IRIN Special Report on the potential problems of policing a future peace agreement in the DRC

Any future peace deal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) would require the deployment of thousands of peacekeepers to monitor the ceasefire and withdrawal of foreign forces - a daunting undertaking given the size of the country and complexity of the conflict. It is a commitment which at the moment has had few takers, security analysts told IRIN. “I just become overwhelmed with the problem of trying to think through a plan,” Mark Malan of the Pretoria-based Institute of Security Studies told IRIN on Thursday. “There are so many actors and so many interests at stake, it might not even be peacekeepable.” South Africa wary South Africa, as the regional superpower, has often been cited as the natural lead nation in any multinational or UN peacekeeping mission for the DRC. However, South African officials are far more reticent. “It would be a mammoth task. We are being pressed into a corner, but it is something that would have to be studied very, very carefully,” one foreign ministry source said. Another senior official pointed out that “there are no specific plans at the moment” but a deployment would be a “political decision.” The official added that South Africa has no peacekeeping experience, and with only two battalions trained as peacekeepers, the DRC would not be an ideal “maiden mission”. According to Malan, South Africa’s contribution would have to be far larger than two battalions. Even if South Africa were to provide only logistical assistance to a peace mission such as aerial reconnaissance, a relatively large deployment would be needed to protect those assets. With Zimbabwean forces alone in the DRC estimated at some 9,000, the peacekeepers “would have to be larger than any other forces on the ground.” “Clearly this is not going to happen any time soon,” Malan added. “There is no mission planning at the moment and no forum for military staff [from both sides of the conflict] to talk with one another.” Neither has any regional or inter-governmental organisation stepped forward to take responsibility for a future deployment. Mbeki plan Given the problems that would be encountered in finding countries willing to commit troops for a DRC mission, a plan put forward by South Africa’s Deputy President Thabo Mbeki in December offers an imaginative approach to the issue, government officials said. At a meeting with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Rwandan Vice-President Paul Kagame, Mbeki proposed that the belligerents themselves should be the peacekeepers and “police themselves” once a ceasefire and troop standstill is agreed, but under the authority of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). “The UN is more likely than the OAU. But the Mbeki plan is probably the only feasible one proposed so far,” Malan said. “It is the only feasible way of getting troops on the ground, and with a strong lead nation inserted like South Africa, it is the best shot we have.” However, the initiative was rejected by all sides in the conflict. Zimbabwe, heading the alliance of pro-Kinshasa forces, sees its intervention as a legitimate defence of the DRC government at the invitation of President Laurent-Desire Kabila and under the mandate of the Southern African Development Community security organ which Mugabe chairs. Harare considers Rwandan and Ugandan military support for the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) as “foreign aggression” and has refused to countenance a withdrawal until those forces pull out. Uganda - and particularly Rwanda - on the other hand, are adamant that their security concerns must be addressed in any peace agreement. The current peace proposals call for an effective monitoring of their thickly-forested and porous borders to prevent infiltration by DRC government-backed rebels. That would drive up the scale and cost of a peacekeeping mission and prove a difficult exercise for all but the most sophisticated of armies to accomplish.