Fears of a new wave of violence in the restive eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo are growing after weeks of deadly protests against UN peacekeepers and rising regional tensions.
Thirty-six people, including four UN peacekeepers, have died in the past two weeks as hundreds of protesters vandalized and set fire to UN buildings in several towns in the eastern border provinces.
While there have been similar waves of protests before, few have caused so many casualties. With elections due next year, analysts say political actors are fueling the unrest.
Last week, the DRC effectively expelled a spokesman for MONUSCO, the UN peacekeeping force in the country, after he allegedly made “insensitive and inappropriate” statements that authorities say contributed to tensions with the local population. Authorities said this week they want to review the plan to withdraw the peacekeeping mission.
Civilians in eastern DRC have accused Monusco, which has been active for more than a decade, of failing to protect them from militia violence that has long plagued the region but has intensified in recent months. The protesters called for the immediate withdrawal of the forces.
Protesters in the city of Goma, North Kivu province, demanding the withdrawal of UN peacekeeping forces last month. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Nelleke van de Walle, director of the Great Lakes region project at the International Crisis Group, said Monusco was easy to blame.
“People are actually angry at a failed state, a failed government, an incompetent army, but Monusco has a very visible presence with its patrols and bases and so it becomes a focus of public frustration,” she told the Guardian.
In a poll released Thursday by the Congo Research Group at New York University and the Kinshasa-based Ebuteli Institute, 44 percent of respondents said Monusco should leave the DRC immediately — about the same number as those who wanted the mission to stay in 2016.
MONUSCO is due to hand over most of its duties to local forces by 2024 under a timetable drawn up last year, but the government now aims to speed up its exit, Foreign Affairs Minister Christophe Luthundula said.
The force, which took over from an earlier UN operation in 2010, has been in decline for years and its current mandate expires in December. Renewal for another year by the UN Security Council was expected to be a formality and is still seen as highly likely by analysts.
Peacekeepers were accused of retaliating with force and in some cases with live ammunition, as hundreds of protesters threw stones and petrol bombs, vandalizing and setting fire to UN buildings.
A UN soldier and demonstrators with a placard protesting the Monusco peacekeeping mission in Goma in July. Photo: Michel Lunananga/AFP/Getty Images
A government commission sent to assess the aftermath found that 13 people had died in clashes in the city of Goma; another 13, including four peacekeepers, in Butembo; and three in Kanyabayonga, the DRC presidency said.
Four protesters were killed in the town of Uvira when they were hit by an electric cable that was damaged while troops were firing on it.
Three civilians were killed in a separate incident reported on Sunday, in which soldiers returning from leave with a UN intervention brigade opened fire at a border post.
About 170 people were injured, the commission added, noting strong anti-UN sentiment among civil society representatives.
At least some of the protests were organized and encouraged by political actors seeking to mobilize public opinion against peacekeeping forces.
“We are now in a pre-election period with elections scheduled for next year. So politicians use and feed their grievances for their own gain,” said Van de Walle.
Ahead of some of the protests, the Goma youth branch of the ruling UDPS party released a statement demanding that Monusco “withdraw from Congolese soil unconditionally because it has already proven its inability to provide us with protection.”
DRC Senate President Modest Bahati told supporters in Goma on July 15 that MONUSCO should “pack its bags”.
Delphine Rukumbuzi Ntanyoma, an analyst at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, said that in context such remarks could be dangerous.
“The UN mission … has long been blamed for what should be the responsibility of the DRC government: reducing violence in the eastern region of the country and finding long-term solutions for peace,” he wrote on the Conversation website last week.
A funeral is held for peacekeepers who died during protests demanding the departure of the UN mission in Goma, August 1, 2022. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Violence in eastern DRC is driven by competition for rich mineral and other resources. Rival regional powers Rwanda and Uganda have long sought to expand their influence in the region, sometimes through armed proxies. The instability has been exacerbated by an offensive launched by an Islamist extremist group, the ADF, and a new campaign by a resurgent faction known as M23, which many Congolese believe is backed by Rwanda.
After remaining largely inactive for years, the group resumed fighting in November and made significant progress, capturing the town of Bunagana in North Kivu on the border with Uganda.
On Thursday, a panel of UN experts said there was “solid evidence” that Rwandan troops had been conducting military operations in eastern DRC since late last year and that Kigali had supported the M23 rebel group’s advance there.
The resurgence of factionalism is a major factor in the anger directed at UN peacekeepers, whose commanders have admitted they lack the resources to deal with the rebels.
“They said they didn’t have the strength to fight the M23. What else are they doing here?” said Shadrack Kambale, a motorcycle and taxi driver in Goma.
Sankara Bin, another protester, said: “We don’t want to see MONUSCO walking the streets of Goma, we don’t even want to see their planes fly over it.”
The UN first deployed an observer mission to eastern Congo in 1999. In 2010, it became the peacekeeping mission Monusco – the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – with a mandate to conduct offensive operations.
Its current strength is around 16,300 uniformed personnel, the largest UN mission in the world, and there have been 230 casualties.
A spokesman for the peacekeeping force said last week that the mission would redouble its efforts to work alongside the people and authorities of the DRC to fulfill its UN Security Council mandate.
Protesters in July demanding the withdrawal of UN peacekeeping forces in Goma. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Analysts say it is unlikely that the peacekeepers will be forced to leave suddenly. They will be needed to provide logistical support for the 2023 elections, while many politicians recognize their contribution to stability.
“That would not be in the interest of [President Felix] Tshisekedi and many others to see Monusco go,” Van de Walle said.
The new survey found that security is the biggest concern in the DRC, with 26% of respondents putting it first, ahead of infrastructure and jobs.
International powers are now paying more attention to the country. In an effort to counter the efforts of strategic rivals on the continent such as Russia and China, the US secretary of state will travel next month to South Africa, DRC and Rwanda, the State Department said last week.
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