The Future of Peacekeeping In Africa

of morphed over the years. So maybe just to begin with, I can give an idea that like this city of Goma, which is the capital of North Kivu Province, has recently been captured by m twenty three rebels would explain who they are people who an't familiar in a minute. It's a city of about a million people. I believe that's saying around three thousand people have been killed in this operation, which is I mean, it's a massive.

So in nineteen sixty there was seventeen newly independent states, of which fourteen were from Africa, agreed to a call from the U went to establish this mission in the Congo, and Ireland answered the call as well, so we deployed it was the first time that we deployed with the UN and we had a battalion there from nineteen sixty to I think nineteen sixty whenever the initial deployment ended, and it was a fairly tough, intense introduction to peacekeeping.

In the early in nineteen sixty there was an engagement between an Irish platoon and a large group of Beluba tribesmen and there was nine Irish soldiers killed and twenty six Belubas killed, and that was the first time that Ireland kind of had to deal with that kind of death overseas, so it was pretty traumatic. And then in nineteen sixty one, you've probably seen the film The Siege of Jariteville, but it recounts the true story of an

Irish company under COMMONDA. Pack Quendlin. His company was one hundred and fifty eight roughly strong, and they were attacked while they were at mass on a Sunday morning by a group of between three and four thousand Catanganese well armed soldiers backed up by French and Belgium and South African mercenaries. They also had an attack helicopter and they had an attack chest.

state on the nation. Now if God forbid, they had fifty percent casualties that have been treated like heroes. Yeah yeah, and it's only in recent years that they're getting the recognition that they should have got back in nineteen sixty one.

sixty four or sixty five. It might have sort of started to draw down then in nineteen ninety nine, after it was the first the second war, or the UN established monarch monu See and that lasted from nineteen ninety nine until twenty ten when it was renamed and rechanged into MINUSCO. And the difference between the two is that MINUSCO is what we call an integrated mission, and the three pillars of an integrated mission are the restoration of the rule of law, the protection of civilians, and the

provision for long term recovery and democratic governance. So it's combining we'll say, the force of a military presence, but also there's special advises on justice and policing, on governance, all that sort of stuff which you wouldn't have an emission like UNIFILM, which we discussed the last time, yeah, which is the earlier form of peacekeeping. So MINUSCO was supposed to have left the country in twenty twenty four,

but they were given a I think a one year extension. Yeah, and unfortunately now with the twenty three rebel advance, the mission is relocating most of its staff evacuating others. The difference between the two terms is very specific. You relocate within the country and you evacuate out of the country. And I also note that the some of the Hybrid African Union peacekeeping operations there was I think thirteen South Africans killed and in the initial stages of the of

the onslaught towards towards going. So that that's kind of where we are with the with the I think at the at its height with in twenty one twenty two, there was probably a strength of twenty thousand. But if you think the DRC is the second largest country in Africa, vast and the eleventh largest country in the world, just the size of just phenomenal. So you can imagine what the Congo and this entire no more than Sudan, but

what the Congo and its entirety was back in the day. Yeah, absolutely huge.

like how on Earth is Rwanda invading Congo? And they had like a picture, you know, and the land mass of Rwanda. Ruanda is one of the smaller countries in Africa, and Congo is obviously a vast country. Are you comfortable explaining a little bit of like the Rwandan involvement.

Of course Rwanda would say they don't, but they are actively supporting and empty industry and have and most of the twenty three, certainly the leadership would be ethnic conglese Utsis. So ostensibly I think the raison deaths for Romanda's involvement was to protect the ethnic Tutsis from Hutus that had

escaped from the from the the genocide. So it's complicated, but if you kind of part those complications and think of the money trail, it kind of leads to the Two Kivus because seventy percent of the world's bolt, I think, is kind of located between the Two Kivus, and then you have gold, diamonds, all the other sort of rich minerals.

it's off the wall stuff. Yeah, So it's no wonder it's become the battleground that it has essentially since nineteen sixty because in nineteen sixty, after getting independence, the Kivu and Katanga wanted to secede back by belt and that's kind of what kicked off a lot of the conflict in nineteen sixty and the reverberations from that are still are still kind of being felt and been exploited because everyone wants to get a piece of the action, like

all the surrounding countries. So yeah, I see, I think it was yesterday that the they're planning a meeting. I think it's this week or this weekend to try and resolve the afflict. And this time they're going to try and include entry twenty three in the in the amazing rather than ex Google. I don't think that the choice. I mean they're heading down to Book of Auso.

