MONUC is part of the problem
May 05, 2008
SERIOUS allegations persist against Indian and Pakistani officers serving under MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo. According to a recent BBC report, some have been involved in illegal gold and weapons trafficking in eastern Congo.
SERIOUS allegations persist against Indian and Pakistani officers serving under MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo. According to a recent BBC report, some have been involved in illegal gold and weapons trafficking in eastern Congo.
Pakistani soldiers are alleged to have provided weapons and ammunition to the Front for National Integration (FNI), an armed group responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Ituri region.
Indian peacekeepers are said to have engaged in illegal transactions with armed groups in North Kivu, including the Forces Democratiques de Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR), some of whose leaders participated in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Both FNI and FDLR are among the negative forces MONUC was supposed to disarm.
Instead of taking action against the culprits, the UN internal investigation arm, OIOS, is doing everything possible to minimise and ignore the abuses.
The BBC reported that OIOS failed to fully investigate the allegations. Investigations take ages to conclude, reports are altered, key witnesses are not interrogated and crucial evidence is left out.
“More than two years after the information on abuses was first passed to the UN, not a single peacekeeper has been held to account and no thorough investigation of the serious charges of weapons trading with murderous armed groups has been conductedâ€, wrote Human Rights Watch in a May 1 letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.
For Uganda, this is distressing news. MONUC had been looked at as the force in the region that could disarm the LRA, or at least carry out the international warrants of arrest against its leaders.
Instead, Joseph Kony is allowed to freely roam Garamba National Park, attack surrounding villages, kill civilians and abduct children whom he prepares to become his new fighters.
Unless the UN seriously investigates the allegations against its peacekeepers and drastically changes its mission in Congo, Uganda and the world might look at MONUC as part of the problem rather than the solution in the Great Lakes region.
Pakistani soldiers are alleged to have provided weapons and ammunition to the Front for National Integration (FNI), an armed group responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Ituri region.
Indian peacekeepers are said to have engaged in illegal transactions with armed groups in North Kivu, including the Forces Democratiques de Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR), some of whose leaders participated in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Both FNI and FDLR are among the negative forces MONUC was supposed to disarm.
Instead of taking action against the culprits, the UN internal investigation arm, OIOS, is doing everything possible to minimise and ignore the abuses.
The BBC reported that OIOS failed to fully investigate the allegations. Investigations take ages to conclude, reports are altered, key witnesses are not interrogated and crucial evidence is left out.
“More than two years after the information on abuses was first passed to the UN, not a single peacekeeper has been held to account and no thorough investigation of the serious charges of weapons trading with murderous armed groups has been conductedâ€, wrote Human Rights Watch in a May 1 letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.
For Uganda, this is distressing news. MONUC had been looked at as the force in the region that could disarm the LRA, or at least carry out the international warrants of arrest against its leaders.
Instead, Joseph Kony is allowed to freely roam Garamba National Park, attack surrounding villages, kill civilians and abduct children whom he prepares to become his new fighters.
Unless the UN seriously investigates the allegations against its peacekeepers and drastically changes its mission in Congo, Uganda and the world might look at MONUC as part of the problem rather than the solution in the Great Lakes region.