Notes

Published in Monograph No 66, October 2001
Peacekeeping in the DRC, MONUC and the Road to Peace


  1. J MacKinlay, Beyond the logjam: A doctrine for complex emergencies, in M Manwaring & J Fishel (eds), Toward responsibility in the new world disorder: Challenges and lessons of peace operations, Frank Cass, London, 1998, pp 118-119.
  2. UN General Assembly/Security Council, Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, A/55/305, S/2000/809, 21 August 2000, paragraph 57.
  3. The main provisions of the agreement included:

    • the immediate cessation of hostilities;

    • the establishment of the JMC, comprising the belligerent parties under a neutral chairperson appointed by the OAU, to investigate ceasefire violations, work out mechanisms to disarm identified militias and monitor the withdrawal of foreign troops according to an agreed schedule;

    • the deployment of an ‘appropriate’ (peacekeeping and peace enforcement) UN mission tasked with disarming the armed groups, collecting weapons from civilians and providing humanitarian assistance and protection to vulnerable populations; and

    • initiating an ‘inter-Congolese dialogue’ intended to lead to ‘a new political dispensation in the DRC’.
  4. The identified ‘armed groups’ included Rwandan Interahamwe militia and the former Rwandan government forces (FAR); Congolese Mai Mai militias; the Allied Democratic Front (ADF), the Uganda National Rescue Front II, the West Nile Bank Front and Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda; UNITA; and the Burundian Forces pour la défense de la démocratie (FDD).
  5. R Lemarchand, Exclusion, marginalization and political mobilization: The road to hell in the Great Lakes, Concordia University, Montreal, undated paper, p 6.
  6. International Crisis Group (ICG), Scramble for the Congo: Anatomy of an ugly war, Report 26, ICG, Brussels, 20 December 2000, p 13.
  7. Lemarchand describes the diversity of the label Banyarwanda thus: "Included under that rubric were three distinctive communities (a) Hutu and Tutsi who had settled in the Kivu region long before the advent of colonial rule, including a group of ethnic Tutsi indigenous to south Kivu (located in the Mulenge region) known as the Banyamulenge; (b) descendants of migrant workers, mostly Hutu, brought in from Rwanda in the 1930s and 1940s under the auspices of the colonial state, (c) tens of thousands of Tutsi refugees who fled Rwanda in the wake of the 1959 Hutu revolution, and hence referred to as ‘fifty niners’." The fifty niners were eventually to play an important role in the anti-Obote guerrilla movement headed by Yoweri Museveni, the National Resistance Army. See Lemarchand, op cit, pp 2-3.
  8. An ordonnance-loi that was issued in 1971, stipulating that all Banyarwanda and Barundi living in the Congo on 30 June 1960 could claim citizenship rights, a policy that was reversed in 1977. Yielding to pressure from ‘native’ Congolese, the Legislative Council repealed the previous legislation and, in 1981, pushed through a nationality law that effectively deprived the Banyarwanda of all citizenship rights. Ibid, p 10.
  9. ICG, op cit, pp 60-1. Billy Rautenbach, Mugabe’s choice as chairperson, was unable to turn Gecamines around and his appointment was eventually terminated.
  10. News Brief, 30 August 2001.
  11. According to Global Witness, Laurent Kabila was keen to appease Mugabe after the failure of other business ventures between the two governments (such as the aborted flotation in London of Oryx Diamonds and the collapse of Congo-Duka, a joint venture between Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI) and its Congolese partner, General Strategic Reserves).
  12. See, for example, Stephen Jackson, ‘Criminalised’ economies of rumour and war in the Kivus, DR Congo, paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association of Anthropology, San Francisco, November 2000, pp 2, 3ff.
  13. The SPLA is fighting for greater autonomy for the mostly Christian and animist south from the mainly Arab Muslim north. About 2 million people have died since the war began in 1983.
  14. Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir recently claimed that his government no longer backs the LRA, and that Kony had started operations against the Sudanese government. Sudan’s Bashir says no longer backs Uganda rebels, Reuters, 22 August 2001.
  15. ICG, op cit, p 4.
  16. Ibid, p 38.
  17. Oxfam, DRC Analysis workshop, unpublished manuscript, 20 March 2001.
  18. ICG, op cit, p 32.
  19. UN Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) for Central and Eastern Africa, Update 494, 3 September 1998.
  20. Final Communiqué of the 1998 SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government, Grand Baie, Republic of Mauritius, 19 September 1998.
  21. At this stage, the European Union became actively involved in the peacemaking process through the despatch of the organisation’s Special Envoy, Aldo Ajello, to the Great Lakes region.
  22. UN Security Council, Resolution 1234 (1999), 9 April 1999.
  23. IRIN Central and East Africa, DRC: Chronology of the rebellion, 9 June 1999.
  24. SABC, 2 September 1999.
  25. UN Security Council, Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Preliminary Deployment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, S/1999/790, 15 July 1999.
  26. Ibid.
  27. UN Security Council, Press Release SC/6711, 6 August 1999.
  28. UN Security Council, Resolution 1279 (1999), S/RES/127, 30 November 1999, paragraph 7.
  29. Ibid, paragraph 9.
  30. According to article I, the parties agree to a ceasefire among all their forces in the DRC, meaning the effective cessation of hostilities, military movements and reinforcement, as well as hostile actions, including hostile propaganda, within 24 hours of signing the ceasefire agreement. Specifically, article I states that the ceasefire shall entail the cessation of:

