Pres. Tshisekedi to end MONUSCO presence in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri and Demands Perpetrators of Congolese Genocide be Brought to Justice

by PD Lawton, 27 September 2023

In his address to the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly, President Felix Tshisekedi Tshilombo, announced that the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC , MONUSCO, will end in December 2023. This is an historic event for Congo and the Great Lacs. In addition he urged the UN Security Council to act on its mandate and charge Rwandans and Ugandans that the UN has already found complicit in heinous crimes in eastern DRC.

“It is time for my country to fully take its destiny in hand and become the main protaganist of its stability.”

” It is illusory and counterproductive to continue to cling to maintaining MONUSCO to re-establish peace in the DRC and stabilize it.”

The phased withdrawal of MONUSCO is now  accelerated from December 2024 to December 2023. The UN peace keeping mission has been in place since 2010. It has failed in its objective to say the very least.

The President stated that MONUSCO has had the same net result as experienced in other regions of the continent where its mandates are now being revoked.

The following are exerpts from his speech:

 

“African peoples often don’t understand the equivocal attitude, the double standards at work, the ambiguities, and procrastination of our Organization, especially the Security Council in certain political and security crises, which are rampaging through Africa and sometimes have rampaged there for decades…………This is also the case when it comes to Mozambique .Mozambique which has fallen victim to deadly terrorist attacks for roughly one decade in the province of Cabo Delgado. This is also the situation in West Africa in the Sahel Sahara region. There the U.N  troops are withdrawn leaving behind them the memory of what they haven’t achieved,  this despite the fact that they embodied all of the hopes of people that were caught in the clutches of jihadism. The Republic of Sudan is no exception either. Sudan is mired in a deadly Civil War which has pitted since last year the military personnel loyal to the president of the Republic, pitted them against the Rapid Support Forces under the command of General Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo. This war has already caused much death and much material damage as well .

The International Community is virtually indifferent to the Sudanese tragedy.

This is also the place to broach a question of paramount importance to the Democratic Republic of Congo and also of prime importance for building peace in the Great Lakes region. I’m referring to the withdrawal of the United Nations mission for stabilization in the Democratic Republic of Congo, MONUSCO, the withdrawal of MONUSCO, from our territory following a presence of more than two decades.

“It is time for my country to fully take its destiny in hand and become the main protaganist of its stability.”

We are grateful to the International Community and to the United Nations for their support and their partnership but we are also aware that the phased withdrawal of MONUSCO  is a necessary stage to consolidate progress that we have already achieved. Nonetheless, it should be deplored that the peacekeeping missions that have been deployed in various forms for 25 years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have not been able to stop rebellions and armed conflicts that have torn apart the DRC and the Great Lakes region nor have they succeeded in protecting these civilian populations. Therefore the phased responsible and sustainable withdrawal of MONUSCO which was announced in 2018 and whose transition plan was adopted in 2021, is that planned withdrawal an anachronism given the changes in the political security and current social contingencies?

It is thus illusory and counterproductive to continue to cling to maintaining MONUSCO to re-establish peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to stabilize it. Furthermore the accelerated withdrawal of MONUSCO is absolutely necessary to ease the tensions between MONUSCO and our citizens. It is the time to explore new avenues for strategic collaboration with the United Nations mechanisms  that are more  in lockstep with our current realities .This is why in my capacity as guarantor  under the Constitution, guarantor of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence in my country and to ensure the good conduct of our nation and the well-being of my compatriots, in this capacity  I’ve instructed the government of the Republic to begin discussions with the UN authorities to ensure an accelerated withdrawal of MONUSCO from the Democratic Republic of the Congo ,moving up the deadline from December 2024 to December 2023. And this is the meaning behind the step of our government which addressed a letter to the president of the Security Council of the United Nations dated one September 2023 asking for the accelerated withdrawal of MONUSCO .

In line with his accelerated withdrawal of MONUSCO, the DRC reiterates its demand to the security Council of the United Nations to sanction all physical and legal persons acknowledged to be perpetrators, co-perpetrators and accomplices both material and intellectual perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity and serious violations of human rights, international law and the Charter of the United Nations on Congolese territory.

It is unjust and unacceptable for persons deemed to be responsible for the serious crimes mentioned in various reports of U.N experts themselves on the security situation in the DRC, it is unacceptable for these persons to remain to continue to enjoy impunity with the complete silence of our organization and its member states which have placed  combating impunity as among their main priorities when it comes to internal and external governance.

In this regard the government of the DRC warmly welcomes the sanctions recently imposed by the United States on Rwanda for its support for the M23 terrorist groups and against one of its senior officials involved in the criminal undertakings in Congo. To recall this terrorist group which is a proxy for Rwanda has not honored any of the commitments entered into by the heads of states of the region in the context of the Luanda and Nairobi process. Indeed not only have they not left the positions they conquered, they are continuing to massacre the civilian population and they are refusing pre-cantonment and cantonment. They are demanding a dialogue that will never be granted to.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo hopes that the other states will follow this good example set by the United States of America in order to support the common struggle against impunity to ensure the triumph of the ideals of justice and solidarity among peoples. The government of the DRC is awaiting the next meeting of the Security Council which will focus in particular on our request and we want it to be constructive when it comes to the management of the delicate and laborious process of crafting peace in our country.