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Buildings are set on fire and u. N. Peacekeepers told to go home protesters in democratic republic of congress say theyre not steering me a child and not protecting civilians risk rebel attacks so whats going wrong all u. N. Troops really failing the congolese this is inside story. However and welcome to the program im a stasi attacking the democratic republic of congo has suffered from war rebel attacks and deadly diseases for decades but the situation has deteriorated even further more recently more and more people are being killed in raids by armed groups and the congolese people have reached a breaking point a recent attack that killed 8 people in the eastern city of beni was blamed on rebel fighters from the allied Democratic Forces an a. D. F. Prompting an angry response from local people and much of their fury was directed at the uns peacekeeping mission protesters who say the troops and not keeping them safe stormed to the u. N. Compound on monday and torched the Mayors Office and several other buildings chaos and gunfire followed and there were more deaths the u. N. Denies that its peacekeepers used live rounds and called for calm but on tuesday protesters tried to force their way into a u. N. Base. We have. Our troops and our Police Officers who are trained right control who provided protection to our compound what it was being attacked for hours at a time and it was important to mention is that we are economy then but we are actually increasing all communication with them great deal of work is being done in terms of fighting there arent a group. Of course any massacre is one massacre too many and decision has years of massacres we are working very hard over selves as the force Intervention Brigade and as we go to address and to. Patrol the area and to combat these rebel group at the same time we are working very closely with our partners we have to remember that we are in congo in a support role we are here to support the congolese government and the Congolese Forces in standardizing the region in fighting and in ensuring peace and security in the region our good men it is protection of civilians thats of trying to do for the last 20 years the United Nations has been trying to stabilize the Eastern Region of democratic republic of congo with the largest peacekeeping operation in the wild its mission known as moscow has more than 18000 peacekeepers stationed across the country including the cable and dettori regions thats why multiple groups operate raiding villages and running and eco mines monist has an annual budget of a little over 1000000000. 00 its mission is to protect civilians humanitarian path now and human rights defenders and to support the governments peace efforts but despite being the largest and most expensive u. N. Peacekeeping mission in the wild the violence continues. Well lets bring in our panel in london we have indigo ellis whos the head of africa risk analysis at various thats a global Risk Consultancy and on skype from nairobi we have lydias ago who is the regional director for the horn east and Central Africa at Oxfam International thanks for joining us ladies i do want to begin with these allegations that minister has not been doing enough and i do see that they are saying that they havent actually been invited by the Congolese Army to put participate in this offensive against the a. D. F. When it when it all kicked off at the end of last month so let me begin with you. Indigo tell me what are their actual rules of engagement here. The rules of engagement a pretty tenuous to be honest with you what were seeing is that the levels of the ability of minister to counter against the a. D. F. Are pretty limited i the Congolese Army has since the beginning of november launched what they are calling a final offensive against the a. T. F. And that is meant to be through to the president hes on was what is going to finally put an end to the a. D. F. In the east and in east india say particularly around the city of beni what weve seen is that its not happening fast enough minister. Have their hands tied obviously being a peacekeeping force that mandate restricts what they are able to do when it comes to kind of strategy and creation of strategy however since yesterday president his caddy is obviously come out and renewed kind of joint operations with mina sco which will do kind of what one does when it comes to trying to counter the a. D. F. Defensive around the city of beni weve been looking at these quite extraordinary pictures of the anger that the local community has been feeling as theyve been storming this this u. N. Base in beni and lydia let me ask you because i feel like you get a real sense of the desperation thats being felt by the local community how do you move forward when relations have now deteriorated to this point. I think its its a very challenging situation the local communities obviously obviously full feel pushed to the war they are often unintended casualties off the excursions between the army and these armed groups rebel groups and they are caught in the middle of a fight that often they feel that they have no control over and also that the government is not doing enough to kind of kind of restore order and watch out for the rights of the citizens in these types of encounters. I think the public outpouring against is because monaco has been seen as if it has failed in its role to protect. The communities and by sort of taking what they see as a passive spectator role as these the these operations were launched by frederick against a. D. F. And my my i think the result has been that the local communities have lost faith in one last go and this often happens when these types of situations arise so what were seeing is that public anger that people feel caught in the middle of fights that are not their fight and theyre the ones who are suffering and nobody seems to be sort of intervening to to restore order