    • all air, land and sea attacks as well as actions of sabotage;

    • attempts to occupy new ground positions and the movement of military forces and resources from one area to another, without prior agreement between the parties;

    • all acts of violence against the civilian population by respecting and protecting human rights;

    • supplies of ammunition and weaponry and other war-related stores to the field; and

    • any other actions that may impede the normal evolution of the ceasefire process.
  31. See, for example, UN Security Council, Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, S/2000/30, 17 January 2000, paragraphs 10 and 12.
  32. UN Security Council Press Release, Seven African Heads of State Address Security Council in Day-long meeting on Democratic Republic of Congo, SC/6789, 24 January 2000.
  33. S/2000/30, op cit.
  34. UN Security Council, Sixth Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, S/2001/128, paragraph 34-35.
  35. S/1999/790, op cit, paragraph 67.
  36. Ibid.
  37. UN Security Council, Resolution 1291, S/RES/1291 (2000) 25 February 2000, paragraph 8.
  38. Ibid.
  39. Ibid
  40. IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 15, 8-14 April 2000.
  41. Ibid.
  42. T Pitman, Congo rebels warn of more fighting despite peace deal, Reuters, 13 April 2000.
  43. Joint Military Commission, Agreement for a Ceasefire in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Plan for the Withdrawal of all Foreign Forces from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Harare, 15 March 2001, appended to S/2001/521, annex IV, paragraph 2.
  44. S/2001/128, op cit paragraphs 30-32.
  45. The capture of Pweto provoked the flight of thousands of FAC, Interahamwe and other forces into Zambia. When the latter refused to turn the Interahamwe over to the RPA to be screened for genocidaires, relations between Zambia and Rwanda temporarily broke down.
  46. The FLC was created in January 2001 through a merger of the RCD-ML/Kisangani (the Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie- Mouvement de liberation) and Jean-Pierre Bemba’s MLC.
  47. S/2001/128, op cit, paragraphs 71-73.
  48. Ibid, paragraph 76.
  49. Ibid, paragraphs 78-84.
  50. UN Security Council, Resolution 1341, S/RES/1341(2001), 22 February 2001, paragraph 19.
  51. According to Amnesty International, to the Masisi region of the province of North-Kivu, and in the territory of Kalehe in the province of South-Kivu. Amnesty International, Democratic Republic of the Congo: Rwandese controlled east: devastating human toll, 19 June 2001, p 6.
  52. According to a number of officers interviewed at MONUC headquarters, the SANDF element had performed exceptionally well in democratic South Africa’s first substantive participation in a peace mission since Korea in the 1950s. The ‘backbone’ of the SANDF contingent consists of six eight-person air cargo-handling teams, deployed in Kinshasa and at three of the sector headquarters, as well as at Goma. The team earmarked for the fourth sector headquarters at Kalemie was located at Goma, but was due to deploy to Kalemie before mid-August.
  53. Interview in MONUC headquarters, Kinshasa, 6 August 2001.
  54. IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 84, 28 July — 3 August 2001.
  55. Interview in MONUC headquarters, Kinshasa, 6 August 2001.
  56. The third and final report on the exploitation of minerals in the DRC is expected in a few months’ time. It is likely to tone down some of the more strident conclusions reached in the April report, and to include information on the roles of Zimbabwe, Namibia and possibly other countries in the exploitation of the DRC’s mineral resources.
  57. Museveni also appointed his own commission, the Porter commission, to conduct an investigation into the allegations.
  58. In a letter dated 8 May to the Security Council, Museveni announced that Uganda would completely withdraw its forces from ten locations in the DRC (Basankusu, Dongo, Gemena, Gbadolite, Lisala, Bafwasende, Isiro, Butembo, Beni and Kanyabayonga), and that it would continue to examine the wisdom of maintaining a presence in Buta and Bunia. Uganda also stated that a presence would be maintained on the Ruwenzori mountains until its security interests had been addressed.
