At the end of 2023, the UN Security Council, on the request of the Congolese government, decided to withdraw the decades-old UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) by the end of 2024. But as the year comes to a close, MONUSCO has only pulled out of one of the three provinces of eastern DRC, and there is no set timeline for completing the withdrawal. MONUSCO troops are also operating alongside troops deployed by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), as well as the Congolese armed forces and local militia groups. 

Pascal Kambale, a Congolese researcher and human rights lawyer based in Goma, helps unpack the complex array of security actors present in the eastern DRC and how they are perceived by local Congolese. 

What is the state of the security situation in the eastern DRC?  

The violence is scattered over the eastern DRC. The northern part of North Kivu has been in turmoil for the last four or five decades now. That’s where the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a terrorist organization, has been based. But with the joint operations between the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces and Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC), they seem to be contained for the first time in decades. 

The most worrying situation is in Ituri and the southern part of North Kivu, where the March 23 Movement (M23) has been resurgent since 2022. In the first half of the year, the M23 conflict displaced more than 2 million people. For the first time since the war in 1996, IDP camps have been the target of attacks by the M23 and Rwanda Defence Force (RDF). The war took a worrying turn in the last quarter of the year when the government and local authorities accused the M23 of ethnic cleansing in the territories of Rutshuru and Masisi. 

There is also a myriad of Mai-Mai militias who rebranded as the Wazalendo in 2023. The Wazalendo are meant to support the FARDC, but there is suspicion that some of them are supporting other forces like the RDF and the M23. It’s very confusing. 

Several international and regional missions have tried to help restore peace and security in the eastern DRC in recent years. UN peacekeepers have been there the longest—since 1999—but at the end of last year, the government asked MONUSCO to leave the country, and the Security Council voted to draw down the mission. While MONUSCO pulled out of South Kivu, the withdrawal from North Kivu and Ituri has been paused indefinitely. What is your sense of the evolving timeline for the mission’s withdrawal?  

Although both MONUSCO and the government agreed in principle that the mission needed to wind down as soon as possible, they realized that it was practically impossible. MONUSCO has established a presence that, in some areas in the east, is much stronger than the state itself. They run many services that are deemed necessary for the local population. I think both the government and the UN realized that the timeline was not long enough for the government to take over everything that MONUSCO has been running. 

MONUSCO has withdrawn from South Kivu, and some of the services that it used to run have now been taken over by either the government itself or by humanitarian organizations. For the time being, there is no timeline for withdrawing from North Kivu, which is wise given the volatile situation there.  

What is your sense of how people have reacted to MONUSCO’s withdrawal in South Kivu? Has that withdrawal had any impact so far on the protection of civilians?  

On the one hand, there is a sense that MONUSCO has overstayed its welcome in the DRC, and the local population was happy to see the peacekeeping operation leave. But on the other hand, there is a sense that MONUSCO has built a solid presence in terms of serving local populations in these areas, such as by supporting intercommunity dialogues, so there were serious worries about these services leaving. 

I am not aware of major concerns about the impact on the protection of civilians in South Kivu. The only exception is in the Minembwe area where the Banyamulenge, a minority group, are located. As a minority group, they tend to view MONUSCO differently from the rest of the local population. The day before MONUSCO officially withdrew, the local Banyamulenge leaders sent an open letter to both the government and MONUSCO begging MONUSCO to stay in that area—which, of course, did not happen. Since then, I haven’t heard any incident that showed a change in the security conditions.  

MONUSCO has also already de facto withdrawn from some parts of North Kivu. Over the last couple of years, there was a sense that MONUSCO was no longer fit for purpose and was no longer needed. There was a series of demonstrations against MONUSCO from 2018 to 2020. Since then, MONUSCO was forced to withdraw from Butembo, though the mission is still present in the northern part of North Kivu, particularly in Beni. I suspect that people in North Kivu will react in the same way as the people in South Kivu when the mission withdraws. They will be happy to see MONUSCO go, but there will still be concerns about how the services that MONUSCO provides will be continued. 

 As frustrations with MONUSCO have grown in the past few years, the government has invited in regional intervention forces alongside the UN mission. The first of these came in 2022, when the East African Community (EAC) deployed a mission to eastern DRC for about one year. Are there any lessons we can learn from the deployment of this force?  

When the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) deployed, the government was almost alone in believing that it would be a force for good. The local population was opposed to the EACRF. Even the Catholic church and moral authorities like Dr. Denis Mukwege reacted strongly against the presence before they deployed. 

There was widespread hostility toward the EACRF for several reasons. First, two of the countries that were supposed to be part of the force, Rwanda and Uganda, had been perceived as serial aggressors against the DRC, so it was quite understandable that people reacted the way they did. Second, there was a series of missteps after the EACRF deployed. For example, the first commander was General Jeff Nyagah, once a prolific host on local radio stations. Most of the statements that he put out were not diplomatic, and people reacted very strongly against them. At one point, he called a press conference and announced that the M23 had withdrawn from Kibumba. However, the local population knew that was not the case and was left to wonder why he would utter such an inaccurate statement. The EACRF also showed itself to be unwilling to deploy fully in areas occupied by the M23. All this accumulated to reinforce the local population’s belief that the EACRF was part of an international or African conspiracy against the DRC. 

The failure of the EAC force had a negative impact on the so-called “Nairobi Process,” the mediation that former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta was supposed to facilitate between Kinshasa and armed groups in the east. The two components of the EAC approach—military with the EACRF and political with the Nairobi Process—had been designed to complement each other. But as soon as the military component showed its limits and, in the eyes of the armed groups and the Congolese government, President Kenyatta had no more authority over the EACRF, confidence in the Nairobi Process waned on the Congolese side. 

