The leader of the Congo River Alliance, Corneille Nangaa, has written to UN Secretary-General António Guterres to inform him that the AFC/M23 is placing the city of Uvira under United Nations responsibility. This means that the security of the city’s inhabitants is now in the hands of the UN.
Nangaa’s decision is yet another act of good faith aimed at finding a path to peace, one that simultaneously exposes the Kinshasa regime’s unwillingness to pursue it. More importantly, the AFC/M23 is giving the UN, and its mission MONUSCO, a final opportunity to stop being actively complicit in war crimes and genocidal violence and to finally become a genuine peacemaker.
This will not be easy. MONUSCO’s instinct has consistently been to perpetuate insecurity rather than end it, and the facts supporting this assessment are indisputable.
When the mission was first deployed, there were fewer than twenty armed groups operating in the country. Two decades later, there are more than two hundred. Its primary target at the time of deployment, the FDLR, has remained largely untouched, still organized as a military force and even coexisting and collaborating with the UN mission in some instances.
When war resumed in 2021 between Kinshasa and the M23, MONUSCO ignored the fact that the regime had recruited and integrated armed groups it was supposed to dismantle, including groups listed as terrorist organizations, and continued to support the Congolese army. The atrocities committed by the FARDC and its allies—including the burning of Tutsi villages, acts of cannibalism, mass rape, and massacres overwhelmingly targeting Congolese Tutsi—did not deter MONUSCO from continuing to provide logistical, training, and even operational support.
This support went so far as the declaration of Operation Springbok, aimed at preventing the AFC/M23 from liberating the city of Goma, where lynchings and the cannibalization of Tutsi civilians had become routine. Even today, despite numerous UN reports accusing the FARDC and its Wazalendo allies of war crimes, MONUSCO continues to train these forces in the use of drones. These drones have recently caused the deaths of a dozen civilians in strikes on a market in liberated Masisi territory.
None of this qualifies MONUSCO as a neutral force, let alone one genuinely committed to protecting civilians and advancing peace. Nangaa’s decision is therefore a risky bet. Still, with new leadership and the departure of the notorious Bintou Keita—who distinguished herself through unwavering support for a genocidal regime—there may be a chance for MONUSCO to redeem itself. If it fails, it will bear full responsibility for any civilians harmed under its watch.
Crucially, MONUSCO must understand that if negative forces overrun Uvira while it is responsible for the city, it will also bear responsibility for what will inevitably follow: renewed war until the total liberation of the country.
And this time, the UN will not be able to pretend it seeks peace after squandering this rare opportunity to impose it.