Chronicle Editor
Politicians in Democratic Republic of Congo have long pressed the UN to cut its huge mission in the country, but now that a drawdown has begun, questions are being raised about the impact on locally-hired employees. Since July 1, the UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DR Congo (Monusco) has closed several bases and cut its civilian payroll by 764 workers.
A new mandate passed on Thursday by the Security Council gave the green light to a one-year extension for Monusco – the UN’s largest peacekeeping force, with a budget of around $1 billion dollars. But it also reduced the number of soldiers in the mission while increasing the size of its police contingent, and stressed “the need to progressively transfer Monusco’s tasks to the Government of the DRC.”
President Felix Tshisekedi, in his state-of-the-nation address last week, paid tribute to the role of UN peacekeepers in the volatile country but said “Monusco has no calling to remain in the DRC indefinitely.”
The new troop reduction is modest in relation to the 15 900 currently deployed, cutting the maximum authorized ceiling from 16 875 to 14 660. The police component will temporarily gain 360 additional personnel. The drawdown has coincided with recent anti-UN protests in eastern DRC, where crowds accused the peacekeepers of failing to protect them against a brutal militia, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). About 2 600 expatriates hold civilian posts, but three-quarters of the staff who lost their jobs this year were local-hired Congolese, leading to numerous complaints about the conditions of dismissal.
“They did it hastily, with no objectivity or openness,” said Rachel Ntumba, who worked for 14 years in a team in Goma, chief town of eastern North Kivu province, responsible for the disarmament, demobilisation and social reinsertion of militia forces. – AFP
Online Reporter