Peace in the DRC, Part II: Boosting Military Intervention

by Michelle

Published November 03, 2008 @ 08:14PM PT

The two recent agreements aimed at stabilizing the Eastern DRC have, unquestioningly, failed miserably. In late 2007, the governments of the DRC and Rwanda signed a cooperation agreement to disarm the FDLR, yet Rwanda's former genocidal militias remain largely unimpeded, even receiving support from senior Congolese military officials.

Additionally, a ceasefire agreement signed in January 2008 by the government of the DRC and 22 rebel groups--including Laurent Nkunda's CNDP--was "violated before the ink was dry," according to a Council on Foreign Relations report by Anthony Gambino, and heavy fighting resumed in North Kivu in late September.

The dishonest signing of ceasefires and peace agreements, negotiated settlements and transitional governments, is an all too common occurrence in conflict-affected states--Darfur immediately comes to mind, but a litany of other examples can be provided. Diplomatic pressure seems to succeed in producing the appearance of a desire for disarmament, but without mechanisms for the adequate enforcement of ceasefire provisions, the so-called agreements are horribly deficient in political currency.

Such is the case in the DRC, where rebel groups in the Kivu provinces fill the vacuum left by the country's highly ineffectual--not to mention abusive and corrupt--military and police forces. Armed factions have no compelling reason to commit to ceasefire and disarmament measures, as Gambino writes, "given that the government's security forces pose no serious threat to their continuing ability to control territory and exploit Congo's natural wealth."

Immediate Needs: When is Military Intervention an Option?

As discussed in Installment #1, Gambino advocates for a long-term, comprehensive strategy that addresses the fundamental causes of the crisis in the Congo. But first, the immediate challenge of quelling the violence in the East must be addressed. Given that past efforts to cajole and incentivize (a possibly-made up word I'm deploying with gusto, there) demobilization failed spectacularly--the Goma agreement included provisions for DDR or integration into the national army for rebel troops--rebels need a disincentive for continued armed rebellion and the general looting/raping/massacring that has become their M.O.

The U.S. needs to take the lead in increasing the capacity of MONUC to protect civilians in rural and urban areas in the east, but, Gambino argues, if this is not sufficient--and events in recent weeks suggest it likely is not--the international community may need to deploy a short-term (six months-ish) alternate force to neutralize the rebel threat. Such a force should be sanctioned by the UN, led by the Europeans, and supported diplomatically and logistically by the U.S.

This approach has been used before, Gamino points out, by the British in Sierra Leone and by a multinational European coalition in the DRC's Ituri province, after MONUC and the critical town of Bunia were nearly overrun by rebels in 2003. Operation Artemis, as it was known, was not without controversy--among other things, Swedish soldiers accused French soldiers of torturing Congolese civilians--and it was unable to contribute to security in rural areas, but the UN-sanctioned force was at least able to secure Bunia.

International military action is always a touchy subject, and the UN recently stated that the solution to the DRC crisis resides in diplomacy, rather than military action:

"What we've said all along is that this isn't a question of winning or losing," Alan Doss, the Special Representative to the Secretary-General, emphasized, underlining that force is not the solution. "What we want is for the CNDP to enter a process and stay in the process and remain committed to agreements they have signed."

I'm open to being completely dead wrong and naïve here, but what is there left to convince Nkunda to honor these commitments? If he was keen on obeying the ceasefire, wouldn't he have already done so? The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, which obligates the international community to intervene to protect civilians from mass atrocity in countries unable or unwilling to do so themselves, involves a range of diplomatic and other tools, with military intervention being only an extreme option of last resort.

But it is an option. How bad does a situation have to get before someone will pony up and admit the need to send in more troops? MONUC is already in place, with a Chapter VII peace enforcement mandate, rather than a Chapter VI peacekeeping mandate, which authorizes MONUC to,

"...use all means deemed necessary, within the limits of its capacities and in the areas of deployment of its armed units, to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence; and to contribute to the improvement of the security conditions."

This is includes the use of force, meaning that the UN has already taken a significant step in recognizing the DRC as a situation in need of some level of military intervention. So why not give MONUC what it needs to fulfill this mandate?

Really--how much worse does this have to get?