UN support for Congo army comes under fire

By AFP reporter
November 8, 2009

KINSHASA: UN military support for the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) has increasingly come under fire because of atrocities against civilians blamed on regular troops. For months, international and Congolese non-governmental organizations have called for the suspension of the Kimia II ("Peace II") operation against Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

The United Nations mission in DR Congo provides rations and fuel to the army troops, but also firepower, help in planning operations and evacuation by UN helicopters for injured soldiers. Last January and February, the Rwandan army joined the FARDC in an offensive against the FDLR, but since then the Congolese troops have fought on their own, apart from the increasingly controversial help from MONUC.

In mid-October, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, described Kimia II as a "catastrophe" in human rights terms and called for a "change of strategy" by the UN and FARDC. Alston condemned the "massacre" by a FARDC unit, commanded by a colonel, of at least 50 Hutu refugees late in April in the eastern Nord-Kivu province, one of the most volatile parts of the DR Congo, along with Sud-Kivu.

On Monday, the UN special advisor on the central African Great Lakes region, Howard Wolpe, said that civilians paid an "unacceptable price" in the conflict zones and added that in his view, military action alone could not solve the FDLR problem. The same day, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the Congolese army "deliberately killed" more than 500 civilians in operation Kimia II and reported a previous massacre of 198 people during the earlier joint operation with Rwanda.

Human Rights Watch conducted 21 fact-finding missions in North and South Kivu from January to October 2009, and found that Congolese army soldiers had deliberately killed at least 505 civilians from the start of operation Kimia II in March through September," a statement said. Also Monday, the UN deputy secretary general for peacekeeping operations, Alain Leroy, who was visiting the DR Congo, announced the suspension of UN logistical support for an FARDC unit, the 213th Brigade, because it reportedly kill
ed "at least 62 civilians".

This is an important step, but it's not enough, because there are other units involved," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, an HRW researcher who said that MONUC "should immediately suspend its support for any military operation, unless it runs the risk of being implied in new atrocities." "On the ground, human rights officials with MONUC say that the situation is catastrophic, very worrying, and that the consequences for civilians of army operations are heavy, with massacres, and that the image of MONUC will be
associated with all that," said a diplomat who asked not to be named.

The diplomat said that MONUC rights personnel had been protesting for weeks, but they claimed that nobody listened. In spite of the atrocities, on October 16 in New York, the UN special envoy to the DRC opposed the suspension of operation Kimia II and said that it was vital to fight the rebels, while avoiding atrocities.

Doss said that to reinforce that policy, the 17,000-strong MONUC "will withdraw support from battalions that show a blatant disregard for international humanitarian law." He conceded that despite efforts by the FARDC and MONUC to improve and extend protection of civilians, "it is obviously not possible to protect everyone, everywhere, all of the time in the Kivus, an area the size of California with a population of eight million."

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