JMC). The JMC was set up to allow the signatories to the Lusaka agreement - under a neutral Chairman, the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) and the United Nations (UN) - to work out together all aspects of the DRC peace process. One of the most important components of the peace process on which the JMC has been involved is the mechanisms for the disarmament, demobilisation, reintegration and repatriation or resettlement of armed groups ("DDRR"). Burundi, who requested to join the JMC from its beginnings in 1999, has so far been refused admission. Only signatories to the Lusaka agreement - "official" players - are members of the JMC. And yet, the "DDRR" process is having dire effects on Burundi. Faced with the possibility of disarmament and demobilisation under the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, Burundian rebel groups based in the DRC - along with other "unofficial" players, such as ex-FAR, Interahamwe - are attempting to move into Burundi; some of those forces are said to be moving from the DRC into Tanzania, where they are gathering along the Tanzania-Burundi border.
MONUC's "regional myopia," like UNOMUR and UNAMIR's in Rwanda, may spell further regional violence. Burundi's isolation from the Lusaka peace process could result in the emergence of a third regional conflict pivoting on Burundi: 1- if the security situation along the Tanzania-Burundi border escalates, open war between the two countries is likely; 2- any infiltration of ex-FAR and Interahamwe in Burundi will most certainly peak Rwanda's military interest in Burundi; 3- if Burundi chooses to believe reports that the Kabila-regime is arming the rebel groups heading towards Burundi, Burundi may yet emerge as an "official" military player in the Congo war.
As it stands MONUC's mandate focuses too narrowly on the DRC and the signatories to the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement. Although the UN failed to anticipate the regional outcomes of MONUC's immediate mandate, it could still avert the emergence of a new regional conflict by extending its mandate to include Burundi and the United Republic of Tanzania in the Lusaka peace process. In the very least, MONUC's mandate should be extended to include the monitoring of the DRC's borders with Burundi and Tanzania to prevent the illicit cross-border traffic of arms and rebels.
According to the definition of a "regional approach" suggested in this analysis, the UN mission in the DRC cannot be considered a success if some of the players in the Congo war exacerbate or provoke violence across the border in Tanzania or Burundi - no matter how successful MONUC ultimately is in implementing its immediate mandate of peace in the DRC.
Conclusion
This analysis has not presented a detailed critique of one particular UN mission in Central Africa. Nor has this analysis attempted to understand the causes of war per se in one particular Central African country. Its subject matter was more broad, perhaps too broad - namely, the unintended regional domino effects of the UN missions in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The aim was to establish a pattern in the missions that seems to be the result of the UN's tendency to take a fragmented, rather than holistic or integrated, approach - to be backward looking, rather than forward looking. By proposing a broader definition of a "regional approach" to peacekeeping the hope was to emphasise the need for any international mission to anticipate the effects of their mandates on neighbouring countries and, in the absence of preventative measures, to be better prepared to take regional action should the need arise.
The UN did not anticipate regional outcomes during their missions in Rwanda, and, in the aftermath of the resulting regional security dilemma, they were unable to implement any effective regional measures - such as extending UNAMIR's mandate to cover the Rwandan refugee camps in eastern Zaire. Consequently, the security crisis was left to escalate and, ultimately, to Rwanda to solve. UNOMUR and UNAMIR's "regional" inadequacy led to Rwanda's military intervention in Zaire, where the UN resumed its activity in the region three years later with the establishment of MONUC.
However, MONUC itself failed to anticipate the regional outcomes of a mandate that excludes the most vulnerable country in the region - namely Burundi. A regional approach would see the extension of MONUC's mandate to cover Burundi and the United Republic of Tanzania. Unfortunately, the pattern established by the UN in Central Africa suggests that it will soon be setting up camp in a third country in the region - a "regional approach" indeed. Aregional integrated approach to conflict resolution in Central Africa also has to take cognisance of other, often ignored, factors which facilitate the transnational spread of conflict, whether by subversive of open military means - above all the porosity of national frontiers and the ethnic configuration overlapping both sides of the national boarders in the region.[5]
[5] Bakongo at the western borders between Congo and Angola; Azande in the north between Congo and Sudan; and Banyamulenge in the east between Congo and Rwanda.
Druckversion
Seite empfehlenbookmarken bei...
