GPPi comments on planned UN troop increase in DR Congo

GPPi Research Associate Kai Koddenbrock commented on the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo on the BBC World Service radio program on 21 November, 2008. Reacting to former head of the UN Peacekeeping Department Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Koddenbrock acknowledged the potential effect on stability there could be with an increase of 3000 troops on top of the currently 17,500 strong MONUC (The Mission of the UN in the Democratic Republic of Congo) in the east of the DRC. An increase of troops would facilitate the creation of humanitarian corridors in contested areas and aid could be delivered to the thousands of internally displaced people who desperately need it. The Security Council Resolution on the troop increase was passed on Thursday but troop contributors are not yet in sight.

Koddenbrock stressed, however, that the current focus on troop increases is the wrong priority. The international community repeats the strategic mistakes made throughout the last years by not pushing Congolese President Kabila to find political solutions to the over extended conflict in North-Kivu. Koddenbrock argued that given the amount of aid that the UN and the European Union channel to the DRC government, they would have substantial policy leverage to convince President Kabila that the military approach he has taken to confront Laurent Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) rebels is futile.