APA-Gaborone (Botswana) Leaders of the 16-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) have endorsed a decision of the regional bloc’s security organ to deploy an intervention force in troubled eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Meeting at the 43rd SADC Summit in the Angolan capital Luanda on Thursday, the leaders agreed on the urgency of deploying regional troops to restore peace and security in the east of the DRC where local and foreign armed groups have intensified destabilisation activities over the past year.
“Summit also received an update on the security situation in the eastern DRC and endorsed the deployment of the SADC Mission in the DRC (SAMIDRC) to restore peace and security in the eastern DRC,” SADC leaders said in a communique at the end of the summit.
The regional force should be on the ground in the DRC ahead of national elections scheduled for the country in December this year.
It is, however, not clear how the proposed intervention force would be different from the SADC Force Intervention Brigade (FIB), which is already part of the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO).
At least nine SADC member states have – through FIB – already contributed troops to MONUSCO, which is the first UN peacekeeping operation specifically tasked with carrying out targeted offensive operations to “neutralise and disarm” groups considered a threat to state authority and civilian security in DRC.
The leaders reiterated the call to strengthen the coordination and harmonisation of peace initiatives by various actors in eastern DRC.
Besides SADC, other initiatives to restore peace in the DRC are being spearheaded by the African Union Commission, East African Community, Economic Community of Central African States, International Conference on the Great Lakes Region and United Nations.
Renewed fighting by the armed groups – some of which are from neighbouring Rwanda and Burundi – has seen over 800,000 people being displaced from their homes in eastern DRC over the past year alone.
JN/APA