The Security Council today authorized a temporary increase of more than 3,000 blue helmets serving with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to deal with the violence in the country's east, which has displaced an estimated 250,000 civilians in recent months.
The extra 2,785 troops and 300 police officers will buttress the 17,000 uniformed personnel already serving with the mission (known as MONUC), the largest UN force worldwide but one faced with the task of quelling unrest and protecting civilians in one of Africa's largest countries.
Council members voted unanimously this morning for a resolution authorizing the extra numbers following a request from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who, along with other senior UN officials, has said that existing troop numbers in MONUC are inadequate to deal with the scale of the fighting and unrest.
The resolution authorizes the extra troops and police officers until 31 December, adding that the duration of the stay depends on the security situation in DRC's North Kivu and South Kivu provinces.
MONUC is especially active in North Kivu, which borders Rwanda and has been the scene of fierce fighting in recent weeks between Congolese military forces (FARDC) and a rebel militia known as the CNDP, which is led by renegade army general Laurent Nkunda. Other militia groups, including the Mayi-Mayi, have also been involved in clashes, some of which have been along ethnic lines.
The fighting has forced hundreds of thousands of locals to flee their homes, and UN aid agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been working to provide relief to civilians.
Mr. Ban's Special Envoy on the issue, the former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, has held talks over the past week with Mr. Nkunda and regional leaders, including DRC President Joseph Kabila, to try to devise a political solution to the conflict.
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It is not about the size of peacekeepers, it is about where those peacekeepers come from THIRD WORLD. They can easily get currupted and ignore what they were sent to do. Pakistanis and Indians have been in conflit for years, now the UN uses both of them in Congo and hoping that they will work together? Does UN think that were stupid? If you can't do your job, please stop pretanding that youcare about my suffering congolese fellow citizen. I don't blame UN, I blame moron "supposedly Kabila's son", tutsi, Bushlike president we have. The one that does not know what is the president's first priority. In 3 years, I dare you to stick that nose of yours in the East try to campain. THIS IS YOUR 1st and LAST TERM. YOU WILL NEVER GET RE-ELECTED. Just ask what your cousin Ruberwa got when he tried to campain in the East.
Salnundu, stop pretending to be a Congolese! First of all, Kabila is not a Tutsi. Two, U can not blame Kabila to a great extent for this mess, though his main focus should have been to build a multidimensional robust national professional army in all spheres of military competency. The UN is infact hindering the Congolese Military operations against the rebels right since July when the Congolese gov't wanted to disarm Nkunda and his group. The UN stopped them. There are reliable facts out there, that the UN personels are arms- dealing with the rebels , and some of them are passing inteligent information about FARC troops to Nkunda's group. Remember, the more professional UN commander from Spain resigned shorly after being appointed because of the confused nature of the UN mission in Congo. The head of the UN in Congo seems to be doing western Corporation dealings with the rebels. But make no mistake, the rebels and their sponsors wherever they may be will be dealt with accordingly. Mr Kabila is the democratically elected president of DRC, and those who support the rebels must ask themselves if they would support a military civil wars in their North America or European countries??!!
I should stop to pretending to be a Congolese? NEGRO please, I'm more Congolese than you may think. If over 6 mollion DEAD since 1998 and about 45000 die every month with treatable desease does not tell you anything, then you do not understand my anger towards Joseph Kabila. He is a joke! Getting humiliated by Nkundabatware "that name does not sound Congolese to me" and Kagame? We need a true PATRIOT in power who can get rid of all these parasites. DEPORT 'EM ALL "HUTUS, TUTSIS", that's my motto.