UN backs 'offensive' peacekeeping force
The UN Security Council has unanimously approved the first-ever "offensive"
UN peacekeeping brigade to battle rebels in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC), which hailed the move yesterday as a turning point for its
restive east.
A council resolution gave the 3,000-strong force orders to "neutralise" and
"disarm" rebel groups in the resource-rich east of the country, which has
been gripped by conflict for more than two decades.
Congo Prime Minister Augustin Matata Ponya hailed the move as "the beginning
of the end of armed groups and sends a very clear signal to those supporting
them".
"The DRC welcomes this vote, which marks a decisive turning point for
re-establishing peace and security in the Kivu" regions in the east, he said
in a statement.
The first troops in the intervention brigade will come from South Africa,
Tanzania and Malawi, UN peacekeeping force chief Herve Ladsous said on
Thursday.
The force and surveillance drones to monitor the Congo's borders with
neighbouring nations accused of backing the rebels will be operating by
July.
The force will launch UN peacekeeping operations into a new era, said
diplomats.
"It's an innovation," said France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud, whose
country wrote the resolution which has worried some contributing nations to
UN missions.
The resolution's mandate to conduct "targeted offensive operations" has
never been given to a peacekeeping mission before.
It will act "in a robust, highly mobile and versatile manner and in strict
compliance with international law" to "prevent the expansion of all armed
groups, neutralise these groups, and to disarm them", the resolution said.
The brigade and drones are part of a UN campaign to add military muscle to
political efforts to end conflict in the Congo's border regions with Rwanda
and Uganda.
Eleven African nations signed a UN-brokered accord last month pledging not
to interfere in the affairs of their neighbours. Former Irish president Mary
Robinson was named UN special envoy for the Great Lakes region, leading
political peace efforts.
The brigade will be made up of three infantry battalions, one artillery and
one special force and a reconnaissance company with headquarters in the
North Kivu provincial capital of Goma.
Ladsous told reporters there would be 3,069 troops from South Africa,
Tanzania and Malawi in the force, which he said would be "an important new
element in the panoply of peacekeeping".
"The Security Council and the UN have moved into new territory" with the
intervention brigade, said Britain's UN ambassador Mark Lyall Grant.
The brigade has an initial one-year mandate and the resolution said it was
created "on an exceptional basis and without creating a precedent".
Several UN ambassadors said however the precedent had now been set.
Guatemala, which has troops in the UN mission in the Congo and is also a
council member, "wavered" over whether to back the resolution, said its UN
envoy Gert Rosenthal.
Guatemala is among countries which fear that the offensive brigade will make
other peacekeepers a target of radical groups in the Congo and other
conflicts in which such a brigade could be introduced.
Pakistan, which also has troops in the Congo, also raised opposition to the
brigade being used in other UN missions.
Rwanda, a temporary member of the Security Council, joined the body's other
14 members in voting for the resolution.
Rwanda and Uganda have been accused by UN experts of backing the M23 rebels
who briefly took Goma in November in an offensive which sparked the UN
security rethink. Both have denied the charges.
Rwanda's UN ambassador Eugene Richard Gasana called on Kinshasa to make
greater efforts to "tackle the deep-seated causes of conflict" in the
country and also criticised "pre-conceived ideas of the past" which had seen
Rwanda accused.
Congolese and armed groups from neighbouring nations, in particular the M23
rebels, have taken over large parts of the east.
This month the M23 was wracked by infighting and hundreds of rebels loyal to
warlord Bosco Ntaganda fled into Rwanda after being routed by a rival
faction.
Ntaganda is now in the custody of the International Criminal Court where he
faces war crimes charges.
United Nations gives the Congo extra time to prosecute soldier rapists
The UN has given the Democratic Republic of the Congo four more days to
begin prosecuting soldiers accused of raping scores of women in an eastern
town or it will halt support to two battalions.
The UN said that 126 women were raped in Minova in November after Congolese
troops fled to the town as so-called M23 rebels briefly captured the nearby
provincial capital of Goma.
The UN special envoy to Congo, Roger Meece, informed Congolese authorities
in a March 25 letter that they had seven days to take action.
"The letter informed the Congolese Government of the termination of all
MONUSCO support to the two battalions involved in the Minova rapes, should
no appropriate action be taken immediately, within seven days," a spokesman
for the UN department of peacekeeping said. The UN peacekeeping mission in
Congo, known as MONUSCO, has a mandate to protect civilians and supports
operations by the Congolese army. There are more than 17,000 troops in the
Congo, a country the size of Western Europe.
The UN had previously told the Congo that it would end support to two
battalions linked to the Minova rapes if it did not try the soldiers
involved.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said in December that alleged human rights
abuses were committed in and around Minova between November 20 and November
30, including the 126 rapes and the killing of two civilians.
Nesirky said at the time that two soldiers were charged with rape, while
seven more were charged with looting.
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