The United Nations Security Council’s tenuous authority in Africa has been further threatened by an explosive new report from a UN Group of Experts* showing wide-ranging violations of the arms embargo on Congo-Kinshasa by both Western and African states.
The expert panel reports that killer militias in Eastern Congo have been receiving military orders from leaders based in Germany and France and getting finance from two Spanish-based charities linked to the Roman Catholic church in clear breach of the UN sanctions regime. The report also accuses the governments of Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and Congo-Kinshasa of allowing serious breaches of sanctions and the illegal export of mineral wealth.
After heated discussions at UN headquarters in New York on 20 November, several Council members want to dilute the report’s recommendations – if not bury them, Africa Confidential has learned. The Council is due to meet again on 25 November to discuss the report, but China has been pushing for a substantive delay on any actions while the report is translated into another five languages.
This latest crisis for the UN’s operations in Congo-Kinshasa follows growing concerns about relations between the Mission de l’Organisation des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo (Monuc) and the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC) after the latter was found to have been involved in mass killings and rapes of civilians in Eastern Congo. The new report reinforces concerns voiced by some UN officials about the management of Monuc, the UN’s most expensive peacekeeping operations costing over US$1 billion a year, under Alan Doss, the British diplomat who is currently UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative in Congo. Continuing criticism of the ineffectiveness of Monuc and its high cost are undermining diplomatic support for the mission.
Source: Allafrica
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