Monday, December 7, 2009
Congo: Conrad Thorpe Trains Anti-Poaching Units in the Virunga NP
Friday, November 27, 2009
Call to Action: ISS Call for Abstracts for a Monograph–The Involvement of the Private Security and Military Companies in Peacekeeping Missions
Hey guys and gals, this is pretty cool. I know a few reading this are pretty up on their Africa/PMC history, and this is a great way to show your knowledge of said subject by helping these guys out. The reason I have made this a Call to Action, is because these guys are wishing to enhance the understanding of what it is we do, and can do in Africa. It is just another way to fill that void of information that I keep talking about. –Matt
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Call for Abstracts
ISS Monograph
The Involvement of the Private Security and Military Companies in Peacekeeping Missions
The Institute for Security Studies (ISS) through the Security Sector Governance (SSG) Programme initiated a project on 3 November 2008 on “The Involvement of the Private Security Sector in African Conflicts, Peacekeeping Missions and Humanitarian Assistance Operations”. The project seeks to investigate the involvement of the private security sector in African conflicts, peacekeeping missions and humanitarian assistance operations to inform the development and application of appropriate norms and standards, including the revision of the 1977 OAU Convention on the Elimination of Mercenaries in Africa.
This is a call for abstracts for a Monograph titled The Involvement of the Private Security and Military Companies in Peacekeeping Missions. The main objective for this monograph is to enhance an informed understanding of the role of the private military and security companies in Africa’s peacekeeping missions. Its main focus is to critically explore the trend(s) in the outsourcing of core and non-core military functions as well as the increased role of the private sector particularly in UN and AU peacekeeping missions in Africa.
Abstracts for the Monograph chapters may be submitted to Mr Sabelo Gumedze at sgumedze@issafrica.org by December 11, 2009. They must include the following details:
1. Title of the proposed paper.
2. Name of the author, organization to which he or she belongs and email address.
3. If there are several authors, please give the particulars of each of them.
Abstracts should average between 500 and 1,000 words.
Authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by December 18, 2009 regarding acceptance of abstracts and will have to submit the definite text of paper. Accepted papers should average between 5, 000 and 10, 000 words and must be submitted by March 31, 2010. Early submission of articles is strongly encouraged. Authors should as far as possible adopt the ISS style guideline.
If you have any queries regarding the submission of abstracts and papers, please contact Mr Sabelo Gumedze at sgumedze@issafrica.org
Link to add here.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Congo: U.N. Peace Mission Fueling Violence in Congo, Report Says
Shameful. The worlds largest peace keeping mission, and it is a total failure. I actually think those in the U.N. who were responsible for managing such a cluster, should face a war crimes tribunal for allowing such a thing.
Now if the U.N. were to pull their collective head out of their ass, and realize that if there is no peace to keep, then you do not send in peace keepers. What needs to happen, is the conflict(s) must end, and the only way that happens is the two sides fight it out and to the victor go the spoils. Or, the U.N. picks a side, and completely supports that side of the war by sending in war fighters with the mission of defeating the other side. All out warfare, and no half measures.
You either contract it out to an Executive Outcomes type company, or assemble a coalition of actual war fighters from donor countries, or don’t do anything at all. But all of that would take a mandate from the U.N. Security Council, and it would also take resolve and the will to fight a war like that. Companies like EO are proof positive that a professional PMC could definitely do what has to be done, and I would say, for a reasonable price. Much more reasonable that what the U.N. is paying for now, which is only doing more harm to the Congo. Shameful. –Matt
Edit: Here are some excerpts from the report, to include the summary, here at a blog called Congo Siasa.
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UN peace mission fueling violence in Congo, report says
Security force costing $1bn a year has not defeated Rwandan Hutu rebels or halted plunder of lucrative minerals, experts find
Wednesday 25 November 2009
The world’s biggest UN peacekeeping mission has been branded a failure by experts who say it is fueling a surge of murders and rapes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The UN security force of 25,000, estimated to cost more than $1bn a year, has proved unable to defeat Rwandan Hutu rebels or to halt the plunder of lucrative minerals in the east of the country, according to a scathing report.
Among the most damning findings of the UN-mandated Group of Experts is the free rein given to a military commander and war crimes suspect known as “The Terminator”, which the UN mission has previously denied.
The mission in North and South Kivu agreed to back Congo’s army in an offensive this year against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), some of whose leaders helped to orchestrate Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
The experts found: “Military operations have … not succeeded in neutralising the FDLR, have exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in the Kivus and have resulted in an expansion of CNDP [the Congolese Tutsi militia National Congress for the Defence of the People] military influence in the region.”
Monday, November 16, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Africa: UN’s Congo Operation Under Scrutiny
I posted another story below this about the UN screwing the pooch on Afghanistan as well, when they sacked Peter Galbraith for speaking truth to power about the elections there.
But the real star of this post, is the UN and their criminal work in the Congo. I say criminal, because to sit there and allow these rapes and murders to happen, while standing there with a gun in your hand and calling yourself a peacekeeper, is beyond just incompetence–it is criminal. What happened to the Responsibility to Protect? How do you allow this to continue and say that it is ok, while in the same breath calling yourselves peacekeepers? Some heads need to roll on this one, and some top leadership needs to be held accountable. Or better yet, hire some professionals to do the job right, or don’t do the job at all.-Matt
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UN’s Congo operation under scrutiny
By Harvey Morris at the United Nations
Published: October 18 2009 23:15 | Last updated: October 18 2009 23:15
The strategy of the United Nations’ biggest peacekeeping force is under scrutiny following reports that government forces it is supporting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have used wide-scale rape and murder as weapons of war.
Abuses committed in a campaign against rebels in the east of the country have been extensively catalogued by human rights organisations. They have now come to the fore with a claim by one of the UN’s own experts that the results of an 8-month UN-backed offensive have been “catastrophic”.
“Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, thousands raped, hundreds of villages burnt to the ground, and at least 1,000 civilians killed,” Philip Alston, the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, said in a statement last week after a 10-day visit to the DRC.
What Mr Alston termed the “nightmare situation” in the eastern Kivu region underlined the dilemma of peacekeepers required to conduct increasingly robust and proactive mandates handed to them by the UN Security Council with what their commanders often complain are inadequate resources.