  59. Sunday Vision, Kampala, 5 August 2001, reported by Reuters, 7 August 2001.
  60. There is perhaps some hope of speeding up the programme through bilateral processes. For example, the bilateral talks between presidents Kagame and Mugabe in Harare on 7 May 2001 were interpreted by the UN as "a positive sign of rapprochement." However, some observers suggest that this meeting resulted in a Faustian bargain that would create a pretext for both Rwandan and Zimbabwean forces to remain for longer in the DRC and, more ominously, for the ZNA to ‘deliver’ armed groups allied to them into the clutches of the RPA. If true, this would make a mockery of the communiqué issued after the SADC allies ‘mini-summit’ held in Kinshasa on 17 May, which accused Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi of committing genocide in the Kivus. In the same communiqué, the allied leaders pushed for the initiation of MONUC phase III, calling for the UN to deploy an "appropriate and adequate peacekeeping force" to meet the demands of the peace process. UN, Eighth Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organisation Mission in The Democratic Republic of the Congo, S/2001/572, 8 June 2001, paragraph 7.
  61. As presented at a joint meeting of the Political Committee for the Implementation of the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Security Council mission to the Great Lakes region, Lusaka, 21-22 May 2001. See Addendum to United Nations Security Council, Report of the Security Council mission to the Great Lakes region,15-26 May 2001, S/2001/521, 29 May 2001.
  62. S/2001/572, op cit, paragraph 84.
  63. Ibid, paragraphs 86-89.
  64. Interview with MONUC political affairs officer, Kinshasa, 5 August 2001.
  65. Interview with MONUC political affairs officer, Kinshasa, 6 August 2001.
  66. S/2001/572, op cit, paragraphs 90-92.
  67. The force provost marshall indicated in a conversation on 7 August 2001 that a contingent from the SANDF would be most welcome, and that a request had been made to this effect.
  68. S/2001/572, op cit, paragraph 98.
  69. On 20 May 2001, the Security Council mission to the Great Lakes region visited Mbandaka, where the head of the mission officially announced the reopening of the Congo river from Kinshasa to Kisangani. See S/2001/521, op cit, paragraph 51.
  70. IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 84, op cit.
  71. S/2001/572, op cit, paragraph 103.
  72. UN Security Council, Resolution 1355 (2001), 15 June 2001, paragraph 31, 29.
  73. IRIN Central and Eastern Africa, IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 86, 11-17 August 2001.
  74. The Mai Mai are drawn from various ethnic groups indigenous to the region: Hunde, Nande, Nyange, Bashi, and others. They are notorious for the fickleness of their political opinions and their addiction to violence.
  75. In October 2000, rebels of the MLC fired on a UN helicopter near the DRC’s border with the Central African Republic. IRIN Central and Eastern Africa, IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 86, 11-7 August 2001.
  76. ICG, op cit, p 14.
  77. One estimate within MONUC is that the RPA have inflicted about 2-000 casualties on the ex-FAR and Interahamwe since June.
  78. Anti-Rwandan Tutsi sentiment does not imply sympathy for the Rwandan Hutus. Local resentment against these groups remains high following the massive influx of mostly Hutu refugees that followed the genocide in 1994.
  79. Interviews, Kinshasa, 9 August 2001.
  80. Ibid.
  81. Ibid.
  82. ‘Durable solutions’ is the phrase used by MONUC to embrace the ‘three Rs’ of the so-called DDRRR process — reintegration, resettlement, and repatriation. The resultant abbreviation, ‘D3’ is therefore used instead of the somewhat clumsier DDRRR.
  83. According to the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, signed by the parties on 10 July 1999, annex A, chapters 4, 5, 6, 9, 10 and 12.