but also to take care and protect the citizens so all it is saying that when a school appears to have been taking on more of the spectator role but i do want to ask because various people from a scholar saying that you know you dont see the massacres that they stop because they dont actually take place so indigo let me ask you then in your mind how effective has one ascribe been at preventing massacres and protecting the civilian population. Opposition is is generally the minister has done all that they can. Numbers a depleting their funding has been increasingly under pressure from United Nations Member States that mandate for example its june for renewal next next month from the 20th of december the last this renewal has only lasted 9 months it should be a year long mandate renewed each time but when it came up again in front of the National Assembly in. The General Assembly rather on the 29th of march this year theyve theyve failed to reach an agreement the Security Council as well to extend it longer than just this 9 month period this is incredibly worrying for local communities around the beni area who seem increasingly under pressure from a. D. F. Attacks. Without a doubt will be kind of downgraded in their force prosody when it comes to renewal next month we do not anticipate there will be a full kind of withdrawal which some analysts are presuming will happen but what were looking at is probably around 1500. 00 troops being withdrawn next month those of those are troops the minister cannot afford to lose when i see also the minister was downsized earlier this year also part need to do is to to un funding cuts so let me ask you then lydia do you think that when a square has the resources they need to try to carry out their mandate as it stands. I think certainly melissa. Is under pressure here and its possibly a scapegoat for a situation theyre not in control of so i totally agree that i think what were needing what what is needed here is the International Community to actually understand the situation in the d. R. See and the fact that these are not situations which can be resolved in the short term they do need long term in gauge meant and yes the is a new government in place with a new president and cabinet but it takes time to embed and i believe that what is missing is the understanding by the International Community and the u. N. To really understand that when this good does play a role it needs support and it needs even more resources. Because you know the this is a need to protect also the humanitarian actors on the ground who are trying to support these communities communities which by the way are already ravaged by not just these armed groups that are coming in and attacking but also not forget this is that these are areas where also there was ebola and they have these do it paula so its not the best situation for us to be downgrading and putting in this resources we should actually be ensuring we are responding to the the levels that are required and i think must go requires the support but it needs to come from the International Community they are in i am going to come to a buyer in a moment but i i 1st want to ask you about trust because you work for oxfam and you have people on the ground all over eastern day aussie and im curious now because there have been also allegations about Sexual Violence that been perpetrated by un peacekeepers and this has been going on hundreds of allegations about this over over the course of years there have been issues about whether our local Communities Trust Community Workers as theyre going out and carrying out their day to day activity. Yes including in the fight against ebola so when we look at the level of the deterioration of trust here where do we go from here in terms of trying to strengthen them that because youre talking about a long term kind of engagement is it is it really about military troops on the ground or is it about Community Engagement in trying to rebuild that relationship. We would actually say its more about Community Engagement because we we see then the need to work on the trust trust issue that youve just mentioned and militarizing for instance they build a response makes it very difficult to regain that trust so the lists we over time we can the more we can reduce militarized approach to what is essentially in the case of ebola a Health Problem problem the better for us. However that that requires also resources of particular kind to ensure that the Community Engagement can can take root can be sustained it will take time the community does not trust in all its aspects the government thats in place they have had a long history of not trusting their governments that is not going to change overnight. You in as we can see is coming under under. Suspicion. But i think what we have seen is there has been a tendency for these communities to still respect to a great extent the International Sort of organizations that are on the ground messy call ourselves and others so maybe theres a need to understand that they dont necessarily look at all actors the same way some actors have still got some levels of credibility and at least some measure of trust more than others and how do we support the International Agencies trying to do work on the ground and at the same time also support the national and local agencies from those communities who are working in partnership with the with the International Agencies to try to really engage with these communities and increase coming to engage men increased understanding of whats actually happening the issues theyre facing and how they can better protect. And also understand that they no you deny genders and some of this work is food be a benefit let me ask you then because were talking about hidden agendas and there are a number of Different Actors who are involved in this in this whole region and as you were saying earlier and ago we are now hearing reports from kinshasa that while the Congolese