page_title: 2008 Nord-Kivu campaign
section_title: Peacekeeping
hierarchical_section_title: 2008 Nord-Kivu campaign / Efficiency of humanitarian and peacekeeping efforts / Peacekeeping
caption_attribution_description: English: "I was on the outskirts of Kibati camp to oversee our emergency measles vaccination. It was in the same location as an ICRC WFP food distribution. We heard shooting the other side of the camp less than a kilometer away, single shots and automatic for about 15 minutes. People fled the distribution, ran to the camp picked up their belongings and hurried down the hill to Goma. A crowd gathered around an abandoned food truck and started to loot it until government military police came in to restore order. As we drove back more than 200 very tense government troops trudged up the hill, announcing worse to come." - author
context_page_description: The 2008 Nord-Kivu campaign was an armed conflict in the eastern Nord-Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The upsurge of violence in the Kivu conflict saw heavy battles between the Democratic Republic of Congo's army, supported by the United Nations, and Tutsi militia under General Laurent Nkunda.
  The fighting, which began on October 25, uprooted 250,000 civilians — bringing the total of people displaced by the Kivu conflict to more than 2 million. The campaign caused widespread civil unrest, large food shortages and what the United Nations called "a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic dimensions." After a week, a ceasefire was ordered by rebel forces amongst civil and military unrest in Goma. The rebel capture of all territory around Goma created a very fragile atmosphere of peace, caused enormous political damage, and called to question the efficacy of the peacekeepers stationed there. After a short cease-fire ordered by rebel general Laurent Nkunda, fighting broke out on November 17, after which a second ceasefire was called into effect on November 19.
context_section_description: The 17,000-strong MONUC peacekeeping force was regarded as failing to protect civilians and halt the progress of the rebels, who captured multiple U.N. field bases. MONUC's head, Alan Doss, stated that the U.N. troops were "certainly stretched... there's only so much we can do." The European Union was in the midst of talks related to sending reinforcements. Despite the presence of UN peacekeepers approximately 250,000 people were displaced by the conflict, bringing the total displaced person count to 2 million. The forces were also stated to be ineffective in keeping civilians safe from the rebel and government forces. This was hoped to be improved by deploying reinforcements consisting of 3,000 peacekeepers.
  The government's forces were criticized as well, with UN forces being stated to be protecting civilians from both rebels and Congolese troops. The soldiers were stated to be raping, looting, and were poorly fed, trained, paid and medicated; 11 soldiers were sentenced to life in prison for raping and looting while retreating from rebel forces. Another 12 faced court martial, with one allegedly having killed a family of 6 in Goma. They also were said to distrust armed forces commander, General Gabriel Amisi, due to his alliance with Nkunda during a 1998–2003 conflict.
  On December 7, UN officials claimed that the $7.1 billion budget (USD) for peacekeeping troops was insufficient even before planned reinforcements of MONUC could be fulfilled; even the troop and equipment requirements may not be met, as Western countries declined support, citing the conflict not as "strategically vital" as those in Iraq and Afghanistan. International Crisis Group vice-president Fabienne Hara stated that, "Contributions of U.N. members states will probably not grow at the very least, if not diminish... [some missions] may not be funded properly due to a crisis in terms of resources." An anonymous UN official claimed that the Security Council could "drop the ball, move on to another issue and we're the ones at fault. We've seen before that is a recipe for failure." Reuters reported that a senior Western Security Council diplomat claimed that, while criticism was not invalid, other countries with reserves of troops should aid failing peacekeeping missions. The official stated that "We're not the only ones who can do this. Where are the Russians, the Ukrainians? Where are the developing countries who want to have seats on the Security Council? Where is Brazil? It doesn't always have to be us." The lack of peacekeeping resources was cited as counterproductive by political analyst Max Bergmann of the National Security Network. "UN forces ... do fail, but this is often the result of either too few troops or too little money. Our reliance on the United Nations to address trouble spots and to prevent them from worsening has only increased. Shorting the U.N. on peacekeeping funding is therefore akin to shooting ourselves in the foot." European Union nations declined to intervene.
  The UN's foremost peacekeeping official, Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations Alan Le Roy, claimed that a "humanitarian tragedy" was unfolding in the Congo. Despite the organization's largest peacekeeping force being situated there, he claimed that "compared to the enormity of the tasks it is assigned and the vast expanse of the DRC – roughly the size of the United States east of the Mississippi and virtually without infrastructure – this number is actually rather small. Civilians have suffered from intense and often chaotic fighting, driven from their homes, caught in the crossfire and subjected to direct attacks and reprisals by armed groups and undisciplined elements of the national army. MONUC forces cannot serve as a substitute for the Congolese army to fight a war or impose peace; [the peacekeepers] are not an expeditionary or counterinsurgency force. With so much at stake, the international community simply cannot afford to let the Congo slide into the abyss, the time to act is, and indeed must be, now." Le Roy reaffirmed that more action should be t
caption: Refugees are vaccinated against measles and other infections.
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