DRC: UN Says All Peacekeepers to Leave By Year's End

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Facts

  • The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) will fully withdraw by the end of December, ending 25 years of UN intervention in the Central African country. This was announced by the mission's head, Bintou Keita, in the capital Kinshasa on Saturday.1
  • Keita confirmed that 'MONUSCO will definitively leave the DRC no later than the end of 2024' adding that in the first of three withdrawal phases around 2K of 15K-strong forces will leave the eastern province of South Kivu by April. The UN troops will then withdraw from the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri.2
  • According to the DRC's Foreign Minister, Christophe Lutundula, the UN base in Kamanyola bordering Burundi will be the first of 14 UN bases in South Kivu to be handed over to the Congolese security forces no later than February 15. However, the UN's withdrawal did not mean 'the end of the war' in the country's east, the minister continued.3
  • The UN Security Council voted to end its mission in December after Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi requested in September to expedite the troops' exit. The MONUSCO troops arrived in the DRC in 2010 replacing an earlier UN mission to support the government in fighting insecurity in the country's conflict-ridden eastern provinces.4
  • Recently re-elected in a contested vote the Congolese government claims that MONUSCO failed its mission to protect civilians from armed groups and restore peace in Eastern Congo. For similar reasons, Kinshasa also refused to renew the mandate of a regional East African force deployed last year.5
  • Over 120 militias are fighting in resource-rich eastern Congo, including groups such as the Allied Democratic Forces, the Cooperative for the Development of Congo, and the March 23 Movement. The security situation continues to deteriorate with almost 7M people internally displaced by the violence.6

Sources: 1Al Jazeera, 2Africanews, 3The East African, 4Africa Feeds, 5Voice of America and 6Globalr2P.

Narratives

  • Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by Dw.Com. It cannot be denied that MONUSCO struggled to ensure stability and protect the civilian population, but this is mainly due to the specific nature of UN missions. For example, UN forces are only allowed to use lethal force in self-defense or in defense of their mandate. Furthermore, African governments undermine the UN's efforts for various political reasons. Yet despite increasing pressure, UN missions continue to play a crucial role in countries such as the DRC. It's highly unlikely that Kinshasa will succ
  • Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by ChimpReports. Since MONUSCO entered the DRC, the security situation in the east of this vast and enormously resource-rich country has steadily deteriorated. Given the utter failure of UN troops to fulfill their mandate in several African countries, one can't blame Africans for seeing them as an instrument of foreign interests managing conflicts rather than helping to end them. The UN troops' exit from the DRC is the latest example of African nations demanding control over their destiny, and this is the only path, albeit

Predictions