Army is now going to stage joint operations in beni with smaller scale right so how is that actually a departure from whats been happening so far. Whats been happening so far is mainly unilateral operations conducted by the Congolese Army what we really need to think about is where Additional Support will come from aside from u. N. Funding aside from in a scope with say a kind of increase in bilateral support so weve seen this most recently with the president of france he has promised military support for president scatty in the fight against a. D. F. I think the a. D. F. Kind of pledging allegiance to or to Islamic State or Islamic State kind of i guess adopting the a. D. F. Into the Islamic State central caliphate Central African caliphate that has kind of you know i guess put a fire under the International Community in order to prevent more military support weve had kind of increasing interest from president and african who are obviously based within the within the continent already to kind of increase military support for the Congolese Army. That is not alone is not enough we envisage the kind of these joint operations between minister and the Congolese Army of the most effective way to crack down on the a. D. F. However theres a long way to go these a. D. F. Attacks are a primitive they are kind of a machete last night time attacks and this kind of i guess warfare that they are that they are perpetrating is is hard to crack down on. Without an increased level of International Support rights of others point i do want to take a look at the i. D. F. The allied Democratic Forces who are believed to have been behind this latest attack that then precipitated this this protest and this attack on the u. N. Base now the a. D. F. Is one of the many armed groups who are found in eastern democratic republic of congo and the Congolese Army as weve been talking about launched an operation against them last month now formed by ugandan rebels the group has been carrying out raids near the ugandan border for more than 2. Decades and is accused of widespread atrocities several a. D. F. Attacks have now been claimed by eisel but as are you saying the extent of any relationship between the 2 does continue to remain unclear so let me ask you then indigo what actually is the rationale for the ongoing insurgency here its been its been 2 decades whats actually driving this the a. D. F. Have no unifying ideology and we continue to believe that despite this kind of tenuous Islamic State link that does not drive them its not a Jihadist Movement in isolation the main kind of i guess motivating drive is destabilization and as were seeing when benny and it is being it is successful. I think local politicians have spoken out kind of excessively as have as have Civil Society kind of organizations around this issue that they are purely kind of detractors from state hood and from kind of the way that people live their lives rather than a Jihadist Movement in itself lydia why do you think this has continued for so long because there have been multiple offenses against the i. D. F. Before that were led by the Congolese Army and it seems that theyve still not been able to wipe them out entirely so why is this been allowed to continue for this length of time. You know there are many. Interesting with with the d. R. S. You especially in the east when you understand that. Some of the data was that they about 120. 00 over 120. 00 armed groups. That are operating in the east of the d. R. S. So it is a massive job for the army to to be able to bring all these different groups many of whom slip across the borders of the neighboring countries from time to time. Parts of the r. C. Are very difficult to navigate the terrain forest jungles and the communication transport network is not is not great in all parts. And also because of the suspicion of the past of the recent past towards the government by many communities of the local communities it also means they may not always come out to sort of out. Of the armed groups that may be coming in and sort of operating in their midst so i i still believe that this is a huge trust building exercise that the government of the congo has to do to regain public trust and particularly for these types of communities who have felt revenues by the a. T. F. And many other armed groups that are operating seemingly with impunity across the borders and within many parts of east of the of the eastern congo so i ask you about trust there as well around the trust in the Congolese Army because there have been allegations that various Army Officials have been involved in helping to put to perpetrate some of these attacks or to protect some of these armed groups because everyone has their own skin in the game theres its a resource rich region everyone has their own agenda so what right now on the ground in communities is the level of trust in the Congress Army i would have to say i dont think its very high. To be honest. And thats why i think the is a huge piece of work by the government itself to sort of show how different it is from the past regimes and what what what new things what what Different Things its bringing to to the people of the congo. If it cannot do that and it can also also it also needs to work on making sure that the army is acting as a professional body it is understanding the rights of its citizens and how its role is to protect those citizens irrespective of you know what grouping they come from. And be seen to be more impartial in the work that the army does within communities so i think these are the necessary steps the government has to take and the army has to fall in line with that work that the government has to take and if he can do that they may not restore trust weve been talking about felix just the president who only took power just in january this year and there has been this i guess groundswell of optimism that he might do things differently and one of the things that he has been trying