[Ugnet] The Congo's Transition Is Failing: Crisis in the Kivus

Meanwhile the senegalist UN Monuc general is busy issuing ultimatums..what an Idiot..what a jock!

As the UN Security Council debates this week the terms of renewing the mandate of its peacekeeping force in the Congo, decisive action is needed to prevent a return to full-scale combat in that ravaged country and the destabilisation of much of Central Africa.

The Congo's Transition Is Failing: Crisis in the Kivus [pdf], the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines the political stalemate in Kinshasa and new military tensions in the Kivus region, where 1,000 people are dying every day in the ongoing political and humanitarian tragedy. The international community, which funds the political transition, needs to rein in spoilers, both inside the transition and outside it, and do a better job of training the new Congolese army. Also, the UN peacekeeping mission (MONUC) needs to get tougher with the Rwandan insurgents, the FDLR.

"Neither MONUC nor the wider international community has shown the necessary will to address the Congo's crises", says Suliman Baldo, Director of Crisis Group's Africa Program. "But donors finance over half the transitional government's budget, so they have clear leverage to take serious action against those who work against unification of the army and administration".

As it approaches the end of its second year, the transition risks breaking apart over the unreconciled ambitions of the former civil war belligerents. There is insufficient interest in making the peace process work in Kinshasa, where few leaders are interested in free and fair elections, now scheduled for June 2005 though almost certain to be delayed.

The transitional government has moved some aspects of the power struggle from the battlefield to Kinshasa back rooms, but former belligerents still compete for resources and power through parallel chains of army and government commands. Many stand to lose power in the elections and are set on prolonging or disrupting the transition. Recent fighting in North Kivu, which displaced over 100,000 people and killed thousands, was potent evidence that actors in Kinshasa still use violence to further their aims.

Appropriate solutions must address the political problems in the capital as well as the local conflicts in the Kivus, the eastern provinces where the wars of the 1990s began. In Kinshasa this means living up to the promise of the Sun City Agreement that brought the transition into existence: former belligerents must complete their military integration.

MONUC needs more troops, but the bigger problem is how it uses the resources it does have -- its willingness to use force as necessary to prevent worse violence. And after MONUC's sexual abuse scandal, the international community must urgently help it restore its credibility among Congolese.

"The most difficult task is to force progress from actors who have an interest in the status quo", says Baldo. "The international community must draw on the support of the 60 million Congolese exhausted from war and demanding the transition live up to its promises, to help it get a grip on the spoilers".

[Ugnet] The Congo's Transition Is Failing: Crisis in the Kivus

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