Chapter 4

MONUC Phase I

As described by the UN Secretary-General in his mid-July 1999 report to the UN Security Council, the mandate for the UN peacekeeping force to help implement the Lusaka Agreement would include the following tasks:25

working with the JMC and the OAU to implement the agreement;



observing and monitoring the cessation of hostilities;



investigating violations of the ceasefire agreement and taking necessary measures to ensure compliance;



supervising the disengagement of forces as stipulated in the agreement;



supervising the redeployment of forces to defensive positions in conflict zones, in accordance with the agreement;



providing and maintaining humanitarian assistance to and protecting displaced persons, refugees and other affected persons;



keeping the parties to the ceasefire agreement informed of its peacekeeping operations;



collecting weapons from civilians and ensuring that the weapons so collected are properly accounted for and adequately secured;



scheduling and supervising the withdrawal of all foreign forces in collaboration with the JMC and the OAU; and



verifying all information, data and activities relating to military forces of the parties.

Notably absent from Annan’s report was any reference to the ‘tricky bits’ of the ceasefire agreement, such as tracking down and disarming armed groups, and screening them to identify mass killers and other war criminals.

In his report of 15 July 1999, the UN Secretary-General had recommended to the Security Council that the UN’s responsibility for the implementation of the ceasefire agreement should be approached in three phases:

firstly, the deployment of unarmed military liaison officers to the capitals of the signatories and, if the security situation permitted, to the rear headquarters of the rebel groups;



secondly, the deployment of up to 500 military observers inside the DRC; and



thirdly, the deployment of a peacekeeping force.26

These have remained the basis of discussion and planning for the incremental deployment of UN military and civilian personnel and assets during what has come to be known as phases I, II and III of MONUC.

On 6 August 1999, the Security Council duly approved the deployment of up to 90 military liaison officers to the capitals of the parties to the agreement. Their tasks, as mandated by Security Council Resolution 1258, included the following:27

to establish contacts and maintain liaison with the JMC and all parties to the agreement;



to assist the JMC and the parties in developing modalities for the implementation of the agreement;



to provide technical assistance, as requested, to the JMC;



to provide information to the Secretary-General regarding the situation on the ground, and to assist in refining a concept of operations for a possible further role of the UN in the implementation of the agreement (once it is signed by all parties); and



to secure from the parties guarantees of co-operation and assurances of security for the possible deployment in-country of military observers.

The mission set up its advance headquarters in Kinshasa, and deployed military liaison officers (MLOs) in Kinshasa, Kigali, Kampala, Harare and Windhoek. Liaison officers were also sent to Bujumbura, to Lusaka as the provisional seat of the JMC, and to the OAU headquarters in Addis Ababa. By January 2000, small teams of up to four MLOs had managed to deploy to only nine locations in the DRC: Kinshasa, Kananga, Kindu, Goma, Boende, Lisala, Gemena, Gbadolite and Isiro.

On 30 November 1999, the Security Council extended MONUC’s mandate until 1 March 2000 (Resolution 1279) and requested the Secretary-General:

"to accelerate the development of a concept of operations based on assessed conditions of security, access and freedom of movement and cooperation on the part of the signatories to the Ceasefire Agreement."28

The Security Council also requested the Secretary-General:

"with immediate effect, to take the administrative steps necessary for the equipping of up to 500 United Nations military observers with a view to facilitating future rapid United Nations deployments as authorized by the Council."29

However, the ability of the MLOs and technical assessment team to provide the Secretary-General with an accurate appraisal of the modalities for further UN deployment remained severely limited. The UN team’s capacity to observe the ceasefire, help the JMC investigate ceasefire violations, make a security assessment of the country and determine the present and future locations of combatants’ positions required it to deploy throughout the country, and at the ill-defined battlefronts. The mission was not able to deploy effectively, and was prevented from executing its mandate as a result of both inadequate security guarantees from the DRC government and differences with Kinshasa on the need to deploy observers in government-held areas.

It was also quite apparent that the ceasefire was not being respected by the signatory parties. There were continuous claims and counterclaims of ceasefire violations from and by all sides. These infringements allegedly included tank and artillery attacks, ground attacks with support from helicopter gunships, aerial bombing raids, attacks on civilians, territorial advances, troop deployments, blockades, and reinforcements within and across borders. The alleged ceasefire violations took place along and behind the frontlines and were geographically widespread, including the provinces of Shaba, Kasai Occidental, Kasai Oriental, Equateur, and North and South Kivu.

Suffice it to say that every single stipulation of the key article I of the Lusaka Peace Agreement was repeatedly abrogated, and that it was predominantly the signatories themselves (and not the ‘armed groups’) that were at fault.30 Yet, the MLOs were unable to verify most of the alleged violations, and the Secretary-General was forced to admit that "information could not be confirmed" and to use phraseology such as "strongly suggest", "apparently on suspicion" and "allegedly" in his reports to the Security Council.31

On the other hand, the signatory parties apparently saw the UN as the solution to such violations. During the 24 January 2000 Security Council meeting on the DRC, there were strident calls by almost every African leader present for the deployment of a "full-fledged UN peacekeeping mission" without any further delay. In addition to demanding a sizeable force, no less than six countries called for such a force to be established under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. These were the DRC, Mozambique (with Chissano also speaking in his capacity as chairperson of SADC), Zimbabwe (with Mugabe also talking on behalf of SADC), Uganda, Rwanda and Namibia.32 However, the UN Secretary-General, a week previously, had already presented a report recommending a second phase deployment and concept of operations that, while putting more than observers on the ground, fell far short of such demands.