And then you've Burundi supporting the Congolese government. You know that there's all kinds of as you say, like regional and international actors because of the wealth in Congo, and like let's Congo emerge from the DC emerged from its

colonial past. Right, it's always been destabilized by these actors, both regional and international, who who wanted a piece of that mineral wealth, and then they've created and sustained these differences which have become I think there's some evidence to suggest that, like certainly that they're like the ethnic differences have become more pronounced and more like intransigent, I suppose, or like you know, it's become more difficult for those ethnic groups to co exist over time due to decades

of conflict, right and killing, and it's a very difficult situation and it leaves people like the civilians living in Goma today in a terrible situation where I think this is the fifth time that people have attacked Goma, Like it's certainly I think the last time was about twenty twelve, was it when the last time M twenty three took Goma?

the things? And I understand why people ask that, So can you explain a little bit about what the FIB was and what it did.

defensive or separation of war in factions. This was full on war fighting and what they had figured out because the DRC is so big, but the footprint even with twenty thousand troops the footprint on the ground was not sufficient to say, as I said, one of the three pillars of an integrated emissions protection of civilians, and they were finding that very difficult. So they decided to use a concept of protection by projection rather than protection by presence.

So not alone did they have the force and digans from brigade, they had the joint protection teams and also an idea of a rapidly deployable battalion. So the idea was that the force and Divention Brigade would say, do the heavy lifting, and then when hotspots that flare up, they could choose either the rapidly deployed out the battalions or the joint protection teams. So the idea was that rather than having static positions trying to protect people, they

would go where the action was. That was the idea, and in fairness, the FIB had artillery, martor snipers, attack helicopters, UAVs, special forces then retook Gum And I don't know the exact timeframe, but I think it was less than a month of the problems and I think we touched one at the last time we spoke, and I think this was a specific problem to the how the FIB didn't really keep going the way it should have is that two of the men TCCs were Tanza, Vegan and South Africa,

and they would have had slightly different agendas in terms of who they should and they shouldn't attack based on the government's position. Sorry, true country from the countries. Excuse me, I should have said that.

yea in their blue helmets. Right that the vast bulk of TCCs don't come from from Northern Europe. Right in Africa, that the majority of TCC's or other African countries, I think I'm right saying it's a majority.

they themselves perhaps are. So it's understandral point about about different countries being aware of what the UN does based on I take, for instance, everyone in Ireland knows about the UN when and then all about the Irish and Lebanon, and in Syria and in Africa. I'm sure in the Nha Kingdom, because you've got a very small UN footprint. Yeah, Cyprus been one, and there's a few of you guys here.

Generally people in the UK, I'm sure you'll be able to enlighten me on this wouldn't have the exact same intimate knowledge or even interest in the UN, yeah, because basically they don't have a big footprint, deployable footprint.

being shelled being shot at. You know, the people were asking why they went out there fighting, and there are a lot of reasons for that, one being it that's not what they're there to do. But yeah, when we had this Force Intervention Brigade in Congo, they did some good things, right, they were able to retake Goma, and for the people who lived in Goma, I'm sure that

was very important, like that meaningfully improved their lives. But like it also comes with these complications that you've addressed, right, Like each of those those troop contributing countries, you need everyone to be committed to like the same mission, I suppose, and like if if your government is giving your armed forces one mission that differs slightly from that which the whoever's in commanded the force into gentry brigade hats, then we get friction, right, or it's not as efficient as

it could.

a while until it wasn't. Now whether that was a lack of will on the TCCs or on New York or mission leadership, I have no idea, but it was a great idea and it worked and then it didn't work.

He was saying that the international community is bordering on complicit in M twenty three to advance because of the failure to do anything about it in a speech he gave this week, And it was interesting because it had previously been, like you said, for under very understandable reasons, especially in the DRC, which has this long and horrible history of colonialism, like the terrible things done in the Belgian Congo. We've covered. There's a lot on basketsweenw the

show that we do. People can listen to that if they want to. But like now he's asking for more help, which is also understandable because you know, his military is one hundred and twenty five thousand or so like and a large number of that it's not very combat effective forces maybe and they've just been overrun in Goma in a big city, a city of a million people. So like,

where do you think we go from here? What's like, we're at a very unique time in world history in which the United States is it's doing some things with his foreign policy. Like I mean, I don't know, I won't really meant words about anything. It's terrible, but if we talk about like USAID, right I was speaking to people on the Thai Burmese border last week who were telling me that USAID has turned off life support machines as part of it to throwdown, and that people obviously

directly died as a result of that. There So the US is not necessarily averse to having terrible consequences to its whatever it's trying to do right now, which I don't really have a good word for. So look, where do we go from here with the US becoming more isolationists.

Five for the Sahel. Then you had EU four which was an EU force in Chad and in Mali and subsequently became miner Cat in Chad and Minusma and Mali.

