12 07 13 VOA: Medical Charity Criticizes UN’s Congo Mandate

 The charity, usually known by its
French acronym MSF, has published a letter criticizing the United Nations for
combining what it suggests are contradictory mandates – to aid and protect the
population but also to fight.

 

The letter suggests the
contradiction has become acute with a U.N. Security Council resolution in March
that gave a new U.N. intervention brigade the task of neutralizing armed groups
in the eastern DRC. 

 

Bertrand Perrochet is head of MSF’s
mission in Congo. 

 

He said it’s really important that
humanitarian workers are seen to be neutral and independent and the new
offensive mandate of the U.N. intervention brigade is creating confusion.  He
asked how can an organization, in this case the U.N., be at the same time
humanitarian and a combatant taking sides in the conflict? 

 

Perrochet says that’s why MSF is
reminding the U.N. that it’s important that all armed groups in Congo,
including the U.N. mission, known as MONUSCO, stay away from MSF health
structures so that they are not targeted.

 

For the same reason the letter also
criticizes MONUSCO policy of providing armed escorts for U.N. aid workers
traveling in insecure areas.

 

Perrochet told VOA other non-U.N.
aid workers are also sometimes “influenced” by MONUSCO and agree to travel with
armed escorts.

 

The letter prompted a strong
reaction Wednesday from MONUSCO spokesman Manodge Mounoubai, who rejects the
suggestion that the U.N. in Congo
has contradictory mandates.

 

Our mandate, said Mounoubai, is to
aid, protect and fight. I don’t know what MSF wants us to do, he continued.
 Fold our arms and allow armed groups to kill the population?  We
can’t tolerate that.

 

He also dismisses criticism of U.N.
aid workers having armed escorts. 

 

He says MSF is trying to dictate to
the UN how it should do its work.  MONUSCO, he says, cannot allow
colleagues from U.N. aid agencies, whether it’s the World Food Program or the
children’s agency UNICEF, to work in an environment where their lives are in
danger.  We have a responsibility to protect them, he added, and that’s
what we do.

 

The U.N. World Food Program, or
WFP, told VOA that its food convoys in Congo, which are run by private
contractors, are not normally accompanied by U.N. escorts, but that program
staff traveling in U.N. vehicles are.

 

Up to now, a spokesman said, WFP
convoys have not been attacked or pillaged by armed groups – although they are
sometimes stopped by them – nor have WFP staff accompanied by armed escorts
been attacked.

 

The World Food Program and the
World Health Organization, another U.N. aid agency, both declined to comment on
whether they think armed escorts for their staff are a necessity.