Déclaration conjointe de la Lucha et Save the Congo! sur La Conférence humanitaire de haut niveau sur la RDC
Save the Congo is calling up the UNSC to renew MONUSCO FIB mandate when it expires this March to help neutralise all negative forces, foreign or local, tyrannising Congo’s eastern regions; and to consider tougher consequences for those parties who do not cease support to armed groups operating in Congo.
On the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2098 Last March, the UK Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nation, Sir Mark Lyall Grant, emphasised:
“Renewing MONUSCO’s mandate, with the inclusion of an Intervention Brigade, is an important means by which the UN contributes to the realisation of this vision. By doing so, the Security Council and the UN has moved into new territory. For it to succeed it will be important that the whole mission, including all its troop contingents whether part of the Intervention Brigade or not, are willing and able to implement fully the whole of the mission’s mandate. This is one mission, with one mandate, one Special Representative and one Force Commander.”
Save the Congo’ founder, Vava Tampa, said:
“Renewing FIB’s mandate is essential in helping neutralise negative forces as well as to helping end cross-border support to armed groups operating in the DRC, notably by Rwanda.
Tampa added,
More than 1.5 million people remain displaced because of insecurity in Congo’s eastern regions; and many more continue to be killed and raped on a daily basis. The Security Council, the African Union, and the EU should meaningfully engage all signatories to the 11+4 Framework of Hope to live up to their commitment on ending the wars and human tragedy which continue to engulf the Congo.
MUNUSCO: A brief history:
In 1999 the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1279 establishing the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo known by its French acronym, MONUC. In 2000, the Security Council expanded MONUC’s mandate by adopting resolution 1291, which tasked peacekeepers with overseeing the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement of 1999. The UN expanded the mission’s mandate again in 2004 by including Chapter VII of the UN Charter, enabling the mission to use force to protect civilians. Following a dramatic standoff in late 2008 between rebels and the Congolese army in the province of North Kivu, in which both sides deliberately killed civilians, the Council decided on an ambitious mandate for peacekeepers. Under Resolution 1856 of December 22, 2008, MONUC troops would “protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence … emanating from any of the parties engaged in the conflict” and theprotection of civilians (PoC) would become the highest priority for the mission. In Mary 2010, MONUC was renamed MONUSCO—the “S” standing for stabilization—under a completely reworked mandate pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1925; and in March 2013, after the M23’s takeover of North Kivu’s strategic city of Goma, MONUSCO was given teeth by the UNSC who established UN’s first offensive combat unit, an African–led attack force with a mandate tailored to neutralising armed groups
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