to do is to bring different regional partners in uganda rwanda and there was this talk of a joint task force a kind of militarized force that would then deal with these very porous border areas and i see that in the attempt to have this all sorted out a month ago the ugandans refused to sign on and then they walked away so let me ask you then indigo whats actually preventing Regional Cooperation here i mean surely its in everyones interest to try to stop these armed groups. I think the question is where to begin on that one preventing kind of Regional Cooperation the Great Lakes Region has historically been kind of well almost a war times i think the most successful example of this kind of well even than bilateral corporate. Between rwanda and see was the recent killing of one of the leaders of one of the rwandan rebel groups the f. D. A. A law that happened in september 21000 and that that kind of i guess paved the way for this this Regional Cooperation force but you know youre entirely right in saying that uganda will struggle to kind of sit down at the table the a. D. s have where historically as weve also spent and a rebel group founded out of uganda another thing to think about is also the fact that shes scared hes not able to step away from the shadow of could be could be still the former president could be hes still kind of in the background leading policy to skerries party his coalition only enjoys a kind of kind of loose grip on power the best and hes unable to kind of show this show this front one of the things hes tried to be successful on is security and cracking down on this insecurity in the eastern provinces and on an International Stage kind of outside of the region thats really waqt but actually within within his regional kind of partners the specter of could be is still very much around them and this this is kind of you know. Any effort to create some kind of Regional Force so i do want to touch very briefly on a boa because this is all happening within the context of the 2nd largest outbreak of about in the wild and libya im going to come to you here on this and very briefly given the context of the violence that were talking about the escalating violence the lack of trust in various different bodies here including the u. N. And the rising anger we see about that weve had warnings from the w. H. O. That this is going to make things much much more difficult to deal with just how terrified should we all be about it when they almost manage to get it under control actually running rampant throughout that entire region. I think we must be very concerned its a serious issue of great concern were having to look at teams that were working with the communities not able to go out to do the work then they need to do. We having to relocate people out of binny and mangina and the areas with the hottest protests and fighting has been going on and that is not good for the Ebola Response where we were actually seeing a turn for the better this could really to another spike water is becoming a challenge you know each are you know these types of outbreaks of violence results in movements greater bloomers of people allens of which means you can track you contract with a going and you know we end up in a situation where we could actually be again spreading ebola for them where we had actually got it under control to. Be ongoing which we were really watching very very closely indeed and its a terrible situation and it is something which we will be monitoring very closely thank you very much a lady as a grandma in nairobi and indigo alice and london and thank you to you for watching you can see the program again any time by visiting our website al jazeera dot com and for further discussion do go to our Facebook Page thats facebook dot com ford slash a. J. Inside story and you can also join the conversation on twitter our handle is at a. J. In fact story for mina started hey im holding here into my. Capturing a moment in time. Snapshots of all the lives. Of the stories. Providing tips into someone elses what. They need to. Do. For. Inspiring documentaries from impassioned filmmakers. Witness on aljazeera. To the Prime Minister to the. Mission is true to the british on the 31st of october and making this country the greatest place on a persons departure is delayed but for how long follow the drama of bricks it on al jazeera. What was the last thing the president said to you about impeachment when you last spoke to him for os Multicultural Society its not about. The dumbing allegation that was only to go to how worried are you that the conditions are still ripe for another i think they are right join me mandy huff and as i put up from questions to my special guests and challenge them to some straight talking political debate here on aljazeera. Your child is a. Reminder of all tops news stories protests against United Nations are spreading in the eastern democratic republic of congo in burnie where the start of people have driven the casket of a man killed during demonstrations around the streets of his burial. Around a 100 kilometers away police. People also trying to storm the u. N. Facilities but were blocked by Security Forces come through. The border city. A lot of frustration a lot of anger the people weve been talking to here in goma and ben in beni saying that theyre going to continue. Until they see what theyre demanding for be effected by very difficult to see how their demand for the u. N. Force to be pulled out of the very tip very difficult to see how that demand is going to be effected because the u. N. Body is still a very important figure when it comes up and. Very volatile indeed here in goma there were also protests this morning people saying that their protests supporting whats going on. They tried to get to you when. They were appalled by police here and also. In the air in beni as you mentioned there is a profession that is going on about

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