UN: Military campaign in Congo to continue despite bad results

Oct 16, 2009, 16:10 GMT

New York - The United Nations-backed military operation against rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo must continue despite reports that the campaign has sparked more killings and rapes, a UN official said Friday.

Alan Doss, the UN special envoy in Congo, told the UN Security Council in New York that stopping the operations would amount to a sign of weakness from the UN and the Kinshasa government.

'Suspension at this time would therefore undermine the FARDC's (Congolese army's) resolve and paradoxically further weaken discipline by removing the immediate pressure for reform created by Kimia II,' Doss said. Kimia II is the military campaign against Ugandan and Rwandan rebels operating for years in eastern Congo.

Doss said ending the UN-backed operation because of reports of severe human rights violations could be used by the rebels to declare victory and make it more difficult for Kinshasa to impose state authority and prevent the re-emergence of other armed groups' attacks on civilians.

Doss appeared before the 15-nation council a day after a human rights rapporteur, Philip Alston, denounced the military campaign for sparking a sharp rise in killings and sexual violence since it began February.

'Kimia II has spawned a human rights disaster while its military successes remain unclear,' Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, told journalists in Kinshasa as he concluded an 11-day trip to Congo.

'MONUC (the UN peacekeeping force in Congo) and the national army must change their strategy to assure these grave errors are not repeated,' Alston said.

The operations are aimed at snuffing out the Ugandan group Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Rwandan Hutu group FDLR. The latter was formed by a militia that fled Rwanda after taking part in the 1994 genocide and has played a role in Congo's ongoing unrest for over a decade. However, civilians have borne the brunt of revenge attacks by the two rebel groups.

Doss proposed to bring criminal charges against FDLR, which has supporters abroad, under the UN Convention on Transnational Organized Crime to remove incentives to those involved in illegal trading networks with the FDLR.

He said MONUC supports Congolese President Joseph Kabila's zero tolerance of sexual violence involving government troops. He said MONUC will withdraw support for Congolese battalions that show a blatant disregard for international humanitarian law.

He also cited sentences imposed by Kinshasa's military court on soldiers found guilty of serious crimes and the removal of high-level military commanders for corruption and misconduct.

Doss pointed to the difficulty for the UN mission in Congo to improve and extend protection for civilians in the Kivus region, which is the size of California with a population of 8 million people.