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Abstract
In late 2012, a rebel force captured Goma, a provincial capital in the eastern Congo. This event spurred a renewed debate on the use of force by UN peacekeepers. These had begun in the Congo in 1960 with a UN operation led by Ralph Bunche – the UN official who largely defined UN peacekeeping. This article summarizes UN intervention in the Congo and the use of force since then. It traces the main contours of UN engagement and then draws some conclusions about when and where the use of force can be successfully employed – or best avoided – by UN peacekeepers.
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Acknowledgements
The author wishes to acknowledge with appreciation Mats Berdal, Professor of War Studies at Kings College, London and Dr Thierry Tardy, Senior Senior Analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) for the advice and guidance that they provided for the preparation of this article. The author also benefited from the assistance of Andonis Marden, currently at Oxford University, who gathered much of the background information for the article and Olero Okorodudu at the Kofi Annan Foundation who also provided research support.
Notes
1 UNMOGIP – the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (still ongoing); UNEF 1 – the UN Emergency Force (1956–1967), initially established in the wake of the 1956 Suez crisis; and UNOGIL – the UN Observer Group in Lebanon (1958).
2 Opération des Nations Unies au Congo.
3 Mission des Nations Unies au Congo.
4 The name of the country has changed several times since independence: the Republic of the Congo, the name chosen at the time of independence, was subsequently changed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1964, to Zaire in 1971 and reverted to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1997. For the purposes of this article the name used is ‘Congo’.
5 S/4382, United Nations, New York, 13 July 1960.
6 For a detailed and eyewitness account of Hammarskjöld’s motivations and actions during this period see the chapters on the Congo and Katanga in Brian Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War (New York: W.W. Norton 1987).
7 Chapter VII permits the UN Security Council to authorize peace enforcement actions.
8 S/4387, United Nations, New York, 14 July 1960.
9 Bunche’s stay was a short one. He left in Sept. 1960, mainly, according to Brian Urquhart, ‘due to the deterioration of his relationship with Lumumba, which made his task virtually impossible’ (Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War). He was replaced by Rajeshwar Dayal who also ran into heavy weather and left before his term of office expired.
10 Para. 4. UNSCR 146, S/4426, 9 August.
11 First Report of the Secretary General on the Implementation of Security Council Resolution S/4387, S/4389, 18 July 1960.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Connor Cruise O’Brien, To Katanga and Back (New York: Simon & Schuster 1962), Chapter 4.
15 Second Report by the Secretary General, S/4417, 6 Aug. 1960.
16 Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War, Chapter 12.
17 Para. 1, UNSCR 161, 21 Feb. 1961, (italics added).
18 Ibid., Part B.
19 Ibid.
20 O’Brien, To Katanga and Back, Chapter 14.
21 Ibid.
22 Para, 4, UNSCR 169, 24 Nov. 1961.
23 Ibid.
24 Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War, Chapter 14.
25 Walter Lippmann cited in Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War, Chapter 12.
26 The United Nations Emergency Force.
27 O’Brien, To Katanga and Back, Chapter 12.
28 S/4529, United Nations, New York, 21 Sept. 1960.
29 Fourth Report of the Secretary General: S/4482, p. 5.
30 Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War, 155.
31 Para. 2, Part B. UNSCR 161, S/4741, 21 February 1961.
32 Congo, Namibia, Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Angola.
33 For a comprehensive description and analysis of events during this period see Gerard Prunier, Africa’s World War (Oxford: OUP 2009).
34 The Global and All Inclusive Agreement on the Transition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Pretoria, South Africa, 17 Dec. 2002.
35 S/Res/1291 (2000).
36 Rassemblement des Congolais pour la Démocratie (Goma). The RCD was primarily a politico-military alliance formed by Uganda and Rwanda to oppose the Kinshasa government led by their erstwhile ally, Laurent Kabila.
37 Laurent Nkunda led the essentially Tutsi rebel movement based in the Kivu provinces of the eastern DRC. A former ex-ANC (Armée nationale congolaise) commander, he was responsible for numerous violent attacks on civilians including those perpetrated during his brief capture of the South Kivu provincial capital, Bukavu in 2004.