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) began deploying a separate regional operation to eastern DRC—the SADC Mission in the DRC (SAMIDRC)—around the same time the EACRF was withdrawing, and this mission is still present. How does SADC’s deployment differ from the EAC’s? 

SADC has been quite a different story from the EAC. SADC retains a fair amount of goodwill from the population. This is in part because the Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) authorized by the UN Security Council in 2013 was staffed by troops from three SADC countries: Tanzania, South Africa, and Malawi. These troops were part of MONUSCO on paper, but for all intents and purposes they were perceived by the Congolese as SADC. The FIB ultimately did a commendable job, so in the memory of the local population and of both the government and the opposition there is a sense that SADC are our friends. SAMIDRC hasn’t even fully deployed or been involved in any battles, but people still look at them much more favorably than they look at MONUSCO or the EACRF. As soon as they were deployed, SAMIDRC troops came under attack and suffered casualties. This reinforced the view that, unlike the EACRF, SAMIDRC was prepared to fight alongside the FARDC. 

Beyond this natural good will, SADC has also built goodwill through its actions. They do regular consultations with both the general FARDC staff in Kinshasa and the operational commands in Goma and Masisi. SADC also helped the government on many diplomatic fronts even before they deployed SAMIDRC. For instance, in 2022, they dispatched a special envoy to New York to lobby the UN Security Council to lift the advance notification requirement in the DRC sanctions regime. All this accumulated to form a sense among the Congolese that SADC is a positive force for the country. 

In the field of operations, however, SAMIDRC is struggling to make good use of its capital of goodwill. After a year of presence, they have yet to engage the M23 or RDF in any major combat, while the M23 has expanded the territory under their control. SAMIRDC therefore runs the risk of their presence being deemed irrelevant, as was the case for MONUSCO. 

In August, the Security Council authorized MONUSCO to provide operational and logistical support to SAMIDRC. How is SAMIDRC coordinating with MONUSCO? 

 The rapport between SAMIDRC and MONUSCO was already good before the resolution in August. As soon as some troops from SAMIDRC deployed in December 2023, they held numerous meetings at the MONUSCO headquarters and invited MONUSCO officers to their own headquarters, which the EACRF never did. MONUSCO was already lending its helicopters to evacuate wounded SAMIDRC soldiers and lending its health facilities. That was long before the resolution formalized their cooperation. So I think they’re coordinating much better than we saw with the EACRF. 

The efforts of UN and regional forces in eastern DRC have been complicated by Rwanda’s support for the M23 rebels. Angola has been facilitating peace talks between the DRC and Rwanda, and they signed a cease-fire in August. Where do things stand with the cease-fire and the peace talks?  

This cease-fire was violated at least twice earlier this month and late last month by the M23, which Angolan mediators have condemned. Two weeks ago, the DRC and Rwanda agreed to deploy a reinforced monitoring group with soldiers from both countries and Angola. Since they deployed, we haven’t seen any cease-fire violations. There is hope in Goma that this cease-fire will thus be observed, which will leave room for diplomats from these three countries to work out an agreement, a draft of which is almost finalized. 

There are a couple points of disagreement between Rwanda and the DRC. In this kind of agreement, the difference comes down to semantics—should Rwanda withdraw or disengage? These are very technical issues on the surface, but these word choices can be interpreted differently. The DRC delegation also decided that they would not move ahead if there were cease-fire violations. The cease-fire seemed to be holding at the beginning of November, and the mediation may have fueled the hope that this truce would allow the start of negotiations on the different interpretations of the draft agreement. By the end of the month, however, the Angolan minister of foreign affairs had to admit that he was still trying to “convince the parties to analyze and study the proposed peace agreement.” 

None of these regional and international actors are meant to remain in the DRC long-term, meaning the FARDC will have to be capable of maintaining security on its own at some point. What prospects do you see for this in the short term? 

The FARDC has been notoriously weak, discredited, disorganized, and corrupt. It’s very difficult to see the light at the end of tunnel, but the good news is that the resurgence of the M23 sounded a wake-up call for both the government and the FARDC to finally realize that this state of affairs cannot continue in perpetuity—something must be done.  

In 2021, the parliament launched a thorough investigation into the FARDC, which was unprecedented in the country. The standing committee on security and armed forces interviewed many people, including government ministers, army leaders, and civil society. After the report on that investigation was released, the government started making efforts to fund training for the FARDC. Now, the FARDC is much better trained than they have been in decades.  

There has also been some progress regarding the discipline and morale of the troops. In the past, successive confrontations with armed groups supported by Rwanda were the occasion for looting, rape, and even massacres of the civilian population by the FARDC. Over the last three years of confrontations with the M23/RDF, the FARDC have shown greater discipline, and it was the M23/RDF who were episodically guilty of more violations of international humanitarian law, such as the bombing of internally displaced person (IDP) camps in May 2024 or the Kishishe massacre in November 2022. 

But as long as the top echelons are filled with the same corrupt generals and officers, it will be difficult to turn things completely around. The perception is that when troops are deployed into combat theaters without the usual generals, they tend to do well. In April of this year, for instance, they fought back operations from the M23 and RDF attempting to seize Goma and Sake. The FARDC and the Wazalendo were able to fight back much faster than in past operations. 

There has been a commendable effort over the last couple years to rein in the corrupt elements of the FARDC. But it will take time before the army can maintain the security landscape without the help of these external actors. For the foreseeable future, the DRC will still have to depend on foreign actors, private military societies, or local militias like the Wazalendo.