FNs fredsbevarende og -skabende mission i DR Congo vil flytte soldater til den sydlige Katanga-provins i et forsøg på at stabilisere den. Men det er regeringens opgave at gøre noget ved de problemer, der får volden til at blusse op, siger FN-chef.
LUBUMBASHI, 13 February 2014 (IRIN): The UN mission in DR Congo plans to send more troops to the southern province of Katanga, its top official has told IRIN, to respond to the humanitarian crisis unfolding there, even as peacekeepers continue to combat elusive groups along the borders with Uganda and Rwanda.
Congolese officials and civil society groups have been calling for the UN to intervene more strongly in Katanga, where armed groups calling for the province to secede have torched scores of villages and clashed with government forces. As many as 400,000 people have fled their homes.
Stabilizing mineral-rich Katanga is critical to DR Congo because of the province’s vast natural resources: revenue from the mining and export of Katanga’s minerals, such as copper and coltan, account for the bulk of the national budget. Its importance makes any outside interference in Katanga politically sensitive.
UN chief Martin Kobler said commanders of the mission’s peacekeeping force (MONUSCO) were discussing how to add to the 450 soldiers from Benin currently stationed in Katanga. He said the extra troops would allow MONUSCO to escort convoys delivering humanitarian aid.
“I am of the firm opinion that we have to increase our military presence there to give hope to the people and, wherever possible, to prevent these things like burning villages,” Kobler told IRIN in an interview on 10 February. “This will happen because it is really imperative that we are there.”
But he cautioned that they could not prevent all violence, and he said it was up to the Congolese government to end the rebellion, including by addressing social grievances about underdevelopment and the struggle between Katanga and central authorities over how to share the province’s wealth.
“We are not there to solve problems. The problems have to be solved by the government, and we can support the government to do that.”
The crisis in Katanga comes at an unwelcome moment for the UN mission.
The UN is pressing the government and international donors to urgently develop a plan to demobilize fighters from the defeated M23 movement, just as MONUSCO and the Congolese army (FARDC) tackle two more rebel movements in the east.
Many motives for violence
Since October, small militia bands armed with AK-47s and bows and arrows have burned scores of villages in an impoverished area of central Katanga dubbed the “Triangle of Death.”
It is the latest and most deadly phase in a two-year uprising.
According to a recently released report by a group of experts appointed by the UN Security Council, the violence in the triangle is the work of Kata Katanga (Swahili for “cut off Katanga”), a loosely aligned network of secessionist groups.
The report identified Kata Katanga’s military commander as Kyungu Mutanga, a rebel leader better known as Gedeon, who escaped from prison in 2011. He had been sentenced to death for terrorizing civilians in the same region in 2009.
“People focus too much on the east of DR Congo, and they forget about Katanga. We need this [MONUSCO] intervention to come… They can finish off these small groups in two months.”
Around the towns of Manono, Mitwaba and Pweto – the three points of the notorious triangle – the violence has followed a grimly familiar course.
Residents and rights groups tell of killings and torture by the rebels and of extortion and abuse at the hands of FARDC soldiers. As in the previous cycle of violence, rebels are torching villages and allegedly forcing children to join their ranks.
Officials and relief workers in the region said that, in some areas, the violence had become entwined with local political feuds and efforts to control lucrative mining operations; many traditional leaders have been killed or have fled.
The tensions have also led to deadly clashes between Bantu-speaking people and Pygmy communities.
Calls for action
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