38 Human Rights Watch, ‘Covered in Blood: Ethnically Targeted Violence in Northern DRC’, press release, 2003.
39 International Crisis Group, The Kivus: The Forgotten Crucible of the Congo Conflict (ICG Jan. 2003).
40 S/Res/1794 (2007).
41 UPC: Union des Patriotes Congolais (Union of Congolese Patriots); FDLR: Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda); CNDP: Congrès national pour la défense du peuple (National Congress for the Defense of the People); LRA: The Lord’s Resistance Army; ADF-NALU: (Allied Democratic Forces-National Army for the Liberation of Uganda). Uganda armed groups, operating from the Congo.
42 S/Res/1592 (2005).
43 Ibid.
44 Special Report of the Secretary General: S/2004/650.
45 S/Res/1565 (2004).
46 Forces armées de la république démocratique du Congo: the Congolese National Army.
47 Report of the Security Council Mission to Central Africa: S/2005/716.
48 See, for example, International Crisis Group A Congo Action Plan (ICG, Oct. 2005).
49 See, for example, Human Rights Watch, ‘Civilians Attacked in North Kivu and Elections in Sight: Don’t Rock the Boat’, 2005.
50 European Force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This was a four month European Union deployment in 2006 authorized by the Security Council to support MONUC during the period of the general elections.
51 Report of the Secretary General: S/2007/156.
52 Ibid., para. 69.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.
55 Joint Communiqué of the Government of the Republic of the Congo and of the Republic of Rwanda, Nairobi, 9 Nov. 2007.
56 Ibid., point 10(a).
57 Ibid., point 9(b).
58 Ibid., point 9(a).
59 Ibid., point 13.
60 Report of the Secretary General, S/2008/218.
61 Swahili words meaning, ‘Calm’ or ‘Quiet’ and ‘Peace Today’.
62 Special Report of the Secretary General: S/2004/650.
63 S/Res/1592 (2005).
64 Report of the Secretary General: S/2005/506.
65 Swahili phrase meaning ‘Our Unity’.
66 Report of the Secretary General: S/2008/433.
67 See, for example, Human Rights Watch, ‘You will be Punished: Attacks on Civilians in Eastern Congo’, Dec. 2009.
68 Swahili phrase meaning ‘Peace Today’.
69 See ‘MONUSCO to Track Down FDLR after M23’, Relief Web, 10 Dec. 2013.
70 The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
71 See, for example, David Smith, ‘UN ignored Congo rape warnings’, The Guardian, 3 Sept. 2010.
72 Security Council Resolution 2098 (28 March 2013), para. 9.
73 Ibid.
74 See for example: Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (‘Brahimi Report’) A/55/305, 21 Aug. 2000; and the so-called ‘capstone doctrine’: United Nations Peacekeeping Operations; Principles and Guidelines (New York: UN 2008); A New Partnership Agenda: Charting a New Horizon for UN Peacekeeping (New York UN July 2009); and Report of the Secretary-General on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict S/2009/277, 29 May 2009.
75 Ralph Bunche, ‘The UN Operation in the Congo’, Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Lecture Series, 1964. Reproduced in Ralph J. Bunche, Selected Speeches and Writing, (ed.) Charles P. Henry (University of Michigan Press 1995).
76 Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War.
77 See, for example, Médecins Sans Frontières, ‘Lack of protection for civilians under attack in Northeast Congo’, MSF press release of 29 Feb. 2009.
78 Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the region, Addis Abba, 24 Feb. 2013; also signed by the UN Secretary General, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, the Chairperson of the International Conference on the Great Lakes and the Chairperson of the Southern African Development Community.
79 Bunche, ‘The UN Operation in the Congo’, 199.
80 Ibid.
81 Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War, Chapter 14.
82 Bunche, ‘The UN Operation in the Congo’, 199.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Alan Doss
Alan Doss is Senior Political Adviser at the Kofi Annan Foundation and Associate Fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. For more than four decades he worked for the United Nations on development, humanitarian and peacekeeping operations. He was the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General and head of the UN peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia. He is from the United Kingdom and undertook his university studies at the London School of Economics.