MONUC has long been a lightning rod for criticism, and sometimes with good reason. However, for all those people and politicians who demand to know why the “world’s biggest peacekeeping mission” can’t stop all of the violence I would recommend a visit to one or two remote MONUC deployments that dot the forbidding landscape of eastern DRC.
Last week Refugees Internationanl Advocate Jennifer Smith and I visited the MONUC military deployment in Ntoto, a small village in North Kivu Province. There are no roads within a 30 kilometer radius of the village. The movement of people and goods is done over narrow footpaths that are muddy and treacherous for over half the year and all communication between villages in the region requires hours or even days of walking as there is no phone access of any kind.
Ntoto is also a stronghold of the FDLR – an armed group led by the former Rwandan genocidaires who fled to DRC in 1994 in the aftermath of the genocide. This force is currently the target of a military operation by the Congolese military forces, and civilians in Ntoto and the surrounding areas are routinely caught up in the violence. What makes it worse is the fact that both the rebels and the government military forces have consistently looted and attacked civilians in many locations.
MONUC has just 53 soldiers in Ntoto, and is supported entirely by helicopter transport and shipments from Goma. Even the most basic tasks – moving troops, resupplying the base, and sharing information among the leaders in nearby villages – is a challenge. On top of normal military and protection duties, MONUC soldiers in Ntoto also have to spend time meeting very basic survival needs, like collecting their own water from a nearby stream, which also serves as their bath – as there are no shower facilities on the base.
In spite of these challenges and constraints, the soldiers based at Ntoto have provided protection against two attacks in the past two months. They have identified vulnerable individuals and infrastructure (e.g. schools and dispensaries) and have worked out a plan with local leaders to get civilians to safety the next time violence erupts. Daily foot patrols in and around the village, as well as longer-range patrols also deter attacks, and maintain the confidence of the local people.
It took just a few hours in Ntoto to see that the peacekeepers have built a strong relationship with the local community. In our two days on the base we met numerous community leaders from Ntoto and surrounding villages who had come unsolicited – always on foot, and often from several hours away -- to speak with the commander and share news. In a walk through Ntoto, Jennifer and I were told by a local school teacher that over 450 families who had been displaced by violence earlier in the year had returned home as a result of the protection that the MONUC soldiers had provided during recent spates of violence. Speaking in French, he said, “If not for MONUC no one would be here, and these children would not be in school.”
I have visited eastern Congo a number of times over the years. [1] I have seen the frustration and even outright hostility that people have sometimes directed at the peacekeeping mission, and I am the first to say that MONUC performance is far from perfect. However, there is one basic fact that gets lost in all the arguments: when people fear attack it is MONUC that they seek out for protection. MONUC soldiers have often found their bases surrounded by hundreds or even thousands of civilians seeking refuge, evidence that at the end of the day, people trust the peacekeepers.
UN Peacekeeping is a difficult and, yes, deeply flawed enterprise, and over the course of MONUC’s long deployment we have seen both great commitment and creativity, and, occasionally, catastrophic mistakes. But those people that would condemn the mission for what it hasn’t done would do well to remember that for the people of Ntoto, and dozens of communities throughout the eastern Congo, the presence of MONUC peacekeepers is the difference between life in the village and life on the run, and that is no small distinction.