  84. MONUC Headquarters, MONUC Concept of Operations for Phase 3 Deployment, HQ MONUC G3/Plans/1, 28 April 2001, paragraph 8.
  85. S/2001/521, op cit.
  86. Article 22.
  87. Draft DR plan under consideration by the Joint Military Commission, dated 19 June 2001.
  88. Ibid, paragraph 1.
  89. Ibid, paragraph 16.
  90. As of 8 June, only Uganda and Angola had provided information on the numbers, dispositions and armaments of their forces in the DRC. Reported in Eighth report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 8 June 2001, S/200/572, paragraph 50.
  91. Paragraph 22.
  92. Despite the ban on party political activities, Rwanda’s first communal elections in over 30 years were held during March 2001 and took place peacefully, with a turnout estimated (by the Rwandan electoral commission) of over 90%. In the process, elected officials replaced government appointed administrators (bourgmestres). Two days later, on 8 March, an electoral college elected mayors in each town and district that included the newly elected administrators. Despite the fact that the RPF does not show any great enthusiasm for multiparty democracy, President Kagame has promised that party political activity will be legalised in Rwanda by 2003, followed by general elections.
  93. MONUC, MONUC concept of military operations for phase 2 deployment, 28 April 2001, paragraph 19. Interviews with MONUC, Kinshasa, 6 August 2001.
  94. Interview with Lt Col A Mason, GS3, MONUC, Kinshasa, 6 August 2001
  95. Ibid.
  96. HQ MONUC G3/Plans/1, op cit, paragraph 2.
  97. Ibid, paragraphs 9-10.
  98. Ibid, paragraph 19.
  99. Ibid, paragraph 7.
  100. Ibid, paragraph 36.
  101. Some of the MONUC political officers expressed doubts over the extent of the control that any of the parties have over the armed groups that they have allegedly been supporting in the conflict. If this is the case, then the current military approach to the D3 challenge is fundamentally flawed.
  102. HQ MONUC G3/Plans/1, op cit, paragraph 31.
  103. On 17 August 2001, Reuters reported that MONUC had not yet been granted access to Congolese army camps in Kamina and Katonda to carry out a voluntary census among soldiers, to identify those belonging to Rwandan and other foreign rebel groups. See, No access granted to MONUC yet, Reuters, 17 August 2001.
  104. The proposal was subsequently endorsed at a summit of regional heads of state. Buyoya and Ndayizeye also agreed to fulfil 11 conditions guaranteeing the full implementation of the Arusha Agreement of 28 August 2000, although, in the absence of a ceasefire, a UN peacekeeping force will not back up its implementation. A special Burundian protection force is envisaged to facilitate the return of exiled political leaders. Half of the force will be picked from members of the Tutsi-dominated army; the parties representing Hutu interests will choose the other half. International Crisis Group, Burundi: One hundred days to put the peace process back on track, ICG, Brussels, undated.
  105. Ibid.
  106. According to annex A, paragraph 5.3, the parties agreed that the OAU would assist in this process.
  107. Paragraphs 5.5 and 6.1 of annex A to the Ceasefire Agreement.
  108. Paragraph 5.6.
  109. The Inter-Congolese Dialogue was supposed to have been held nearly two years ago, according to the calendar of the Lusaka ceasefire. A preparatory meeting was first convened at Cotonou in June 2000, but the government refused to participate, and banned the unarmed opposition in Kinshasa from attending. At that time, only seven opposition parties were invited, including the best-known, the UDSP led by Etienne Tshisekedi.
  110. Masire’s office initially relied on support from the Botswana government. This was followed by support from Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and now the EU. The United States has indicated that it may be prepared to fund the dialogue, currently estimated to cost at least US $10 million.
  111. Annex A to the Ceasefire Agreement, Modalities for the implementation of the ceasefire agreement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, paragraph 5.2 (b).
