United Nations Security Council extends sanctions against Congo rebels

Josephine Whitaker, 

The UN Security Council renews its sanctions against rebel groups in the eastern DRC. Indian government announces plans to reduce troop levels in Kashmir. Ousted Honduran president denied chance to serve the remainder of his term in officer by a majority vote of law-makers. A provincial governor is charged in connection with the recent massacre in Mindanao, the Philippines. Deteriorating conditions in the Central African Republic cause aid agencies to withdraw to the capital. All this and more in today’s briefing.

 The United Nations Security Council voted earlier this week to renew sanctions on rebel groups operating in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The sanctions, first imposed in 2003 and renewed for a further year, target rebel groups such as the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR), who have been operating in the DRC during its many years of civil war and chronic instability, unchecked by the weak Kinshasa government.
The resolution (1896 (2009)) imposes an arms embargo, travel ban and asset freeze on all armed groups “that are not part of the Government’s integrated army or police units”. The mandate of the UN group of experts on the DRC was also extended for one year by the resolution. The group, which has produced previous reports and recommendations on the situation in this strife-ridden country, was urged to formulate recommendations of the buying and processing of minerals in the DRC, to focus its activities on the troubled east (North and South Kivu, Ituri and Orientale provinces), and to investigate recent allegations of links between the FDLR and Europe.
The openSecurity verdict: Change in the DRC, and meaningful improvement in the security situation for the millions of Congolese affected by political instability and the long-running conflict there, depends not so much on the deliberations of the UN Security Council, but on the Council members’ willingness to implement the agreements that they make. That this particular regime of sanctions has been imposed in largely the same form since 2003 should indicate somewhat the sanctions’ limited effectiveness. The implementation of any sanctions regime in the DRC was always going to be challenged by the country’s sheer size (approximately equivalent to that of western Europe) and the porousness of its borders. As a result, the lack of political will to implement sanctions so far demonstrated by the Security Council is a much more serious problem.
The UN’s renewal of its sanctions on rebel groups operating in the eastern DRC comes in the wake of a damning report into international links between the FDLR and countries and corporations across the world. The FDLR, a Rwandan rebel group accused of involvement in the Rwandan genocide and claiming to be fighting for the freedom of the Rwandan people, has been accused of a catalogue of human rights abuses in the DRC since 1994. The report, written by the UN’s group of experts on the DRC, condemns countries such as Germany, the United States and Spain for allowing Rwandan and Congolese citizens, wanted in connection with the 1994 Rwandan genocide and human rights abuses during the DRC’s multiple civil wars, to live freely within their territories. The report also slams neighbouring countries such as Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi for their role in allowing militants to take refuge in the refugee camps along their borders.
There has been some progress on this front in recent weeks, with the recent arrest in Germany of two wanted rebel leaders, Ignace Murwanashyaka and Straton Musoni, thought to be high-ranking FDLR commanders. The move by the German government was praised by UN officials, and other European governments were urged to follow Germany’s example by taking rebel leaders known to reside in their territories into custody.
However, these moves are not enough to bring a lasting improvement in the situation in the DRC. According to International Crisis Group, the situation in the DRC deteriorated last month, with 100 civilians and 26 policemen killed during clashes over fishing and farming rights, and tens of thousands displaced, both internally and forced over the border into the neighbouring Republic of Congo. The security situation in the country has remained dire since the ending of what some have called Africa’s first world war in 2003. Despite holding the country’s first democratic elections in 2006, rebel factions are still active throughout the DRC, particularly in the barely governed eastern region, where the UN estimates that 1500 people still die every day from conflict-related causes such as communicable diseases in unsanitary refugee camps.
The UN’s response to the DRC conflict has long been the subject of much criticism. The UN Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (or MONUC as it is usually known), which has been active in the DRC since 1999 and is one of the UN’s largest and most expensive peace keeping missions, has been attacked by many for its perceived ineffectiveness and inefficiency. Moreover, many Security Council resolutions regarding the DRC have been implemented either partially or not at all, such as the findings of a 2003 report on the exploitation of the DRC’s mineral wealth by Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Debate in recent weeks about a possible drawdown in MONUC’s presence, including a potential restructuring of the mission, have been justified in part as attempts to improve its effectiveness.
But the real question is what will motivate member states to take serious political action on the situation in the DRC, which, if it were happening in any other country, might draw a more strident burst of anger and activity. Already, the conflict and its spillover into neighbouring states such as Rwanda and Burundi have become something of a non-issue for western public opinion and media. However, the effectiveness of MONUC, and of any UN action regarding the DRC, depends entirely on the willingness of member states to take meaningful action on the conflict. Simply renewing the far from successful sanctions of the past six years is an insufficient response to a conflict that has exacted, is exacting and will continue to exact an unacceptable human cost, if UN member states cannot muster the political will to address it.