The Role of United Nations Handling Conflict in Congo

Congo is one of the country in Africa. Congo itself is also a country located in Central Africa. Congo to the north is directly bordered by the Central African Republic and South Sudan, to the east by Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, to the south by Zambia, Angola, and to the west by the Republic of Congo. Congo has a number of metal resources, including cobalt, copper, manganese, tin, niobium, tantalum, zinc gold, and silver. Fuels for the country include petroleum, uranium, coal, hydropower, and wood. Apart from there are industrial diamonds and gems.

 However, even though Congo has abundant natural resources, it is not a benefit for the Congolese people, but benefit for the militias and the irresponsible government. They exploit resources such as nickel, gold, and petroleum, they control every area that has potential mineral wealth. The condition led to corruption and dictatorship between militias and the government, the people who experienced the impact (Putri, 2019). Like what has been mentioned is one of the causes of the emergence of conflict in the Congo itself. The conflict that occurred in the Congo was due to the poor system of government that existed at that time which made its inhabitants conflict with each other. This caused several problems in the country, such as cases of child malnutrition, recruitment of child soldiers, civil war and the occurrence of sub-conflicts such as the Ituri conflict, one of them.

With this conflict, the United Nations as an international organization took part in dealing with this problem. As an international organization that focuses on making world peace it is a big homework for the United Nations itself in solving this problem. The United Nations itself has tried to carry out peaceful actions for the conflict that occurred in the Congo itself. But unfortunately there are several obstacles that delay the making of peace in this country's conflict.

There are several mandates that become actions from the United Nations itself to make peacekeeping in the Congo. Like MONUC. MONUC as a UN peacekeeping mission for DRC was also unable to maximally save the civilian population from forms of violence that occurred due to its limited mandate and lack of coordination with the DRC government (Meutia, 2021). After that, the United Nations created a new mandate called MONUSCO, but this mandate ended the same as before. The factors causing the failure of MONUSCO as a peacekeeping operation did not come entirely from MONUSCO as the main actor in enforcing peace in DRC, but there were other factors that contributed to the failure of MONUSCO as a peacekeeping operation including the presence of factions from rebel groups (Khairunnisa, 2019).

From this we can see that the UN itself has been trying to make peace for the conflict in Congo. But hampered by several obstacles such as rebellion that occurred by the people of the Congo itself. The United Nations must make a new movement to solve this problem through a new way. The United Nations can invite cooperation with the major countries there or other international organizations to help create peace in the Congo itself.

References

Khairunnisa, W. H. (2019). Kegagalan Peacekeeping Operation PBB pada Konflik Republik Demokratik Kongo. Journal of(International(Relations, 839.

Meutia, D. (2021). Analisa Kegagalan Misi Perdamaian PBB di Democratic Republic of Congo. Journal Hubungan Internasional, 72.

Putri, V. N. (2019). Peran Unicef Dalam Menangani Gizi Buruk Anak Di Kongo Pada Tahun 2016. eJournal Ilmu Hubungan Internasional, 1109-1118.