  112. Elections will not be possible in Congo yet, Business Day, 22 August 2001.
  113. No 41 dated 8 August 2001. Reuters, DR Congo president sets up dialogue commission, BBC Monitoring newsfile, 8 August 2001.
  114. Ernest Wamba dia Wamba is the leader of a faction of the RCD (RCD-Kisangani, renamed the RCD-ML). The FLC was established in Kampala in January 2001, leaving Bemba very much the dominant figure. Wamba dia Wamba signed the agreement which set up the FLC only eight months after the others, on 18 August, two days before the start of the meeting in Gaborone. The infighting within the FLC undermined the attempt by Jean-Pierre Bemba to establish a larger constituency that included civil society groupings and unarmed political parties, called the Union des forces congolaises pour le respect integral de l’Accord de Lusaka et la tenue du dialogue intercongolais (UFAD).
  115. The other leaders and parties are as follows: François Lumumba, son of Patrice Lumumba, represented the Mouvement nationaliste du Congo/Lumumbiste (MNC/L), which may have nominal support in Kasai Oriental originated with Patrice Lumumba’s MNC party; Godefroy Mayobo represented the Parti Lumumbiste unifié (PALU), which was formed in 1964 by Antoine Gizenga, a minister in Lumumba’s government, for Bandudu; Joseph Olengankoy, the fiery young leader of the Forces innovatrices de l’union et de solidarité (FONUS) for Kasai Oriental, is one of the few opposition politicians not to have served under Mobutu; Justin Bomoko, Pionniers de l’indépendance; Diomi Ndongala, FSD; Raymond Tshibanda, CODEP; Honorus Kisimba Ngoy, UNAFEC/CPF; Arthur Zaidi Ngoma, Regroupement de l’opposition congolaise; Venant Tshipasa, DCF; Patrice Aimé Sesanga, Regroupement de l’opposition modérée; and Christophe Lutundula, MSDD. Only the UN was invited to send an observer to the Gaborone talks, but as discussions progressed, representatives from the JMC, the Political Committee and MONUC attended, as well as a lone representative from the Belgian embassy in Kinshasa on behalf of the EU.
  116. ICG, op cit, p 80.
  117. International Crisis Group, The Rwanda Tribunal: Justice delayed, 7 June 2001, <www.crisisweb.org/projects/showreport.cfm> (17 August 2001), p 2.
  118. Ibid, p 1.
  119. See H Friman, The Democratic Republic of Congo: Justice in the aftermath of peace DRC?, African Security Review 10(3), 2001, pp 63-77.
  120. According to annex A, paragraph 6.2.
  121. Emphasis added. Ceasefire Agreement, S/1999/815, op cit, page 7.
  122. On 4 April, Kabila dismissed the cabinet he inherited from his father. When he announced a new team 10 days later, he had included only four out of 25 members of the previous cabinet. Leonard She Okitundu still holds the post of foreign minister, and Mwenze Kongolo, formerly minister of justice, is now in charge of the newly created ministry of national security and public order. Three of Laurent Kabila’s leading ministers (known as ‘the uncles’), Gaetan Kakudji, Yerodia Ndombasi and Pierre-Victor Mpoyo, were not included in the new cabinet. Mpoyo was the man behind the controversial mining contracts signed with Zimbabwe’s Billy Rautenbach. Notwithstanding a bevy of younger and more technocratic ministers, continuity remains in the proportion of Katangan representation is the new government. This is shown most visibly by the presence of the only remaining uncle, Mwenze Kongolo, regarded as a hawk and a friend of Zimbabwean justice minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, reported to be President Mugabe’s preferred successor. Africa Research Bulletin 14367, 1-30 April 2001.
  123. Relayed during an interview with a senior MONUC official, Kinshasa, 9 August 2001.
  124. Lemarchand, op cit, pp 1-2.
  125. Addendum, S/2001/521/Add.1, op cit, p 2.
  126. Recently, there have been discussions concerning a deal that might bring Rwanda into SADC as part of a regional security arrangement, despite the agreement by SADC leaders to place a moratorium on the enlargement of the Community.
  127. Oxfam, op cit.
  128. IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 84, op cit.