MONUSCO : “Perhaps it`s Because the UN Doesn`t Want the Conflict to End”

image: September 2024 : one of the thousands of children surviving in the IDP camps of North Kivu, DRC. The camps are a result of Paul Kagame`s land clearances

by PD Lawton          23 November 2024

This article is  Part 5 of Sun City and the final chapter of this series which attempts to cover some of the modern day history of the Great Lakes. I should perhaps have written more on the Ugandan based ADF ( Allied Democratic Forces)that operate in North Kivu and Ituri, but the baseline is that all Islamic extremism, and Judeo-Christian extremism, Zionism, is a creation by the City of London . As so ably stated [1] by Bashar al Assad, neo-liberalism and religious extremism are two sides of the same coin.

The series includes:

Part 1 : Sun City, how the Anglo American Network took power in Rwanda and DRC, using Tutsi Supremacists and Minority Rights

Part 2 : The Smoke and Mirrors Game of War in Eastern Congo

Part 3 :UNHCR`s Concentration Camps in Goma :the refugee pawns for Kagame`s war on Congo

Part 4: The Trial of Charles Onana, Will Rwandan History be Criminalized as Hate Speech?

 

I have chosen the words of Major General Eeben Barlow [2] , taken from an interview done by al Jazeera in 2020, to conclude this African story. What is related in the interview indicates that the 800 000 – 1.5 million Rwandans who died between April and July, 1994 and the subsequent 12 million plus Rwandan and Congolese murders that were conducted, and continue to be conducted to this very day,  in the coldest of blood, could have been stopped.

Only God can judge the Roger Winters [3], Tony Blairs, Billie Clintons, Yoweri Musevenis and Paul Kagames of this world for the horror they unleashed.

Eeben Barlow: “Look at a country such as the DRC which is rich in minerals, everybody has an interest in it. A country such as Nigeria, that has oil, everyone is interested in it. So you know the resources that countries have, where it ought to be a blessing is in many cases a curse for those countries.

Interviewer:  I would like to listen to your take on the DRC and what`s happening in the DRC and the MONUSCO?

EB:  I think first of all if you really look at the DRC and the amount of money that’s been put into it to end this conflict, I don`t think it`s been very well spent. I need to point out that the UN has always been very critical of the companies that I have chaired. Perhaps it`s because the UN doesn`t like the conflicts to end. I would like to say that the UN has had a perfect opportunity to end the conflicts but this hasn`t happened. And I really need to understand in my mind why, why they have not been able to end these conflicts.

Eastern DRC is a mineral rich area but it has also become a haven for religious and criminal inspired terrorist groups, liberation movements, whatever you want to call them. And yet the UN has done nothing. However the UN has actually sat and watched people being slaughtered and not gone to their rescue.

And I find if there’s any force claiming to be there to ensure peace, I think these actions are despicable. I cannot understand how people can claim they want to secure peace, and bring about peace when they watch people being slaughtered.

And people cannot tell me the area is too big to control, that is absolute nonsense. And if people say that they are only trying to cover their own inability to do their jobs.

Interviewer: Maybe it is because of the different nature of the two jobs, your job, your company`s job and the job of the United Nations peacekeeping troops because they are out there to keep the peace which is non-existent. Your mission sometimes is to enforce peace.

EB: I hear your argument. However, how do you keep peace between two warring countries? Why hasn`t the UN intervened between General Haftar`s people and the government in Tripoli? Why haven’t they intervened in Syria if they`re so concerned with keeping peace? And do not get me wrong, I am not discounting the UN as an organization but I am saying that there are elements in it that are certainly not doing their jobs. How can you claim to be peacekeepers if you can`t keep peace?

So to me there is just a little bit of a twist on what is happening in there. That conflict could have been ended a long time ago but I think that there is both domestic and international will lacking because there are many companies that are currently in the DRC that are exploiting those mineral resources, illegally, for their own benefit. And under the watchful gaze of the UN. We have seen this happen time and time again. However the UN will target us and single us out yet they hire contractors, they make use of PMCs to clear mines, to help move logistics etc. but no one talks about that. And in that case it tells me there is actually a large amount of hypocrisy going on here.

Interviewer: Let`s expand on this. You always say and let me quote you on this, “PMCs are more efficient and much less costly in bringing conflicts to an end in comparison to the United Nations peace keeping troops”. In light of the UN convention that bans mercenary activities; don’t you think that by privatizing conflicts it can work as a one way train?

EB:  We have never advertised or promoted the idea the idea of privatizing conflict. What I have said is that the input of PMCs into a conflict as long as you are part of that national military can actually end the conflict quicker and cheaper than what the United Nations or others can do.

You know, I would like to take you back to the genocide in Rwanda.

The UN did contact us, no matter how much they deny it.

They called us from Geneva and asked if we could intervene.

We submitted a strategy.

That strategy was developed.

Interviewer: When did that happen?

EB: This was in 1994, 1995. I cannot remember the exact dates of the genocide. It was submitted to the UN. The UN came back and said that we have to procure all of the equipment that we would need, which included the vehicles, the air transport, the medical support, the weapons, the ammunitions, the uniforms etc, etc. The figure came to US$ 100 million if I recall correctly, for a six month period because that`s what we were asked for.

It was declined because it was too expensive

The UN instead tried to do it themselves. That cost US$ 150 million for 6 months and the genocide actually occurred. So you know to me there is a very clear distinction between cost efficiency and just spending money. We have never wasted a government`s money and they have never told us we have wasting their money and we never go into a conflict with our own equipment. We make use of a government`s equipment. So you know the stories that are propagated in the media that we come with helicopters and tanks and heavy equipment are all lies. I cannot swear on camera but it`s rubbish. We make use of what that government has. Certain critical equipment we will ask them to procure but we don’t procure it because it’s that governments equipment but yes we have been much cheaper than what the UN has been and probably ever will be until someone fixes this department of peacekeeping .

 

footnotes:

[1]YouTube channel: vanessa beeley : President Assad interview with CCTV (Eng. subtitles)

[2] Eeben Barlow is the founder of Executive Outcomes and former Chairman of STTEP International. In his recently published book The War for Africa he details a number of highly significant occurrences which he personally experienced that indicate a deliberate obstruction to the resolution of insecurity on the continent of Africa since the start of the Angolan civil war in the mid-1970s. Those experiences over the span of his career encapsulate the story of Africa`s fight for sovereignty. See article by PD Lawton: Prince William in Cape Town: opening a new front for AFRICOM in Central Africa?

[3] on africanagenda : EXPOSING U.S. AGENTS OF LOW-INTENSITY WARFARE IN AFRICA
The “Policy Wonks” Behind Covert Warfare & Humanitarian Fascism by Keith Harmon Snow.