ABSTRACT
In February 2010, the London Guardian accused the UN peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) of signing a ‘pact with the devil’ (Smith, 2010). The supposedly Satanic figure involved was Bosco Ntaganda, a former militia commander being pursued for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. Ntaganda had, however, agreed to integrate his forces into the Congolese army and now held the rank of general. While the army was already notorious for its indiscipline and appalling human rights record, MONUC continued to give it support. While the mission’s leadership insisted that it did not have contact with Ntaganda, the Guardian warned that its cooperation with a military that included such a man was ‘another shameful chapter in UN peacekeeping that ranks alongside the impotent displays in Srebrenica and Rwanda.’ The Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) in the Congo, Alan Doss, penned a rebuttal. He argued that it was wrong to ‘assume that when peacekeepers are invited into a troubled country, all shortcomings and responsibilities for law and order default to the United Nations’ (Doss, 2010):
Governments remain responsible for their security forces, civilian protection and the integrity of borders, natural resources and public institutions. We assist the DRC in many of these areas, but we cannot impose our will on the government.
