By Prof. Bharat H. Desai
The troubling reality is that the abundance of our natural resources – gold, coltan, cobalt and other strategic minerals – is the root cause of war, extreme violence and abject poverty
On 03 August 2022, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres unveiled a new sculpture – Abused Ammunition – at the UN headquarters in New York to commemorate the sacrifice of the two human rights experts who were on a mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the second largest country on the African continent (after Algeria). Designed by the Swedish artist, Thommy Bremberg, Abused Ammunition is a glass sculpture of a golden bullet. It conveys a powerful message on the use and abuse of weapons of war that have become a curse for the DRC.
Killing of the UN Experts on Mission
The UN experts, Zaida Catalán (Sweden) and Michael Sharp (USA), on mission as the UNSC resolution 1533 DRC Sanctions Committee’s Group of Experts, were abducted on 12 March 2017 during their investigation of mass atrocities in the troubled Kasai region in the aftermath of brutal clash between armed militia and the Congolese government forces. The search by the UN peacekeepers found their bodies after two weeks.
The Board of Inquiry set up by the UNSG noted in its report of 16 August 2017 that the “Congolese interpreter and the three motorcycle drivers [accompanying Catalán and Sharp] were also killed, but their bodies have not been found to date.” Reporting took place under the UNSC resolutions that gave mandate to the Group of Experts (2360 of 21 June. 2017) Group of Experts (2478 of 26 June 2019). These UNSC resolutions have been taken under ‘enforcement powers under Chapter VII of the UN Charter after arriving at an explicit determination that the “situation in the DRC continues to constitute a threat to international peace and security in the region”.
The UNSC took a comprehensive review of the situation in the DRC vide resolution 2641 on 30 June 2022. This came in the wake of long line of the UNSC’s 33 extensive briefings and consultations, between 10 July 2017 to 30 June 2022. It speaks volumes about the deep-rooted malaise, gravity of the ground situation in the DRC and UN’s own engagement in the quagmire of the DRC.
Secretary-General António Guterres (left) and Ann Christin Linde, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, attends the inaugural ceremony of the Abused Ammunition Sculpture on 03 August 2022 at the UNHQ in New York, NY.
Tragedy of the DR Congo
With 110 million population, being 11th largest country in the world and extremely rich natural resources, the DRC in the sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the poorest and most unstable. Variously known during different phases as the Belgian Congo, Congo-Kinshasha, the Congo, Zaire and the DR Congo (different from the Republic of Congo-Brazzaville), the prosperity in resources seems to have become such a curse that its helpless people are condemned to remain at 175 out of 189 countries listed in the ‘low’ Human Development Index.
The crux of the appalling condition in the DRC was graphically narrated in spine-chilling address of the Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukewege in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech on 10 December 2018 at the Oslo City Hall. “The human cost of this perverted, organized chaos has been hundreds of thousands of women raped, over 4 million people displaced within the country and the loss of 6 million human lives. Imagine, the equivalent of the entire population of Denmark decimated. United Nations peacekeepers and experts have not been spared, either. Several of them have been killed on duty”, Denis Mukewege said.
The power of the upfront talk by of Denis Mukwege, brought tears in the eyes of the elite Oslo audience: “I come from one of the richest countries on the planet. Yet the people of my country are among the poorest of the world. The troubling reality is that the abundance of our natural resources – gold, coltan, cobalt and other strategic minerals – is the root cause of war, extreme violence and abject poverty”. Three years down the line, the situation in DRC remains as explosive as narrated in the Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
Upon attaining independence from Belgium on 30 June 1960, the DRC saw numerous twists and turns with leaders propped up by outside powers such as: Patrice Lumumba; Joseph Mobutu; Laurent Kabila; Joseph Kabila; Félix Tshisekedi. The cocktail of chaos, ethnic strife and civil wars have taken a deadly toll on the DRC. It is the complexity this crisis in DRC that has entangled the UN therein. In fact, it the DRC conflict that led the feisty UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, to personally go to check the ongoing negotiations of a cease-fire. His death in 18 September 1961 plane crash, on UN mission, remains mysterious.
Predicament of the UN
The abduction and killing of the two members of the UN Group of Experts is the latest flashpoint in the UN’s engagement in the DRC. On 04 August 2022, the head of UN Peacekeeping, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, following his following his 28-29 July visit to Kinshasa, briefed a closed-door session of the UNSC. It came a day after Congolese authorities expelled the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) spokesperson following some deadly protests in the eastern part.
The UNSC resolutions 2641 (2022), 2612 (2021), 2582 (2021) and 2556 (2020) have sought a general and immediate cessation of hostilities and the UNSG’s 21 March 2022 report amply shows no signs of resolving the DRC’s complex tangle, the questions arise about this ‘bottomless-barrel’ situation. It poses grave risks for the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC that includes an Indian contingent. The gravity of the situation can be gauged from the fact that on 25-26 July 2022, anti-UN protestors looted and damaged UN facilities across North Kivu province. They were angered by the UN’s inability to curb violence by armed groups. Three UN peacekeepers (two from India and one from Morocco) were killed.
The Road Ahead
The UNSC resolution 2612 of 20 December 2021 explicitly asked the President Tshisekedi towards ensuring that the DRC Government protects and respects human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as combats impunity in all areas. It remains to be seen how the DRC national transitional justice (TJ) strategy leads towards truth and reconciliation while ensuring accountability for past crimes, reparation for victims and safeguards against the recurrence of gross human rights violations. The UNSC needs to make the DRC Government to comply with these commitments.
The UNSC’s 04 August 2022 consultations were expected to address the crisis and explore a way out. Possibly, the UNSC shall have to soon follow the TJ model adopted for the Rwandan genocide wherein the UNSC resolution 955 (1994), acting under Chapter VII, set up the International Tribunal for Rwanda.
The UN needs to find a way and means to rein the warring factions responsible for the spiral of violence in the DRC. The quagmire of the vicious conflict in the DRC necessitates a concrete calibrated application of the International Humanitarian Law, International Criminal Law and the innovative TJ mechanisms to stop the endless nightmare of the Congolese people. It presents an ideational challenge for all.
Professor Dr. Bharat H. Desai is Jawaharlal Nehru Chair and Professor of International Law at the Centre for International Legal Studies of SIS, JNU. He coordinated the Making SIS Visible initiative (2008-2013) as well as Inter-University Consortium: JNU; Jammu; Kashmir; Sikkim (2012-2020) and is the Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Policy and Law (IOS Press: Amsterdam).