Contingent at Risk
A Brief By David Goldman
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In November 2022, the Republic of Kenya deployed approximately +900 troops to Eastern DR-Congo under the EACRF (East African Community Regional Force) to help end decades of bloodshed. The deployment, despite some uncertainty about international funding and official mandate from the U.N. Security Council or the African Union gave hope to the hundreds of thousands of suffering Congolese & encouraged the international community to do more to end the armed conflict which has caused unmetered suffering.
Peacekeeping has unique strengths, including legitimacy, burden sharing, and an ability to deploy and sustain troops and police. The Eastern DR-Congo conflict & current situation is both very complex and a wrong move could have catastrophic ramifications in various areas particularly diplomatic, military, & humanitarian.
While peacekeeping is one of the most effective tools available to the United Nations in the promotion and maintenance of international peace and security, peacekeeping in Eastern DR-Congo face challenges that undermine its ability to deliver on its mandates.
KDF under EACRF has deployed thematic approaches including military diplomacy & political approaches. Military Diplomacy has borne some very significant results whereby we’ve seen the M23 Rebels cede some strategic areas. These include Kibumba and Bunagama both which are extremely critical militarily and at humanitarian and economic perspectives. Politically, Kenya Military under EACRF has provided important insight to the East African Community (EAC). The insight is has helped peace talks in Nairobi and Mombasa Kenya, between Congolese Government and the Rebel Groups in Easter DRC. The political strategy is the basis of the Luanda (Angola) principles and the EAC recommendations, both which are used to meter the density of the conflict and how to progressively ease tensions and end belligerence.
In recent past, various actors in the Flashpoint have orchestrated psychological warfare operations against the KDF further putting the small EACRF Contingent at risk. In some instances actors have attempted to orchestrate events that can result in contact between the KDF & M23 Rebels & its Rwandan Army 5th Column. KDF has from a tactic military Intelligence advisory preempted such operations.
Eastern DR-Congo complex threats & environment, besides funding & troops deployment gaps (missions lacks adequate personnel and equipment to meet these threats) pose a challenge to the KDF. Such gaps & risks if unmitigated will result in fatalities and injuries of the Kenyan peacekeepers.
These complex challenges are hampering delivering on mandates and worse compromises the principal objective of augmenting conditions that can set off conditions for long-term, sustainable peace in the Flashpoint.
It gets worse for KDF when Kenya’s strategic partners are adversely mentioned as perpetrators of the conflict. The Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo blames Rwanda & Uganda for military supporting the M23 Rebels. In particular, Rwanda has been named as the primary M23 Rebels ally. The rebel group main base is at the Mt Sabyinyo lowlands, an area where DR-Congo borders both Rwanda and Uganda.
Rwanda & Uganda Militaries are part of EACRF & are supposed to deploy troops under EACRF to enforce peace in the Flashpoint.
An armed contact between KDF & its Military friends can be an extremely damaging event. No Military Intelligence Service of the 3 brotherly countries (Kenya, Rwanda & Uganda) want this to happen thus the active military diplomacy efforts.
The KDF EACRF Contingent primary objective (strategic logic) is to reduce the intensity of warfare in the Flashpoint and subsequently achieve peaceful & long-term solutions to the conflict (and on the short-term orchestrate lowest possible level of warfare between the two antagonists). This is despite the fact that Peacekeepers are treated as a military contingent, capable of taking sides, acting as a third (independent) side in the war or remaining inactive, depending on circumstances.