Then you have the EUTM mission in Mali, which I was part of at one stage and another one in scenario, And of course we have our mercenaries, you know, and when it emerged that there was over three hundred of them allowed into Rwanda, I was reading the report that they were getting something like three and a half thousand dollars a month, whereas the DRC soldiers were getting maybe

three hundred dollars a month. Yeah, you know, and these guys were brought in to protect the minds because again it goes back to money.

have a keen interest in the place. But there has been a big increase in anti anti French with a Francophone country. Yeah, anti French and linked with a kind of an anti UN sentiment. No, the special advisor to the President is from Russia. Wagner, you had a big part to play when I was there. There were key players.

Every fancy road in Rwanda they call them Chinese roads because they go from the mind to the airport beltion braces. It's as naked a resource extraction project as you'll see right now. China also does a soft power thing. They'll build hospitals and these. You know, I forget where the quote comes from, but like every time the US comes we get a lecture and every time China comes, we

get a hospital. This will reorient the way these countries, specifically in Africa, associate with the world right with the US draw down and the United Nations not capable or willing of sort of doing these massive peacekeeping missions. And I think for very understandable reasons, groups like the EU. You know, it's best not to have large deployment to European and unmour what is in Africa for reasons that

are probably quite obvious. So like, yeah, we were likely to see I mean, hasn't Wagner rebranded itself as the Africa Core now?

But I think people should be concerned about this about the future for like multi national peacekeeping in Africa, and more importantly, I guess the future for or interlink without the future for human rights in Africa. What do you see as like meaningful ways that people can advocate for a future for Africa which is not just another set of countries extracting resources and leaving very little for the people there, which is something that has happened. You know,

I'm a British person. This has happened by British people for a very long time and other European people for a very long time. But like that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to stop it happening in the future.

so much of a vested interest. I heard a figure that twenty three were getting eight hundred thousand dollars a month from some of the mines in the Kivus. I believe, so, well, get that kind of money floating around, a lot of people maybe don't want to sort things out, and it may suit to leave the mayhem there and use all these artisanal miners who are getting paid a couple of cents a day. And Rwanda has just got a big contract with the EU in terms of diamonds.

have thought American people would care about Palestinian people. I moved here in two thousand and eight, and you wouldn't have found much interest in Palestine.

come from like government advocacy. But we don't see that as much with certainly this part of Africa, right like, and it's I expose it's contro it's goings of like people in Congo maybe aren't able to access those global networks of like social media and maybe to share their stories,

you know. And I think it's also a consequence of us in the media not reporting at all, you know, Like I've for years tried to sell stories about Africa to American publications and at best they'll want a story about like the people who are starting like social enterprise European or North American people starting like social enterprises or

like sort of beneficial companies. And I understand it's have a role, but like, you're not going to persuade me that there isn't a single African person of interest to you, and that like it's someone who came from North America that is the only relevant story to tell in Africa. And like I've had this falling out with so many editors over the years that like, no, I don't want to tell that story. I want to tell a story about people from Congo and Congo, about people from Rwanda and Rwanda.

interesting topic or whatever. But I just literally as we were talking, I was thinking of how one guy is trying to change conditions for younger people in Africa and trying to give it to them for free.

they all got bombed. Right, the colleagues of mine in academic departments started putting on seminars and lectures that Palestinian people, be they displaced or still in Gaza, but with access to internet, you know it's still displaced but internally displaced, could attend and continue with their educations. And I thought that was a really great, like solidarity based way to facilitate access to something that people have had taken away

from them through no fault. There weren't by state aggression.

trying to get on with their day. You know, they want a better future for their children. Yeah, and you know the fact that your mobile phone it's cheap, it's maybe making their children's future worse. And that's something that we need to reckon with. And e cares Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean this is the thing. People don't talk about

electric cars. It's so as weird. It's all that stuff come and then even here in America right whether the US trying to mind lithium on reservations where you know the land there's little land it's left indigenous people to have sovereignty on it's where it's now trying to do

this very invasive form of mining. Kevin, you've written a book, So would you like to as we wind down here, do you want to expend a little bit about about your books so that if people are interested in your life and your time as a peacekeeper and an archaeologist.

guy waffling on about his military career. I've a separate career in mountaineering and kind of nearly a separate career in archaeology, so it's it's a mixture of soldiering, mountaineering and archaeology. As someone said it to me, it's a bit like Chris Bonnington meets Bear Grills meets Indiana Jones, which is a weird and wonderful way to do. So the title of the book is a Lifeless Ordinary, which this was a recruiting slogo in the nineteen nineties for

the Irish Defense Forces. I think I'll sent you the link yep.

is a famous American actor I think called Kevin McDonald. Yeah, yeah, but I just as a small parting shot when when I was in Mali, I was researching the archaeology of Mali, and the world expert on Malayane archaeology is a professor, naturally, Kevin mac donald. So I sent him an am here and I said, by the way, I'm also an archaeologist and my name is Kevin McDonald, and he goes my words. I'd be in Bungi are in Bamaco in two weeks time.

Let's meet. So the two Kevin McDonald's two archaeologists met up in Bamaco to discuss archaeology.